DETROIT: Large increase in women getting Concealed Pistol License.

[TPaine7]

78. Now I not only understand, I actually respect your personal reasoning.

As I read it, the probability of your needing to defend yourself does not justify the risk to you on a personal, ethical (I am tempted to say spiritual) level. Not that you are a pacifist, but that the situations that would justify potentially deadly force are so remote in your calculus that they are outweighed by the potential for harm.

I too hope for a world where more people will land where you are of their own free will when they consider the low crime rates, the social justice and the harmony that surround them.

It seems to me, when reading your posts, that you are unusually gifted at de-escalation, avoidance and persuading people to leave you alone. It is a common mistake of gifted people to assume that they are less gifted than they are--that others can do what they do, or could if they really tried. You may overestimate others' abilities.

I also have a question. Are you good at persuading others to leave people you don't know alone? Do you think you could persuade someone to stop attacking a stranger?

There are people who would be haunted because they didn't threaten (or if necessary, use) deadly force. There are people, who if they saw, for example, a child being harmed by a person they had no chance of stopping through physical force, would kick themselves for leaving the gun at home. I know these are rare and extreme cases, but I should hope that the elderly janitor who walked in on a boy being raped by a coach would have been prepared to shoot if necessary to stop that atrocity.

Both witnessing a crime that justifies potentially deadly force and misusing a gun to cause an unjustified death are extremely rare; we have to decide individually which one is more likely for us, and the relative benefits and risks of carrying.