Most of the training in the firearms world focuses on the skill sets of shooting. Trigger manipulation, accurate aiming, making sure that your groupings aren’t pulling low and left, for example. And those are all important aspects to shooting that you need to address in your training and practice (Well, maybe not the last one. Maybe your grouping are low and right.).
But a vital part of any kind of training to take actions which can have the end result of taking the life of a person absolutely must have you thinking about your morals and ethics and motivations for pulling the trigger. And, considering those morals and ethics, if you even can pull that trigger.
You have to have that settled in your mind beforehand. Why? Because if you don’t, in the heat of the moment, when fractions of a second are all that you have to take action to save a life, you’ll be caught taking the time to decide what you can do in that situation (as in what actions that you can get yourself to take, based on your morals and ethics). You don’t have that time.
But, also, you have to decide that beforehand because you have to live with the consequences of your actions or lack of actions. So, to avoid more emotional agony than you’ll already go through from going through a traumatic experience (and make no mistake, being held up or a gun battle are both traumatic experiences), you need to know that you can live with your actions in the aftermath of that horrible situation.
Which brings us to John Correia discussing if being a Christian is compatible with being able to use violence to protect yourself and others. This is worth watching, even if you aren’t a Christian, as there are things that you need to think about before you find yourself in a potential shooting situation. You can watch the video below.
Now, again, whether you are a Christian or not, I would hope that you value human life, and that’s really what Correia is talking about.
You have to decide when it’s okay for you to pull that trigger against another human being and when it’s not.
And you need to do that now, before you find yourself in one of those situations and make a choice that you’ll regret afterwards.
