My friend Ralph Mroz wrote the following in his book Defensive Shooting for Real-Life Encounters.
I hated guns (no, I’m not joking). In my mind they were for fat, lazy rednecks without the ambition or self-discipline to sweat in the dojo! Then one day, about 10 years into the [martial] arts, I had an honest conversation with myself:
“OK, you’ve got 10 years of training. You get into a fight with someone without much training or experience. What are your odds?”
“Good.”
“Right. Now this guy has training and/or experience. What’re your odds now?”
“50/50?”
“Close enough. Now there’s two guys, both without training, but mean. Odds?”
“I dunno, probably less than 50/50, in all honesty.”
“Right. Now two guys with training.”
“My odds suck.”
“One guy with a knife?”
“Oh shit!”
The conversation went on for a few more steps, but you get the idea.
The next week I was looking for a pistol…
The entire book is available for download https://thestreetstandards.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/defensive-shooting-for-real-life-encounters-text-bw1.pdf on his blog The Street Standards.
It works both ways, though. People who think that owning a gun without having any degree of physical skills are not setting themselves up for success, either.
Ralph Mroz (not “Raph”! 🙂 ) does great work.
–Andrew
Hahaha, thanks for the catch. Fixed
Thanks, Claude.
Didn’t know you had such a close call! Hope you are all better, or close enough. Can’t afford to lose you.