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.