How Are You Going To Do That?

Anyone who's been in the gun community for any length of time has come across this scenario.

Someone reads a news report or hears a story and the conversation abruptly turns into a "What Would You Do?" situation.

Good, conscientious gun-carriers do this all on their own. Asking themselves what they would do in any number of given situations is part of the mental training that goes along with carrying a gun in self defense.

Sometimes those questions lead to revelations about gaps in training. If the answer is, "I don't know," to any particular scenario situation, it becomes wise to seek out training to fill that gap.

But every now and then and sometimes far too often, there's a jump in track of the logic train.

A scenario will be presented and the answer becomes, "I would shoot."

It may be a very reasonable and justifiable answer but there is a whole lot missing--the how.

The other day I read a scenario of a woman being run off the road, pulled from her vehicle and beaten.

The levels of avoidance when coming to road-rage incidences being discussed, the scenario was whittled down to being run off the road, not being able to flee and the driver of the aggressor's car is coming after you.

The go-to answer was, "I'd shoot."

Legalities aside, I begged to ask the question, "How?"

You are sitting in your vehicle, presumably seat-belted in and you want to shoot someone who is walking towards your vehicle, (again, presumably) from a vehicle that is in front of you, cutting you off.

How, physically, are you going to accomplish this task?

Where is your gun? Is it accessible with your seat belt on or do you have to take it off? Once you get your seat belt off, how do you draw your gun? Do you shoot through the windshield or try to get out of the car or roll down your window? Do you know what a windshield will often do to handgun bullet trajectory? How many bullets are you willing to waste through a windshield before you switch to another tactic? Is there a better alternative to shooting in the first place or a better way to shoot out of a vehicle if you have to?

This isn't the first time I've talking about the "how" and it won't be the last.

I'm on a campaign of sorts to getting others to start thinking about the how as well.

When you approach scenarios don't start and stop with "what would I do?"

Start with "What would I do?" and finish with "How would I do it?"

Think it through and then practice it. Even if it's just a matter of walking through it with your hand as a finger gun. You might even be surprised that discussing the "how" might actually change what you would do in the first place.

Many times new carriers don't know what they don't know. Influenced by bad television, biases, misinformation and pure ignorance they may have no idea that there are so many variables in any given situation.

I stood in slack-jawed amazement the first time I watched what happened to handgun bullets being shot through a windshield. I really had no idea they could be deflected so much. It's something I didn't even know to consider when it came to the dynamics of shooting in and around cars. Now that I know it's something I must consider when it comes to vehicular incidences.

Scenarios are (and should be) a lot more than simply deciding whether or not to shoot. They should be an exercise in determining the steps you may or may not take given that scenario.

Next time you read or ask what others would do in a given scenario, add "And how would you do it?" in there.