I’m less self-assured while carrying a gun than some people I know are when they imagine they’ll use their keys to defeat multiple attackers.
Why is this?
It's the Dunning-Kruger Effect, where the less competent someone is in a specific domain, the more they overestimate their abilities in that domain.
With some topics, it's just embarrassing (or should be), but in the domain of self-defense, it could be deadly. But there's no way to suggest this to the people I'm talking about-- they WILL NOT listen. Their self-assurance knows no limits.
I understand that having the proper tools is no guarantee.
That intentionally not having proper tools because you feel overconfident is handicapping yourself.
Some people do this because they don't like guns and don't want to admit they might need one.
Others, because they imagine themselves to be ninjas with superhuman abilities who would never need something as crude as a gun to defend themselves from mere human thugs. Too many Marvel movies, perhaps.
It frustrates and worries me.
Even defense with a gun requires training.
To defend yourself with a less effective tool requires much more training. Intensive training.
The most confident people I’ve met “don’t need a gun”, and yet have no idea how to defend themselves with any tool. They think they know what to do from movies and television, or the fantasies created in their own minds. Bad guys will obviously back down in the face of their determination.
I wish there were a cure other than harsh reality.
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Link to Voluntaryist- the comic series, from whence comes the illustration at the top of the post.
