fallout mike
Member
Sgt r, again I agree with you. But in the op he is talking about putting one on every time he grabs his pistol when something goes bump in the night.
then it only costs me a few extra seconds to put on a plate carrier before I leave the relative safety of my bedroom.
If... you've got some amount of time to prepare a response.
Unless you don't own a vest. FWIW, I don't. And it isn't the first thing I'll buy to improve my home defense plan when finances allow me to take the next steps. But, I do recognize the possible value in many home defense settings.
JustinJ: The point is that the risk of being shot in one's home is too remote to justify buying one just to try and fumble it on in the middle of the night.
Quote:
JustinJ: The point is that the risk of being shot in one's home is too remote to justify buying one just to try and fumble it on in the middle of the night.
Let's try that another way (and mathematically at about the same level of probability):
"The point is that the risk of being shot in one's home is too remote to justify buying a gun just to try and fumble it to hand in the middle of the night."
You obviously feel that armor is too much. Having seen my share of people killed violently, I can assure you that when the time comes, too much ain't enough.
JustinJ,
You're still attempting to equate a situation where something may happen to a situation where something is happening.
When you go in your backyard to light off fireworks or have a campfire, do you bring water or a fire extinguisher? Do you bring one any time you go outside for any amount of time?
The two questions are obviously not the same. In one, you are bringing a fire extinguisher along for a limited amount of time because you are in a situation where the risk of needing it to put out a fire is heightened, so even though bringing the fire extinguisher is extra work, you deem it worth the effort in this one instance. You don't bring the fire extinguisher along every day you go outside because you don't want to carry it all the time when, even though there is still a possibility of encountering fire, the need is lessened.
When you are responding to a noise at night, you are in a situation where it's need is heightened as opposed to your normal day. You also do not have to have it on for nearly as long. This is a rather obvious difference between the two situations, and attempting to draw a comparison is a rather poor strawman argument.
To avoid confusion of terms:
If you are really that concerned about saving your life, a physical and a gym membership or some defensive driving classes would probably be a better investment for the money.
You are correct. From a statistical point of view, all of those things are much more likely to save your life in the long term.
Arguably, the very act of keeping a firearm for self defense could be considered paranoid as well.
Choices. We all make them.
Since I can get from my bedroom to hers in less time than it takes to don body armor (which isn't even that long), I'm willing to take that risk. How would I be able to live with myself if she was getting her throat slit open while I was taking the time to prepare? Odds are astronomically against any of that ever happening, but I, as would most any parent, would willingly trade my life for that of my kids if it came down to it.This is always on of those conundrums. Does rushing to your daughter's room put both of you at more risk because you are unarmored and hence the bad guy may put a bullet into you first and hence leave your daughter as easy pickings or do you don the armor on the way and preserve your ability to protect both of you?
The conundrum is common in emergency services. Do you rush in now with limited resources or wait until you have more resources to better accomplish the job?
I am certainly not picking on you, USAF Vet, but you have expressed a seeming common opinion about being very optimistic about the outcome when not using a vest.
I know a lot of folks who have limited experience with vests and are of the opinion that they take a long time to put on and they don't if you have them set up properly. I always left one waist/chest cinch strap open on my concealment vest such that it could be thrown over my head as fast as a t-shirt, cinchng the last strap en route, or not. I now have a front opening vest and it goes on about as quick as me putting on a 5.11 vest.
USAF_Vet: In any case, for someone to get inside a bedroom without tripping any other security systems is again, astronomically rare, so I tend to consider it a moot point. If the bump in the night is at my front door, i have time to throw on my armor, take account of where everyone is, and get prepared. If that bump in the night is in the hallway leading to the three bedrooms, things have gone catastrophically wrong and I'm grabbing my gun and leaving the body armor for the time being. It's a calculated risk. YMMV.
Sometimes God and the Devil argue over who reposses the soul, sometimes neither want it, I guess I belong to the latter.George how did you ever make it to this point?
As i mentioned earlier there are countless incidents in which people have succesfully utilized a firearm in the home for defense. The same can't be said of body armor.
Richard Davis, founder of Second Chance Body Armor, shoots an armor wearing associate with a 7.62 FAL Battle Rifle...way back in the early days.
And back when he used to shoot himself with magnum revolvers to demonstrate his vests, followed by his demonstrating that he could immediately move and return fire against bowling pins...the origin of bowling pin shoots: