You never met my Zen Do Ki instructor, i see. Not matter how I approached him, the gun was his before I had a chance to react. Even knowing what was about to happen, I never once was able to prevent it. Even my finger on the trigger never made a dambitofdifference!
Decided after those lessons that guns were lots better for simply shooting someone from a decent distance, than they are for close in threats! A couple feet away, they are a serious threat, touching my body anywhere, chances are the gun will be mine.
There are some very efficient techniques that can be used to disarm an asailant with a weapon at close range - but they require instruction, practice and confidence as they have to be executed with extreme speed, surprise and precision. Personally, I am not at that level of confidence so it is very much a last ditch option to blunt an attack that is going to happen and where I have nothing to lose. But the point is that at close range, my focus is going to be on controlling and redirecting his weapon in a safe direction while I do enough damage to him to allow me to take his weapon away. In that situation my weapon would stay put as I just won't have the time to get it out.
You are 100% correct regarding the enagement ranges. If you are going to be attacked, for most people to effectively draw the gun from concealed carry, they are going to need a minimum of about 30 ft of distance and or some delay or warning of the assault.
LEO's even with open carry and facing the attacker will, 90% of the time, not be able to draw their weapon in time to stop a knife wielding opponent starting from 20' away. And most body armor is not rated against knife attacks, so they are at grave risk. For someone in concealed carry, you'll need even more time and in deep conceealed carry you are a non-starter in the race so don't even try it.
Tactically, with the lead time and distances required the problem is first identifying an assailant as a threat at 30 plus feet and then second, proving it after you shot him. He better really have been armed and you better have witnesses who saw him charging at you and really presenting a threat of death or serious bodily harm. Remember that even LEO's get this wrong in about 20% of the shoots that occur.
That limits the range of realistic self defense to home defense situations or situations outside the home where the intent of the assailant may be something other than to immediately kill anyone, building in the neccesary delay or opportunity to draw a pistol from concealed carry. This is going to shake out along the lines of 1) being in the convenience store when it is robbed, 2) perhaps being mugged and then having the assailant decide to escalate to violence, sexual assault, etc, or 3) perhaps being a bystander who witnesses such an event become life threatening. In the first scenario, you would essentially wait and assess the threat, use available cover and concelament etc, but probbaly not act unless it appeared the assailants were going to do serious harm to someone. Similarly, in the mugging, let them have the wallet and reserve any use of deadly force until there is an actual threat of physical harm that warrants it. In the last scenario, be sure you know the laws in your state surrounding use of deadly force in the defense of others.
What it offers you are a few more options in the abscence of police officers who are minutes away at best, but it is not a cure all and it requires sound judgement both at the time and preferrably before the situation arises so that you avoid being in the wrong place at the wrong time in the first place. The ideal way to use a concelaed handgun is to act prudently so you never have to use it.
If someone thinks they are going to go around with a concealed handgun and be invincible from all threats or will be exhonorated in shooting an unarmed or underarmed mugger, they are going to either be sadly mistaken and possibly dead or in some states get to become good freinds with a cell mate. The use of sound judgment is paramount and qualifying for a CCW permit does not always mean the person has the judgment use it effectively.
That is the basis of many people's objection to them, and idiots who walk around with Rambo, Dirty Harry or "break into my house and find out" attitudes tend to piss me off as they risk MY ability to have a CCW as they're stupidity potentially infringes on my right to responsible self defense.
