Is Your Life About to Become a Cormac McCarthy Novel? Do You Need a Gun? Read This First. Then Decide.

So… you just wanna know whether you should get a gun.

You’re worried about supply chains. You’re worried about elections. You’re worried about monster storms. You’re worried about a financial collapse. Frankly, you feel like you could handle most of what life throws at you nowadays. What scares you is how other people are going to react. That’s what you can’t predict. Are they gonna form a community with you? Are they gonna help you grow corn? Or will they just try to take your stuff and then… have you for dinner?

Well, I’m not here to talk you out of a gun.

I’m here to help you decide.

Is that actually going to happen?

Honestly, I’ve wrestled with the idea of gun ownership in a dystopian, post-apocalyptic hellscape. The internet is full of armchair preppers who insist you need a gun. Here’s an example, from a real Facebook post:

If you really believe that if a group of 7 strong unarmed men that decide to take turns with your wife and 11 year old daughter after beating you to a pulp, that you don't need a firearm, I don't know what to say.

Cormac McCarthy just smiled…

These armchair preppers describe all kinds of scenarios where a gun gives you an advantage over an attacker. They imagine someone barging into your house in the middle of the night. They imagine your car breaking down in a city overrun by roving bands of gangs. There’s one problem with all this:

They haven’t lived through any of it (yet).

What actually happens during a disaster? Time and again, studies show that violent crime actually drops. Neighborhoods and communities come together to help each other and share resources. If anything, introducing firearms into these scenarios interferes with that cooperative spirit.

Guns get in the way.

Let’s say everything falls apart

For the sake of argument, let’s say your life actually becomes a Cormac McCarthy novel, and everyone wants to kill you.

Okay, let’s run with that.

Statistically, a gun doesn’t give you any real advantage. A study by Harvard and Johns Hopkins looked at crime statistics across several decades. They found an important trend for your decision. When someone owned a gun, they only managed to successfully brandish it less than 1 percent of the time. In other words, they couldn’t even get to their gun. They couldn’t pull it out fast enough. Within that 1 percent, it only saved them about 4 percent of the time.

Training makes no statistical difference.

In fact, even trained police officers only hit their targets between 18 and 30 percent of the time. All told, you’re more likely to die in a car crash than you are to stop a bad guy with your gun. If you even want to stand a chance, you have to commit to hundreds of hours of training, not just at a gun range, but in high-intensity simulations that emulate urban warfare.

Only one kind of training improves your odds: Combat drills with other armed opponents shooting back at you.

In other words, paintball.

Even if they’re shooting at you…

The statistics really hit home when you talk about getting into an actual firefight with someone. Most armchair preppers would say you’re screwed if you don’t have a weapon to shoot back with. They’re wrong. Time and again, the data shows that bringing a gun to a gunfight gets you killed.

One study found that trying to retaliate against an attacker with your own gun results in a 4x increase in your odds of death. That’s right, you’re actually better off without a gun, even if gangs are shooting at you.

Why?

According to one study based on FBI data, gun owners feel a false sense of dominance. It actually makes them two times less likely to flee when they could. Because they stay and engage the attacker, instead of taking the opportunity to escape, they’re more likely to die.

So, the studies offer a pretty conclusive answer on the statistics front. You’re far better off evading, hiding, and fleeing assailants with guns. Owning a gun can trick you into fighting someone when you should just run away.

It’s not very flattering for your ego.

But it works.

There’s something better than a gun

You know what works better than a gun in real world situations?

Pepper spray.

It sounds counterintuitive, but it’s real. Study after study has found that pepper spray offers a massive edge over firearms, stopping unarmed attackers between 60 and 90 percent of the time. That’s compared to a fraction of one percent for anyone who carries a gun without considerable training.

With pepper spray, you don’t need a precise aim. You don’t hesitate. You still completely incapacitate your attacker. They remain essentially blind and immobile for 20-45 minutes, long enough to escape. Pepper spray doesn’t rewire your brain or give you a false sense of dominance. It doesn’t trick your brain into staying. You spray them. You run. That’s how you survive.

There’s an exception here, sure, and that’s anyone with considerable training or background in law enforcement or military deployment.

If you’re willing to become the punisher, then a gun will probably help you during a catastrophic social meltdown.

You’ll be a hero to us all…

Otherwise, it’s useless.

Ask someone who has used a gun

Statistics tell you part of the story, not the whole thing.

If you’re trying to decide if you need a gun, don’t talk to gun jockeys who’ve never actually used a firearm on someone. They’re not going to give you an informed perspective on the issue. Instead, talk to actual law enforcement officers who’ve shot someone. Talk to veterans who’ve seen combat. Talk to homeowners who’ve actually deterred a real threat with a weapon.

That’s what I did.

Here’s what they’ve told me: Buying a gun isn’t the end of a journey. It’s the beginning of one. You’re not just adding protection to your home. You’re also adding threats. You’re taking on an entirely new set of risks and responsibilities. You’ll have to train with it. You’ll have to clean and maintain it. You’ll have to store it somewhere that you can get to it during an emergency, but not somewhere kids will play with it. Your gun becomes a part of you. It’s an entirely different mindset. Part of your brain will always have to think about the gun. That’s the truth.

It’s not unlike owning a very dangerous dog.

Are you ready to take that on?

Then get a gun.

Why do Americans really buy guns?

About 40 percent of American households own a gun. About 30 percent of individuals own one. Collectively, Americans own 46 percent of the world’s civilian firearms. We’re massively out of step with humanity.

What’s up with that?

Psychologists at the University of Wisconsin explain it best. Americans don’t buy guns for logical, rational reasons. In fact, they often completely ignore statistics about the dangers of gun ownership over the advantages. Instead, they buy guns for psychological protection. They feel safer.

From the psychologists:

Owners are using a gun to protect their psychological selves. Owning a gun helps them feel more in control of the world around them and more able to live meaningful, purposeful lives that connect to the people and communities they care for. This sort of protection may be especially appealing to those who think that the normal institutions of society – such as the police or the government – are either unable or unwilling to keep them safe. They feel they need to take protection into their own hands.

If you’re worried about social collapse, you fall right into this category of folks who don’t trust our institutions to keep us safe anymore.

I’m right there with you.

Unfortunately, studies reveal how this attempt to reassert control by getting a gun backfires for a lot of civilians. Instead of feeling safer, gun owners often wind up putting themselves into a “doom loop” of hypervigilance and chronic stress. While the idea of owning a gun makes them feel safer, actually having a gun around stresses them out. Even when they’re just watching television, they feel like the world around them is more dangerous and more chaotic than it actually is. That’s how gun ownership rewires your brain.

Another study by psychologists at Dartmouth found that new gun owners often make their decision from a place of fear, not logic. It’s the same fear that drives panic buying. In fact, the pandemic saw one of the biggest surges of gun sales in history. Americans were snatching up guns and toilet paper left and right, when the biggest threat was a virus you can’t shoot. On that note, a Rutgers study even found that those who avoided or refused actual health precautions were more likely to buy guns. You know what that tells me? It tells me that some of the fiercest gun advocates actually have a poor mental calculus for determining threats.

When you decide to get a gun, you should do it from a calm, rational place. If you’re actively freaking out over scenarios where society breaks down and everyone starts shooting each other over the last bagel at Panera, or taking turns with your wife and daughter, per our creative Facebook prepper, you probably aren’t thinking rationally at the moment. What you need isn’t a gun.

You need a nap.

Listen to Keanu Reeves for a minute

Everyone loves Keanu Reeves. The internet is full of articles telling us to be quieter and more thoughtful, like him. I don’t disagree.

Armchair preppers frequently evoke John Wick as some kind of post-apocalyptic hero. It’s interesting, because Keanu Reeves himself…

Doesn’t own a gun.

Not.
One.
Gun.

And yet, he undergoes extensive firearms training for his roles. It’s what makes the John Wick franchise so fun to watch. (I love them.)

I think it’s worth noting that a star who became legendary for his dedication to accurate firearms use in his films makes a very clear, intentional decision not to own one in his personal life.

This doesn’t mean he’s automatically right. But it gives you something to think about. It certainly does mean that all the internet preppers who frequently factor John Wick into their logic are…

Full of it.

Take an honest look at your own mental health

I’m going to be vulnerable with ya’ll for a minute.

I’m not exactly a poster child for emotional stability. I’m a survivor of extreme childhood abuse with complex PTSD and anger issues. I’ve been starving the angry dog in my soul my entire life. Why would I suddenly start feeding it, just because some armchair prepper put fears inside my head? When I examine the statistics against my background, it’s an easy decision.

No guns for me.

Examine your own mental health. Be honest with yourself. That’s probably the hardest thing to do. Especially here in America, we’re conditioned to pretend we’re all perfectly happy and well-adjusted individuals. We’re not a country that takes mental health seriously. We never have been. We’re a country that compensates for our deep insecurities with firearms. That’s us.

I’m willing to bet most of us aren’t feeling especially stable or adjusted these days. I think we have a lot going on underneath the surface, including loads of unprocessed trauma from the last several years.

Take it from me. There’s a big difference between passing a background check, convincing everyone around you that you’re mentally healthy, and actually being mentally healthy enough to own a gun.

Give yourself a hard look.

Then decide.

Confront your fears

Before you get a gun, you must confront your fears, whether they’re driven by nightmares about famines or bad guys breaking into your house in the middle of the night. If you’re worried about any of that, like many of us are, take real steps to mitigate that risk without a gun first.

I’ve already written about that.

Understand that part of you probably wants a gun simply out of a psychological need to take control of your life and regain your sense of agency in a world that’s coming apart. You think it’ll make you feel better. Well, maybe. Or it might only increase your sense of fear and anxiety. There’s one last study on that front. Researchers at the University of Notre Dame found that carrying a gun directly alters your brain’s visual perception. Gun owners are significantly more likely to mistake harmless, everyday objects like phones or wallets as weapons. They’re also significantly more likely to view the world around them as dangerous.

If you’re already sensitive to threats, if you’re already planning for famines and other disasters, do you really need an object in your life that’s only going to make you feel those threats more acutely?

I sure don’t.

But I said I wasn’t going to try and talk you out of guns. I said I was going to help you decide. After all, we’re heading into a future where the old rules and studies don’t apply quite the same way. Maybe it’s time for us all to become soldiers. Maybe we need to get more comfortable with the risks and responsibilities of gun ownership. Then again, the evidence points in the other direction.

Do I know if a gun is right for you personally? No. I just know what the evidence says. Now, so do you. What I do know is that you probably want to make a decision sooner rather than later. If you’re going to get one, now is the time. Now is the time to adjust your mindset, to commit, to engage in meaningful training, to become a truly responsible gun owner. You’re not going to get a gun and stick it in your glovebox. You’re not going to slip it in a vest and walk around all braggadocious about it. That’s not going to help you. That’s going to make things worse.

For many of us, gun ownership doesn’t offer a path to confronting our fears about famines or diesel shortages and doing anything productive about them. It offers a path to more fear, more sleepless nights, and more guns.

Well, now we understand why some preppers wind up with an arsenal that would make John Wick blush.

Does part of you want a gun? Do you already have one?

Did this help you decide?

Feel free to share.

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