RetiredUSNChief
Member
The point of this long-winded narrative is this: My friend carries a Kimber Solo with seven rounds, and a spare six round magazine, but he realized that if he had gotten cornered by these two strangers and had to defend himself, he would have been seriously outgunned if the other guys were each armed. He has decided to upgrade his firepower henceforth by carrying a Xdm 3.8 9mm with extra 19 round magazine in his vehicle.
Hmmm...
That's certainly a valid point. However, I believe that a far more important point to bring up is that your friend and his wife had adequate situational awareness of their surroundings, kept their cool, and took appropriate action to mitigate the possibility of having to resort to a potential deadly force scenario.
When considering effective self-defense of any kind, tactics is by far more important than equipment. This means if you take steps to improve your tactics, you'll have a far greater effect on your defensive posture than by improving your equipment.
And by "tactics", I mean your ability to use your brain to take in the situation and devise a variety of effective means to actively avoid or minimize the risk of a violent encounter, with deadly force being an option if this is not possible.
Now, none of this is to say that changing/upgrading equipment isn't necessary or that it's a bad thing. But the equipment is only a part of the whole picture.
Your friend did extremely well with his tactics...and he should be reminded of this and not lose sight of its importance.