BrokenPaw
Member
My lady-wife BrokenMa and I have become pretty close friends with a couple of young ladies who run a small shop near our home. They were having a few issues with the way some of their friends were treating their shop, and wanted to know if we had any ideas or advice for how to resolve the issue without offending people. So we had them over for dinner yesterday evening, and we talked for several hours.
During the conversation, one of them mentioned that a creepy sort of fellow has been hanging around the shop on occasion, and that the woman in the shop next door said that he hangs around there even when their shop isn't open, staring at it and occasionally trying the door.
Also, each of them has been in the shop alone on occasion when groups of men have come in. Nothing untoward has happened, but they've both realized that they were vulnerable in those situations, and if the groups of men had happened to be bad news, there's not a lot they could have done in self defense.
Their shop is off the main road, and frequently one of them is there alone. Especially now that it's getting dark earlier (while they're still open) they've realized that they are at risk both from simple robbery and (since they're both quite attractive) from worse things, as well.
So (watch BrokenPaw wear his 'subtle' hat) not wanting to come on too strong, I told them that at the absolute very least each of them needed to carry a can of pepper spray on their person when they were in the shop. I pointed out that merely having one behind the counter was great, until they happened to not be behind the counter some time when trouble started.
They both responded immediately and positively to the idea of pepper spray, so I decided to push just a little to see how they'd react[0]. I mentioned that I would even tend toward something more potent. One of them piped up and mentioned that the woman in the shop next door keeps a shotgun behind the counter. And both of them seemed fine with it.
Well. That changes things. I told them that learning to shoot was probably a very good thing for them, and that I would be willing to teach them. They asked whether I could teach them to "shoot to injure, not kill." I told them that the point of self-defense shooting was not specifically to kill, but to stop the threat, and that the only effective way to do that was to shoot for the center of mass. I explained how stress affects accuracy, and that COM was the only target of sufficient size to aim for in a stress-fire situation. They both accepted that, and they've expressed interest in going to the range to learn with BrokenMa and me sometime soon.
I've got a .22 WMR bolt-gun to start them out on, and a friend of mine has a Walther P22 that I'm fairly sure he'd lend to the cause, so we can start them out small and let them grow into it.
Once they're comfortable shooting, I'm going to see about talking them into getting their Virginia CCH, because they're legal to carry in their shop, but not on the way to their cars or in their cars on the way to and from.
Further bulletins as events warrant.
-BP
[0] The shop sells herbs and candles and in general caters to the Pagan community. BrokenMa and I are two of (it seems) very few pro-gun Pagans out there, because many Pagans take pacifism to an absurd extreme. I'm not one to initiate violence, but if someone else starts it against me and mine, by golly I'm going to finish it.
During the conversation, one of them mentioned that a creepy sort of fellow has been hanging around the shop on occasion, and that the woman in the shop next door said that he hangs around there even when their shop isn't open, staring at it and occasionally trying the door.
Also, each of them has been in the shop alone on occasion when groups of men have come in. Nothing untoward has happened, but they've both realized that they were vulnerable in those situations, and if the groups of men had happened to be bad news, there's not a lot they could have done in self defense.
Their shop is off the main road, and frequently one of them is there alone. Especially now that it's getting dark earlier (while they're still open) they've realized that they are at risk both from simple robbery and (since they're both quite attractive) from worse things, as well.
So (watch BrokenPaw wear his 'subtle' hat) not wanting to come on too strong, I told them that at the absolute very least each of them needed to carry a can of pepper spray on their person when they were in the shop. I pointed out that merely having one behind the counter was great, until they happened to not be behind the counter some time when trouble started.
They both responded immediately and positively to the idea of pepper spray, so I decided to push just a little to see how they'd react[0]. I mentioned that I would even tend toward something more potent. One of them piped up and mentioned that the woman in the shop next door keeps a shotgun behind the counter. And both of them seemed fine with it.
Well. That changes things. I told them that learning to shoot was probably a very good thing for them, and that I would be willing to teach them. They asked whether I could teach them to "shoot to injure, not kill." I told them that the point of self-defense shooting was not specifically to kill, but to stop the threat, and that the only effective way to do that was to shoot for the center of mass. I explained how stress affects accuracy, and that COM was the only target of sufficient size to aim for in a stress-fire situation. They both accepted that, and they've expressed interest in going to the range to learn with BrokenMa and me sometime soon.
I've got a .22 WMR bolt-gun to start them out on, and a friend of mine has a Walther P22 that I'm fairly sure he'd lend to the cause, so we can start them out small and let them grow into it.
Once they're comfortable shooting, I'm going to see about talking them into getting their Virginia CCH, because they're legal to carry in their shop, but not on the way to their cars or in their cars on the way to and from.
Further bulletins as events warrant.
-BP
[0] The shop sells herbs and candles and in general caters to the Pagan community. BrokenMa and I are two of (it seems) very few pro-gun Pagans out there, because many Pagans take pacifism to an absurd extreme. I'm not one to initiate violence, but if someone else starts it against me and mine, by golly I'm going to finish it.
