Regarding the “memorizing details,” I found the original confusing and did not think that the question of which details exactly to memorize would make this option attractive—indeed, the trouble of deciding which details to focus on I would expect to make the choice even less attractive. However, since my version confuses you, it does not seem to be any better than the original. More comments from others about how confusing they find the change to be would help decide this better.
I can see your point, however I must say that 'be a good witness' is something of a catchphrase, and is exactly the wording used in various police literature handed out in neighborhood watch or blockparty meetings, and often after a shooting 'while we are not charging yadda yadda cannot recommend this course of action, instead call the police and be a good witness etc etc' I at least see that phrase 'be a good witness' a lot
Regarding “my own health,” I was trying to keep the comparison direct between the two options. Otherwise, it seems to the reader that two different things are being compared (safety and health are, as your association with the word “health” demonstrates, two different topics). I thought “safety of my attacker” would just confuse the reader, since safety is typically a defensive term. What if we changed it to “well being”?
I did recongize the attempt to balance the phrasing, not jsut with questions but in general writing, a balanced 'Ill take the high road, you take the low road' vs 'I'll take the high road, you take the path around back' is prefered.
However, here health as it applies to the survey taker isn't the best choice.
Regarding “life-threatening conflict,” Oleg’s original question concerned itself only with the reader having to make a choice in self-defense. A question about defending others would be a good addition to the survey.
A few things. Whenever the term 'Self Defense' is used, either in casual usage here or when dealing with police, etc, it is never restricted to just yourself, it is allowed to apply to your family and those people in your care. Do a google search of self defense cases in a newspaper, you will see the term applied by the police being interviewed quite frequently when the shooter isn't the one being attacked at that very moment, but antoher family member is. The second part is self defense vs what? Insult to your good name? Robbery? The legal standard set up for self defense is imminant serious harm to you or another, so when I read a lot of these questions, I make the assumption that the 'assault' is physical and not verbal, and the nature of the threat is serious injury or even death. But I don't think I am coming to the survey with any special knowledge. Even those people carrying pepper spray know they cannot use it if a person verbally assaults them, or has some sort of minor conflit, such as throwing a half eaten sandwich at them.
About the terms “ineffective” and “effective weapon,” I thought they unfairly forced a reader into a choice. The answers are loaded to make the choice for the reader.
To a degree, it is 'loaded' to make the choice for the reader, but that's because there isn't really a choice, once you think about it. You can call it 'asking a loaded question' or you can call it 'scraping away the superficial distracting details and getting to the heart of the issue'
The heart of the issue is, once you have made the choice to defend yourself from serious harm or even death, what kind of tool do you want? A) possibly effective B)somewhat effective C)moderately effective D)highly effective
It is loaded simply because there is no other choice but D. It is the opinion of many people in the firearms for self defense community that people who are opposed to indivdual firearms ownership are either coming from a different moral standpoint (true paccifism...in which they would have answered questions previous to this one much differently...such as not attemtping self defense at all, let alone what tool to use) or have not given the issue true thought, are in denial about what really goes on between when a crime starts and when the police actually arrive. I've had discussions with people in this vein, where they say 'okay, sure, you need a gun for self defense, but isn't any old revolver, 6 bullets and all, enough? what do you need a 15 shot magazine for?' And then you hit them with 'if you and your family were in serious danger, life threatening danger, from an attacker, would you rather ahve 1 shot, 6 shots, or 15 shots. They either reply 'but that woudl never happen' or 'okay, 15 shots'
If this was simply a debate about the true effectiveness of firearms as opposed to other less lethal tools for self defense, there would be no debate, the facts are in and they are clear. No tool is 100% effective, but a proper firearm is extremely effective, while all other 'less lethal' defense tools are at best moderately effective....and often these moderately effective ones are equally heavily regulated. (and what's worse, weapons that are only possibly effective, such as pepper spray, or a personal noise making alarm, have their actual utility unknown to the consumer)
I thought the addition of “irritant” would create enough of a juxtaposition with “life-threatening” would subtly encourage the reader to choose the more effective firearm. I understand you point about the firearm option limiting the choices of effective defense, however. How do you feel about the compromise: “A disabling weapon, such as a firearm”? I find flaws with that because (1) a reader may classify pepper spray as amply disabling, and (2) the disabling effects of a firearm depend entirely on the user. Do you have a better alternative that doesn’t answer the question for the reader?
I think if you had a questionarre where you said 'name a disabling weapon' people would think of pepper spray and stun guns and tazers before they thought of firearms, so I definately agree with your flaw 1. As far as flaw 2, that can apply to any tool suggested by the survey, they all require the user to be familiar with it and proficient in it's usage. That pepper spay will do no good if you cannot figure out how to disengage the nozzleblock (hey you don't want it going off in your purse or when you grab your keys out of your pocket) or have improperly loaded the powersource in your stun gun.
You many consider thsi question loaded. I don't. I consider it stripping away the superfical garbage to reveal the only answer.
The only way I can see around this would be to have the question not include examples of weapons, and include a link to more information about the true effectiveness or lack, of self defense tools. But as I said, when I encounter people who disagree with gun ownership, the argument always is that while peper spray etc are not as good as a gun, they are 'good enough'
I struggled on that one to give the reader a specific choice rather than a vague estimation of effectiveness and what is the implied desired effect. What do you think of the following?
If I choose to defend myself with a firearm, I would prefer that
---it have technical restrictions set by government rules.
---I can use what I determine to be the most effective firearm.
This is enough of a departure from the original that I wasn't sure if you were doing the question about 'magazine capacity' as well.
The problem I see with your question is that most firearms DO have techincal restrictions set by the government, such as stamping the gun with pertinant saftey warnings, clearly marking what ammunition the gun is designed to fire, restrictions on how much pressure that ammunition can build up inside the gun before special terms such as +P or even a new ammo name must be applied (don't want the gun to blow up from too powerful ammo) Restrictions such as lenght (18" barrels or longer on shotguns) etc.
also, once you introduce techincal specifications determined by the government, you also have people who have terribly different ideas of what the driving motivation for the government will be. Are these sepecifications designed to give the user the best possible self defense firearm, or are they designed to generate tax revenue, or are they designed for logistical ease of implimentation. Is the government going to look at the firearms for civilian use in the same light as they do when issuing a firearm to the military? Are they going to try and balance the effectiveness of self defense use vs what happens when a criminal has one (15 shot mag vs 10 shot mag)
This whole 'technical restrictions set by the government' is opening up way to big of a can of worms and leaving much more up to interpretation than what would work in such a survey.
I'd rather go back to your first choice of using more or less physical damage.
Still, as I noted before, there is an attitude of 'why can't you use this? it isn't as good, but it is good enough'. That is what the question is dealing with. Many times we discuss just this issue on the forum. A recent example was a person who only had access to a cowboy style single action 45 revolver and a double barreled shotgun...was that 'good enough'. It's a choice we all face as we decide how much money to pay for something that is better. Most of us replied that while we wouldn't recommend a single action 45 revolver if one were to walk into a gunstore today shopping for self defense, it is still and effective tool, probably 'good enough'...until you can afford to purchase something better.
However, the heart of the issue is the same as before when all tool types were considered....pepper spay, fists, guns, whatever. Do you want 'best' or 'good enough' The same rule applies to the subfield of guns, do you want 'best' or 'good enough'
and again, I stand by my original choice "More or Less effective" however that is measured, is the key to what is being discussed. That is probably a better choice than Oleg's Most vs Least. Still, that's the heart of the issue, how effective is the gun you have? Who gets to choose how effective of a gun you can have? Is the chance that a criminal may somehow get ahold of it enough reason to reduce the effectiveness of the gun you are allowed to have?
