The following comes from Karl Rehn of KR Training.

I’ve talked with dozens of people who have firsthand experience in lethal force incidents: armed citizens, cops and military personnel, including several who were in multiple incidents.

One of the best comments on the subject came from one of them, who said that it was “like being in a car wreck.  Fast, loud, scary. When it’s over you are glad to survive it, but it’s not something you are in a hurry to experience again.”

Several of the people I’ve spoken with were involved in publicly debated incidents, and they suffered the additional stress and loss associated with getting fired and/or becoming publicly known/vilified as a result of the incident.

No one that is armed wants to imagine any outcome other than victory and exoneration, and sometimes that lack of concern over the consequences of a bad outcome leads to bad decisions….

The decision should be made based on what the worst case outcome is, not the best case.  For example, “if I do nothing, I will die.  If I do something, I still might die but my odds of dying are less than if I do nothing.”

Not “if I do nothing, I lose a TV, but if I act, I’ll have to use up all my vacation time from work going to meetings with lawyers and the grand jury, and spend my vacation money paying a lawyer, and have people on local talk radio Monday-morning quarterback my actions, and have everyone I know (neighbors, co-workers, family) forever treat me differently, and spend the rest of my life getting awkward questions about it.”  Every single person I’ve talked to that’s been in a shooting has had one or more of those post-shooting issues, even if they had no (or will admit to having no) PTSD after the incident.  You can’t wave your hand and say those things don’t matter and all that matters is what the Penal Code says.