…our priorities should always be:

1. Avoid,
2. Escape,
3. Confront,
4. Resist

When we jump to Confront and Resist before we absolutely need to, we’re being emotionally hijacked by the situation, our pasts, our current influences, and our egos. Allowing an emotional hijacking is no more a recipe for success than going along with any other kidnapping attempt. There’s always going to be a very high cost.

Internet common-taters take note; it’s not you who will pay the cost, so STFU.

Claude Werner once again nails it. There’s a cost involved in killing someone – and it goes far deeper than you may have ever considered.

The cost is not only borne by the individual who does the shooting but also by their family. At some point their children are going to go to school and one of their classmates is going to taunt them with ‘my daddy says your daddy is a murderer!’ No matter how justifiable the shooting may be, someone in the community who feels that self-defense is an unacceptable concept will express their feelings to their children and the children will pass it on to your children.

Yup.

There are legal costs. There are financial costs. But there are also personal, emotional, psychological, reputation, jobs, social, relationships… there are many costs.

Going to guns should be the last resort. We should do all we can to avoid, deter, deescalate, escape. When you truly consider the costs, those are all far cheaper options.