“I know this, too: if I had stayed in that neighborhood any longer, I would have bought a gun and learned how to use it. It’s getting worse and worse. But I’d never be as good at using a weapon as the people I’d likely encounter.”
You state that as a fact, but it is not. A sober and competent first time gun owner who reads a book or takes a class on safe gun handling and engages in modest amounts for practice from time to time will be much more skilled than even the above average punk. Competent marksmanship involves patience and self dicipline. Those are precisely the character traits that punks fail to display when they drop out of tenth grade to use dope. You ever see those pictures of gang bangers holding pistons sideways to shot? It might look cool to them, but you simply cannot aim that way. The punks have no advantage in gun skills over armed citizens. Their main advantage is that before the incident occurs they know they are planning to commit a felony and you don’t.
