The last blog post was an article reviewing a carjacking caught on video. This week we are going to talk about Plans and why they are so vital.
A plan is a precarious thing. Anyone with enough experience in high risk situations, whether that risk is physical, financial, interpersonal, etc, will tell you that things rarely go according to plan once the ball is in play. But these people will also tell you that failing to plan is a surefire way to lose.
The legal fight after the physical fight can cost you more than you are prepared to lose. And I don’t just mean financially.
When I first started carrying a gun back in 2007, I was extremely naïve about pretty much everything related to self defense. But what I was acutely aware of was that if someone decided to try to victimize me, the only person responsible for my protection was me. This is what started me on the path to developing the knowledge and skills to develop a self defense plan.
The gun is one part of that plan, but as a responsible human being, it’s certainly not the only part of the plan. Will the plan work to save my life if someone tries to attack me? There’s no way to guarantee that. But I have a much better chance the better developed my skills, knowledge and plans are.
But the fight is not over once the shooting stops. There are more fights coming. The legal fight after the physical fight can cost you more than you are prepared to lose. And I don’t just mean financially. I want to share a story that I was just made aware of recently.
Jay Rodney Lewis was a resident of Des Moines Iowa who held a concealed handgun permit. One night he was on his way home when he was attacked my two men. One of these men had over 40 criminal convictions in his past. Jay did nothing to provoke the attack. In fact Jay retreated several times from the confrontation while on the phone with 911. His repeated attempts to deescalate and retreat did not save him from the fight. Finally he was forced to shoot one attacker in self defense. Jay fired once, hitting and wounding one of his attackers in the chest. The fight was over, both attackers broke off the attack.
When the police arrived, Jay was arrested and subsequently charged with two misdemeanors and two felonies. The good news is that Jay fought back and he won a jury trial. The jury took only 90 minutes to acquit Jay of any wrong doing. The bad news is that Jay spent nearly 4 months in jail waiting for that outcome. Jay was evicted from his apartment, all of his possessions were tossed out on the curb and disappeared. He also lost his job. When Jay walked out of the courtroom a “Free” man, he was homeless and penniless.
I often hear people say, “Better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6”, meaning better to have to fight it out in a court room than to die in the fight because you were afraid to act. While I agree with the sentiment, usually people who say this have a very naïve understanding of what it means to be judged by 12. They don’t often count the cost of things like losing your job, the intense emotion tied to fighting for your freedom when you know you were the victim, the lost days, weeks, months or even years of your life spent battling charges and lawsuits, lost relationships, loss of reputation and more.
How do we prepare for this? Part of thinking defensively is having a plan for this aftermath. Hopefully I won’t be arrested, hopefully I won’t get charged, hopefully the prosecutor won’t see a winnable case. But hope is not a plan.
I carry a self defense legal plan through Firearms Legal Protection. They aren’t the only company that offers a self defense legal plan, but based on all of my years of study and experience, I do think that they are the best option among many. Is it a guarantee? There are no guarantees. But it’s a strong plan designed to handle a fight that I know is costly once it starts. As a responsible gun owner, I take that fight very seriously. I recommend that you do as well.
We don’t chose to be attacked. But we have a responsibility to be ready if we are. If you are interested in having a Legal Plan, check out what Firearms Legal Protection has to offer by clicking the button below. There’s no reason to wait until it’s too late.
