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Violent Crime and Mental Illness

Alex Berenson recently had a substack about a large study showing heavy marijuana usage leads to schizophrenia even when genetic factors were eliminated. Furthermore, this diagnosis significantly impacted young men, at over double the rate of non-marijuana users. One rather disturbing tendency in the substack was that Berenson pointed to schizophrenia as being a leading factor in the increase of violent crime. However, the reality is much less clear.


While I think Berenson’s position can be attacked substantially (full disclosure: I do not do drugs, and after seeing firsthand the devastating effects of cigarette smoking on my family, I strongly recommend only putting clean air in your lungs), it does bring up a good point: If I wanted to track mental illness and violent crime, how would I do it?


In my book, I cited a reputable source on the link between mental illness, suicide, and mass murder. Since deaths are investigated thoroughly in the US, these links can be researched. However, we are still looking at a small percentage of violent crime (around 1.3 percent from 2015 to 2019). So the questions are: are there any violent crime statistics that can shed light on non-homicide violent crime and mental illness? What data would need to be gathered? Can this data be collected reliably? Is this data available to law enforcement, and could it be included in the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR)?


The violent crime aggravated assault seems like an excellent category to begin this analysis. It is the most common violent crime by far. In addition, aggravated assault is a weapon-based crime (unless the victim is severely injured without a weapon) and would have the most similarities to murder/non-negligent homicide. Although a promising category, I don’t think the offender’s mental illness data can be gathered reliably. Here are some important considerations regarding mental illness and the offender’s condition:

  1. Undiagnosed mental illness.
  2. Diagnosed mental illness and medication not taken or medication schedule not followed.
  3. Diagnosed mental illness with worse symptoms due to alcohol and drug use (regardless of whether the medication was taken).
  4. Diagnosed mental illness, medication was taken, and the correct schedule was followed; no alcohol or drug use. As pointed out in the link above, this situation could happen because a medication that wasn’t effective at reducing hostility was prescribed.

There are also further complications. Imagine someone who recently experienced the loss of a loved one and fell into a short period of depression. A few days later, they are involved in an argument. Due to their emotional state, the argument ends up being escalated rather than de-escalated, and the person is charged with an aggravated assault. You can think of the root cause as a transient mental illness. However, a period of emotional distress is normal while grieving. To make matters worse, the aggravated assault charge might combine with the grief and cause symptoms to persist much longer. If the person continued to have symptoms of depression for several months, this would likely be classified as a mental illness.
This circumstance is similar to other phenomena, such as homelessness. You can study people experiencing homelessness and perhaps find that mental illness is common. However, you do not know if a mental illness was the cause of homelessness, if homelessness caused the mental illness, or if homelessness aggravated a minor mental illness.


Law enforcement could not make these distinctions when the crime was reported. It is also unknown whether law enforcement would have access to a patient’s medical records at the time of the incident. Therefore, this reporting would not make sense for the UCR.


As my book’s subtitle indicates, we must look at self-defense holistically. Alcohol abuse, drug abuse, family abuse, and incarceration are all risk factors for someone who may use violence against you. However, when these factors are removed, those who have mental illness may have only a slightly higher risk of violence than the average person.


One troubling thing about the study Berenson cites and the risk factors for violence. Suppose heavy marijuana use does lead to an increased risk of schizophrenia. In that case, heavy marijuana use must stop if the user is diagnosed with schizophrenia and put on medication. Otherwise, the combination of schizophrenia, medication, and drug abuse could lead to more violence in our society.

Gun Safety Without the Gun

You can, of course, train your child about gun safety with an unloaded gun. And to be honest, you should do that at some point. However, you can teach them about gun safety quite a bit earlier without using a gun. How?

Well, personality experts have documented the 5-7 year shift. This period is when, historically, 5 to 7-year-old children have been given adult responsibility (the age range is due to children getting to that point at different times, based upon their individual development). So, let’s say you’ve determined your 7-year-old can have some adult responsibility. Unfortunately, many hunter-firearm safety courses start at the age of 10. Therefore, we have a three-year period to teach children the essence of gun safety without using a gun. For most homeowners, this is easy to do.

You’ll need to use a battery-powered reciprocating saw. You can think of it as an AR-style pistol. Here is what the tool simulates:

Blade Inserted: Round in the Chamber
Battery In/Out: Loaded Magazine / No Magazine
Trigger: Trigger
Safety: Safety

I would also use a cut-off saw blade you cannot easily see to simulate a round in the chamber.

As an exercise, for example, place the saw with the small blade inserted, insert the battery, have the safety off, and p it on the table. Tell your youngster: “Make sure this weapon is safe.” Here is the procedure:

  1. Safety on
  2. Detach the Battery [unload the magazine]
  3. Remove the blade [unload the chamber]

A lot of bad habits can be nipped in the bud by watching your child perform this exercise. Where is the tool pointed? Is your child checking the chamber by looking down the “barrel?” Where is their trigger finger? Ear and Eye protection? And so on…Here is another exercise:

Hand your youngster a saw ready to use (safety on). Tell your youngster to pretend to cut a piece of wood but activate the saw while pretending, then place the saw in safe mode and hand it back to you. This exercise will simulate handing a firearm to your youngster, having them shoot, putting the g in safe mode, and then handing it back to you. Ensure your child checks the safety and has proper trigger finger discipline when receiving the saw. When your child is “sawing,” you can check the location of the hands. Also, watch when your child is done “sawing,” ensuring they hit the safety, and use proper trigger finger discipline. You can think of many other exercises as well.

When it is time to pack up, ensure your child “unloads” the saw and safely puts it back where it belongs.

Also note, if you have a bolt action rifle with a 3-position safety, it is compatible with this training. The safety can be set in the position where the bolt moves, but the trigger does not. The magazine/battery can also be removed, and the saw blade/chambered round removed.

Unfortunately, the simulation of “loading a magazine in a semi-auto pistol and putting a round in the chamber” cannot be done safely with this approach and still be compatible with saw safety. For instance, you’ll always put the blade in the saw without the battery. With pistols, you’ll insert the magazine and cycle the slide to load the chamber. You don’t want to teach your child to put a “free round” in the chamber [insert a round, then slam the slide], then insert the magazine. Many pistols, such as 1911s, will have an issue with this approach. However, this training is valid for some situations. For example, many hunters who will be stationary (e.g., tree stand, coyote calling, and so forth) will often put the safety on where the bolt moves and the trigger does not, chamber a free round, then load a fully loaded magazine.

Using this approach, a youngster can learn saw safety and gun safety. While it can’t simulate everything, it can significantly help youngsters learn safety safely (!)

The Knife

I took several classes in knife fighting and “edged weapons,” as Gunsite calls it. However, the more training I underwent, the more I realized it wasn’t for me. I felt there were way too many disadvantages and, quite simply, few advantages. However, I enjoyed learning from my instructors, they were great, and their intentions were honorable. Nonetheless, you should evaluate a self-defense weapon based on whether it allows you to accomplish your mission. If it doesn’t feel right after giving the training a chance, or you feel it will likely compromise your mission, don’t use it no matter what anyone says.

Also, be aware that there are “knife people” who behave as if they are members of a secret cult. Self-defense revolves around the knife and only the knife. They can talk about knives, knife shapes, unique handles, special blades, and so forth for hours. Unfortunately, you’ll meet some of them that seem a bit too fascinated with the knife, and honestly, it is a bit creepy.

In my analysis, every knife fighting article should be subtitled: Death or Prison. As an ordinary civilian, I felt that was the choice I was making using the knife as a self-defense weapon. Given that stark choice, looking at other defensive weapons made sense to me. Your analysis may differ from mine. I would elaborate more on my experiences, but someone who has experienced a lot of knife violence in real life already has. There is no better critique of the knife as a self-defense weapon than what can be found in Varg Freeborn’s book Violence of the Mind book. Get a copy.

Edged Weapon Defenses

How often is a knife used in injurious violent crime targeting civilians? As showcased in magazines and training classes, masked men, public places, and knives are common. However, as we know from my book, except for robbery, we see strangers and public places as not typical for injurious violent crime. Regarding injurious robbery, strangers, public places, and “no weapon” are more common than robbers with knives. In short, if you are injured by a knife in a violent crime, the offender may well be someone you know, and it likely took place at your home or on the property of your home (e.g., domestic violence situation).

Robbery is the most common violent crime where an ordinary civilian will likely run into a violent criminal. Intimidation and surprise attacks seem to be the most common attack vectors. Public places, such as walking from your vehicle to your destination (and back) or to and from your hotel room, are pretty popular for robbery. My book goes through several ways you can avoid these attack vectors. However, for the sake of argument, let’s assume that you are up against a stranger who is a knife-armed violent criminal. Let us further assume that this person will attack you using a knife.

Let’s look at the knife a bit closer as a weapon. To use it effectively, you need to see, and you need to be able to move, and you need some speed, but not necessarily strength, unless you are blocking strikes. For our example, we will assume that seeing, movement, and speed is critical for our attacker. The knife is a close-range weapon. It is easily concealed in the hand for rapid deployment. There is also something primitive about the knife. Many people have an ingrained fear of knives, like people have an innate fear of snakes. This fear leads to a mental obstacle that needs to be overcome: Just because someone with a knife gets to you doesn’t mean you are dead. It would be best to get that notion out of your head, or you’ll lose the fight.

The saying “Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight” has held true for a long time. It still does in many situations. However, when the Tueller Drill became more known, a concealed carrier had to deal with an uncomfortable truth: a guy with a knife could get to you before you could draw and shoot. This mindset borders on “weapon overreliance,” as people are often stationary when they perform the drill. Lateral movement and putting obstacles (like vehicles) in between you and your attacker can usually be done while drawing your weapon.

Now we can ask the million-dollar question: What is the best weapon against a fast, skilled knife-wielding attacker?  A firearm makes the most sense, but we can see where we can be at a disadvantage due to the Tueller Drill. To balance this out, some people choose to use a knife in conjunction with a firearm. The thought process is that you can deploy your knife faster than your pistol, which in all honesty, I feel is a questionable assumption. However, aren’t you still going up against a fast, skilled knife-wielding attacker, only now at close range?

In my view, the proper supplementary weapon to a firearm to defend against a knife attack is gel pepper spray. A small container can be carried in your offhand and concealed with your hand. This carrying style means the gel can be deployed just as fast as someone concealing a knife in their hand. The gel form eliminates blowback and has a longer effective distance, like fifteen feet or so. Pepper gel will cause severe seeing and breathing problems for a knife-wielding attacker. These problems can help us get away or give us time to get our firearm ready if the attack continues.

Anytime you are going to and from your vehicle or hotel room, you can easily carry a small can of gel pepper spray in your hand without being noticed, especially if you wear gloves that match the can. You can slip it in your pocket when you arrive at your destination. In short, it is inconspicuous, but extremely fast to deploy if necessary.

Pepper gel does have disadvantages – you need to watch the expiration date, and you need to watch the temperature range where it is stored. For example, if you live in Phoenix, the inside car temperature could reach a range where the canister explodes. Also, pepper gel may not deploy properly if you live in very cold temperatures. Like anything else in self-defense, any deployed solution has benefits and harms. Unfortunately, most people dismiss less-than-lethal weapons without properly evaluating them.

Open Carry & Public Locations

I gave a few reasons why I do not open carry in my book. However, I wanted to expand on some more reasons you may want to consider before you open carry.

When I see people open carrying in public, it is almost always at the grocery store, and once in a while, I’ll see it at a restaurant. Fundamentally though, the problem with public locations is that strangers are often far too close to you. Much ink has been spilled on the Tueller Drill and how quickly someone without a firearm can close distance on someone with a firearm. Let’s assume that based on your skill set, a distance of 30 feet represents the minimal amount of space you feel you can defend yourself with a firearm from a charging opponent. Quick Question: Are you open carrying in places where a stranger is within 30 feet of you? If so, you may want to concealed carry rather than open carry.

Why? It is important to remember that a firearm is a valuable resource for people who want to do harm. Sometimes, these people are criminals or mentally ill and have been prevented from purchasing a firearm via background checks. Please don’t assume they magically know people with black market connections where they can get whatever firearm they wish. They may decide to get it from you. If these people are frequently inside your rule-of-thumb 30 feet, open carrying may be more like an invitation than a counter-threat.

As an example, assume you were in the parking lot of a grocery store, open carrying, and on your way inside. I stopped you and told you that everyone in the store wanted a gun and was prevented from purchasing one due to background checks. Would you still go into the store?

Are Police Threats and Civilian Threats Different?

Several years ago, when I began researching violent crime, I was interested in figuring out the circumstances. I figured that if I could understand if there were common violent crime circumstances, I could develop self-defense strategies to mitigate them appropriately. After all, there is no point in preparing for a trip to the Amazon jungle when you actually go to Antarctica.

As this research winded down, I understood that civilian violent crime threats and threats to police officers were different. The Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) compiles statistics about Law Enforcement Officers Killed or Assaulted (LEOKA). I discuss them in my book. Their lethal threats are armed strangers who were likely arrested for a violent crime prior and are on active justice status, like parole or bail.

For the sake of argument, let’s assume civilian threats are the same. What would our statistics be like if they were? Let’s assume the violent crime rate against police officers is the same as it is against civilians.

  1. First, since there are millions more concealed carriers than police officers, the number of people justifiably killed by private citizens would be far higher than by police officers.
  2. Defensive Gun Use (DGU) statistics where the firearm was discharged is the same for civilians as for police officers.
  3. DGU statistics where the firearm was not discharged are the same for civilians as for police officers.
  4. Injurious aggravated assault would primarily involve firearms, strangers, and public places.
  5. Murder would primarily be firearms, strangers, and public places.

As my book goes into detail, the first four are false. Murder, which represented 1.3 percent of all violent crimes in the period studied, shows that around 40 percent of the time, the victim knows the offender. For the other 60 percent, the relationship between the victim and offender is unknown. While the UCR tracks criminal records for LEOKA, it does not track them for the victim or offender in aggravated assault, robbery, rape, or murder. In addition, the UCR does not keep track of victim injury. In short, we do not know how much injurious violent crime is criminals targeting other criminals.

What is clear from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) and DGU statistics for civilians, the home and the property of the home are the primary locations of violent crime (around 80 percent). About 80 percent of the time, the firearm is not discharged. Injurious aggravated assault and rape primarily involve people the victim knows, and the location is somewhere the victim feels comfortable. Robbery is the only violent crime that shows a high amount of strangers and public places for both injurious and non-injurious types. However, the most common weapon for both is no weapon at all.

Often, police officers and former polices officers will utilize their experience to indicate that civilians face the same threats as they do. I certainly believe police officers face the threats they face. Unfortunately, I cannot find any data showing civilians face the same threats. In all honesty, this is a call for celebration. Why?

Well, in general, police officers are better trained and have more experience than civilians who carry a concealed firearm (CCF). Even though they have better training and experience, they are not very accurate shooters overall (as I detailed in another post). I would expect civilians to do much worse. Furthermore, civilians who CCF do not have the legal protections of police officers, which can easily lead to criminal charges even if the civilian tried to do the right thing.

Using our best statistics, civilians should improve the security of their homes and the property around the home and weed out risky people from their lives. However, suppose you believe civilians and police officers have the same threats. In that case, you’ll be adopting a CCF strategy and likely forgo improving the security of your home and the property of the home. One path is a superior self-defense strategy.

Please note that violent crimes against civilians are still dangerous and can be deadly. I’m certainly not saying they are trivial. What I am saying is that the circumstances are different, and civilians must plan their self-defense strategies differently than police officers.

Statewide Criminal Defense Attorney Survey

A concealed carry permit holder murdered my cousin. The perp will be in prison for the rest of his life. Unfortunately, most people that keep track of these statistics are interested in blaming inanimate objects. I don’t blame the firearm. I do blame the person. I’m grateful that justice was served. I suspect that people who carry concealed firearms do not commit many crimes, but wouldn’t it be great to have the relevant statistics?

It brings up a more general point: What harms are experienced by civilians who carry concealed firearms?

I talk about his issue in my book. Once a person is arrested, it becomes challenging to summarize national or even statewide statistics on what happened after that. Usually, a person needs to research them by hand. Here would be some situations I would be interested in gathering statistics (for Arizona):

  • People who commit crimes with a legally carried firearm:
    ** People who are arrested for carrying a firearm in a place where it is not allowed.
    ** People who are arrested for carrying a firearm under the influence.
    ** People who are arrested for a negligent discharge or other negligent activity with a firearm.
    ** People who claim self-defense with a firearm but then are charged with an aggravated assault (or worse).
    ** People who commit crimes with firearms, such as aggravated assault or murder (e.g., the guy who killed my cousin).
  • People who claim self-defense with a firearm are legally successful in defending themselves from any challenges.

Just because someone is arrested or later charged doesn’t mean you go to trial. The charges could be dropped, a plea deal could be reached, or the case could go to trial. If at trial, they could be acquitted or convicted. If convicted, there could be many punishments depending on the charges. A felony, misdemeanor, probation, community service, and so forth could all be handed down separately or in some combination. The convicted could lose their right to vote, own firearms, and may not be done with their criminal justice status until many years later. All of these endings are important.

It is also essential to understand if the person was carrying illegally (e.g., had a criminal record), was engaged in criminal activity during the incident, or anything that would indicate something unusual was occurring. Furthermore, the circumstances are important to document if a person claimed self-defense and was legally successful, especially if the firearm was discharged.

The million-dollar question is: How do you gather this data?

The only way I can think to do this data gathering is via a survey like the National Crime Victimization Survey. The difference would be only criminal defense attorneys in the state would be questioned. The survey would have to have privacy protections, and the questions would have to be based on the criminal laws in the state. However, I think it is our best bet to understand some of the harms of carrying a concealed firearm, and would hopefully shed more light on defensive gun uses where a civilian discharged the firearm.

Reworking Women’s Self-Defense Training

I think it is wonderful that women can access the best combat training in America. Often, women are welcome in classes covering physical defense, edged weapons, and concealed carry training. In addition, women-only classes are also available to help those who may be uncomfortable in mixed crowds. Successful completion of these classes can result in increased confidence, awareness, and security for many women.

Why would I have a problem with that? Well, I don’t. What I have a problem with that there is a big missing piece: women do not get trained in the most common scenarios. Here is my paraphrased summary of the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) for rape from 1993 to 2019:

  • Most rape is committed against female victims (over 93% at the lower bound confidence interval). Homes are the primary location, while public areas are almost non-existent. Married women have the most protection against rape, while “Never Married” is the majority case. Rape victims typically do not call the police, and statistics like the Uniform Crime Reports will not count these rapes. In addition, almost two-thirds of the time, rape victims do not seek treatment for their injuries, in stark contrast to injurious aggravated assault and injurious robbery. Offenders who are strangers to the victim
    are rare. Overwhelmingly, the offender is someone the victim knows. Weapons are rarely used.

Is women’s self-defense training a good match for these statistics? I would say no. I see the training that women undergo to be primarily focused on a masked armed male acting in a public place. In sharp contrast, my recent review reports that strangers are about 15% of the victim-offender relationship in rapes. Where is the training on the other 85%?

In short – my problem with women’s self-defense training is that it focuses on the minority case and abandons the majority case. It gets even worse with injurious aggravated assault, which resembles domestic violence. Essentially, the most common injurious violent crime, aggravated assault, and the least reported injurious violent crime, rape, are tops for violent crimes against women. Yet, strangers are almost non-existent in these crimes. To put it bluntly, women are actually safer in public areas than they are at home!

These statistics are why I wrote my book. We need better self-defense strategies for women. I hope my book can inspire more research on helping women defend themselves.

If you are interested in my book, you can buy it from all the online retailers. Links are here. In addition, I have my own store for electronic copies – in PDF format and epub format. Also, there is additional NCVS research I did that you can purchase as well. Enjoy!

The Home Defense Shotgun

A couple of items from Defensive Gun Use (DGU) statistics. Around 80% of DGUs occur at home, and 80% of the time, the firearm is not discharged. Rifles and shotguns make up about a third of the arms used, and handguns make up about two-thirds. However, looking at police shootings with handguns, we see that accuracy is relatively poor. I see no reason to think that civilians would be better than the police, assuming their situations are similar (I feel that civilian encounters are much different than police encounters when the firearm is discharged, so this may not apply).

Given that most people’s home security leaves a lot to be desired, I devote a lot of pages in my book toward improving it, both inside and out. As part of that plan, I recommend a defensive room strategy. The gist of a home security setup like this is that criminals who don’t want to hurt you either don’t show up at your house or run away very quickly when they do show up. As a result, property crime encounters that would have turned violent are avoided. That said, any criminal who remains doesn’t fear getting caught, and that puts them in a different category. Dealing with such a criminal requires a lethal weapon, and the best weapon using a defensive room strategy is a shotgun. Unfortunately, many people that use home defense shotguns do not employ a defensive room strategy. In fact, what they do deploy is quite problematic. Here is what I’ve seen:

  • The shotgun is fully decked out and heavy. Imagine walking through your house and finding an intruder in a big room of your home. You tell them to get on the floor. The police are 20 minutes away. Can you hold a heavy shotgun at an intruder for 20 minutes straight?
  • The shells utilized are often full-power 12 gauge slugs or buckshot. These rounds will down a grizzly at short range. However, they will also blow through your interior walls like a hot knife through butter. Furthermore, in today’s cookie-cutter home construction, they will blow through your exterior walls as well and likely penetrate a close neighbor’s home.
  • Shotguns are often long and challenging to maneuver in hallways and closed-in areas.
  • The range is often close in home defense situations. This improves the weapon’s lethality, but don’t expect a lot of spread in your pattern at 10 feet or less.

Many of these problems can be avoided by employing a defensive room strategy. We still need to select ammunition properly. However, there are some other considerations too.

  • In a defensive room, you’ll have a defensive position. In this position, your shotgun should be supported by something other than you, such as your mattress. In this case, you need to be aware if you have a pump shotgun, your bed blankets might jam the mechanism. You’ll want to ensure this cannot happen.
  • You should store your shotgun securely in your defense room. How you store your shotgun is essential. I would not recommend storing with a round in the chamber (see my post on fast access safes for details). If you have a pump shotgun, you must dry fire on an empty chamber to ensure the action will cycle. Also, you will want to store the shotgun in a way that reduces any damage if you have a negligent discharge removing it from secure storage (again, see my post on fast access safes). Lastly, I would recommend something like a Hornady fast-access safe, where you can line the inside with something that can help stop bullets. I have a level IIIa vest in mine. This helps to provide protection as well to your defensive position.
  • One of the reasons I like pump shotguns is they have considerable flexibility with rounds. A 12 gauge will often function with shorties (1 3/4″), 2 3/4″, and 3″ (please verify before purchasing). NOTE: Extensive testing is required, and I would follow-up with the manufacturer’s technical support to ensure compatibility.
  • If your defensive room is set up correctly, your room will be dark, and the rest of your house will be lit. Muzzle flash is a consideration as it may temporarily blind you. Be sure to consider this in your ammunition selection.

I don’t know of a more effective close-to-short-range weapon than a shotgun. I highly recommend that you evaluate one for your defense room.

Statistics & the $5,000 Test

If you are skeptical of statistics, congratulations! You should be. However, that doesn’t mean that statistics are inadequate or worthless. You should subject any statistics to meaningful investigation.

One of the many sad things about COVID was how much science was compromised. Studies were written supporting masks, yet the recent Cochrane review showed insufficient evidence to justify that conclusion. Additionally, Alex Berenson pointed out time and time again that data in the study’s appendices often contradicted the abstract or summary of a study. In short, it appeared that a conclusion was pre-selected, and data was gathered that supported this conclusion, probably in the hopes that no one checked too closely—quite the opposite of how science is supposed to work.

We see something similar in the pro-gun and anti-gun debates. Often these people have already determined the conclusion and go off and find data to support the conclusion. Look at the Defensive Gun Use (DGU) study controversy I’ve discussed previously. Many people are convinced that Kleck’s work was refuted. It was not. English’s recent work has done much to validate it, although dropping DGUs from 2 to 2.5 million times a year to 1.6 million a year, which is still a large number. Kleck believed that the CDC’s own research supported over 1 million DGUs per year. These numbers are significant compared to the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) and the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR).

The pro-gun folks can be guilty as well. As I explain in my post on DGUs, the DGU statistics should drive a far different civilian self-defense curriculum. Furthermore, the DGU statistics complement the NCVS statistics that show that the offender rarely uses firearms for 98.7% of violent crimes when the victim is injured. This complement may be because DGUs prevent injurious violent crime. After all, offenders aren’t armed with firearms often. You don’t bring a stick to a gunfight.

However, some pro-gunners do not trust any statistics, preferring to use their own experience as a guide. However, if you are a law enforcement officer, your experience may differ from what a civilian will experience. For example, law enforcement officers have a duty to protect the public and won’t likely be criminally charged in situations where they make a mistake, where a civilian who carries a concealed firearm would be charged. To use a different example, I’m sure there are ER doctors in Arizona’s Maricopa County (around 4 million people) that will not buy a swimming pool due to the number of drownings they see. The ER doctor is a funnel to these incidents and can unduly influence the probability calculator in an ER doctor’s mind. In short, your experience may betray you when you try to advise others.

Ultimately, we should be asking: “What does an ordinary civilian need to do to protect themselves from violent crime and not get charged with a crime when employing that protection?” In doing so, we should utilize our best statistics.

In this spirit, I would offer a $5,000 test. Assuming you have an ordinary civilian family and they had $5,000 to protect their family, what advice would you give them to spend it on? I know my answer, which is conveyed in my book as a whole. What is your answer?