Thanks for pointing out some of the issues with the article, I appreciate you taking the time to engage.

No, I don't ever think of the LAST thing... no one does. That's how we know that carrying a firearm means that it isn't a last resort, it's a go-to. So, when is it a go to? Not only do the other people in the situation not know - psychology research indicates that the person carrying the weapon also has a poor idea of when or if they will use it. Most likely if they get emotionally triggered or training triggered (e.g. warrior training that makes them percieve harmless action as potentially harmful).

So you ask the legitimate question, what is different about a firearm. I think there are several relevant aspects:

1. Unlike a lamp or a hand or one's teeth, a firearm has a very limited range of uses - I don't think that it is too big a stretch to say that those uses fit in one of two categories (1) to threaten violence or (2) to enact violence. We could bicker about whether there are more neutral words than violence, but it would be beside the point. To your point, if the weapon is (and remains) truly concealed - then (1) goes away and we are left with (2).

2. Whether lamp or fists or teeth, it takes a while for most people to get another human being to die with those implements. Often, if our fight or flight response has been triggered our endorphin rush wouldn't last long enough to beat another human being to death with our bare hands. Firearms are quite different in this regard, one can take a human life before one has even realized a mistaken perception.

3. My interest and focus in writing the article was for us to think clearly about what the psychological and sociological repercussions are for law enforcement officers to openly carry weapons into every situation where they are present. The firearm in the situation changes everything:

a.) The officer has to worry about whether or not to use the firearm.

b.) The officer has to worry about another person in the scene getting access to the firearm that they brought into the scene.

c.) Since the officer has necessarily introduced the threat of violence into the situation by being present with a firearm, they have to deal with the heightened probabiliy of triggering fight, flight, or freeze responses from other people in the scene.

OK, so how much bandwidth do they have left to deal with whatever the actual situation is? The obvious answer is simply: less. They have less capacity to deal with the situation than they would have if they showed up without a firearm - especially if everyone else in the scene knows in advance that they aren't coming armed.

"Every physical item in proximity to the scene is a weapon." Actually, while almost anything can be used as a weapon, almost nothing in most scenes is perceptually a weapon -except to the most paranoid or those exposed to misguided training.

"The threat of violence exists any time 2 people are in proximity to each other."

- If you are stating this as a philosophical fact, you'd need to replace the word threat with possibility, then it would be true.

- If you are using it to point out how exceeding rare violence is given that it is theoretically possible in every human interaction, also true.

- If you are experiencing the fear of violence every time you interact with another human being, or any random stranger, I strongly suggest some therapy.

- If you are trying to draw a false equivalency between walking into a room unarmed and walking into a room with an openly carried firearm, I don't believe that argument can carry water. When someone walks into a room with their hands or teeth intact, we don't think about it at all, because it is normal. When someone walks into the room with a lamp, we think about the lamp and wonder where it is dark or whether they plan to read somewhere. Similarly, when someone walks into a room with an openly carried firearm, we wonder: are they going to hurt or kill someone, because that's what firearms were designed to do. It is also what they symbolicly represent.

I'm disappointed that you glossed over the second central point of the article. If you are carrying a firearm, you believe that it is the right tool to have under certain circumstances. It is not a last resort, we don't carry last resorts around with us. We don't carry a cheesecake to put out a fire. So, since it isn't a last resort and we are all hoping, and having some faith in humanity that, it isn't the first resort... That still leaves us all in the ambiguous situation where we have to wonder when and if the 'threat of violence' of open-carrying a firearm will turn into the 'act of violence' of it being used.

"Maybe the problem here... has more to do with people who spend to much time second guessing the motives of others."

I'm not second guessing anyone's motives: I firmly believe that we are all, each and every one of us, doing the best we can with the perspective, resources, and tools that we have available. What I believe, that you a free to take issue with, is that we believe a number of things that are demonstrably false:

1. There are good guys and bad guys.

2. Violence against bad guys is ok.

3. Violence is an acceptable tool for solving problems.

4. Violence is an effective tool for solving problems.

5. Deterrence theory is accurate.

6. The threat of violence is an acceptable tool for problem solving.

7. The threat of violence is an effective tool for problem solving.

8. The threat of violence is not violence.

9. Carrying a firearm decreases the risk of violence in a situation.

10. Carrying a firearm increases the safety of the person who is carrying it.