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Last week, I objected to the notion that anyone who opposes arming college students on campus was demanding that they leave it to the professionals and not do anything to help themselves. In this post, I’d like to approach it from the other side; that is to say that sometimes it is better to leave it to the professionals and sometimes, sitting back and leaving it to the professionals is the best way to “help yourself.”
Professionals exist as a result of specialization, and specialization is very foundation of human civilization. At one point in history, small clans of humans (or human-like creatures) more or less each doing all that was required to keep themselves alive (though among the members of the clans there was most assuredly specialization taking place, even then). As these groups became bigger, one can imagine that one human said to another something like “I’ve noticed that you’re really good at making clothing, and I’m a better hunter. How about I bring you some meat from the hunt and you stay here and make me a shirt?” (ok, so major over-simplification, but you get the point). Fast-forward a few million years and, as a direct result of specialization, we have cars, houses, medicine, computers and the internet (among infinite other things).
I said in the previous post that, because it’s impossible to train for every situation we might possibly find ourselves in, we must instead train to recognize our options in the moment and select the best one. Sometimes that best option actually is to leave it to the professionals. If there is a trashcan fire in my house, I’ll probably try to deal with it myself; if I wake up and my wall is engulfed in flames, I’m getting myself, and anything else that’s alive, out of the house and calling the firefighters. If I stayed in there, I might be able to have some effect on the fire, but I’d be far more likely to die than to have any significant effect. In that case, leaving it to the professionals IS helping myself. In the same way, if the firefighters need a brochure/poster/website/etc. designed, they’d be helping themselves by calling me (or some other graphic artist) to do it for them. Sure, they could fire up MS Word and throw something together themselves, but it wouldn’t be nearly as attractive or effective as if they simply “left it to the professionals.”
Helping yourself means evaluating a situation, recognizing your options, and choosing the one (or more) that is the most effective solution to the problem. Sometimes that means leaving it to the professionals. We limit ourselves when we take that option out of the equation, assuming it to be “lazy.” Helping yourself sometimes means knowing when it’s time to get help from someone else.
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February 25th, 2008 at 9:50 pmMadRocketSci says:
I wholeheartedly agree, there are certainly times when it is best to leave it to the pros. The trick is knowing when you can help yourself, and when you need help. Getting some of the training that I mentioned over at TheLineIsHere can help give you the tools and knowledge to know when you have reached your limit and need help, or when not doing anything is actually the right thing to do (case in point, after my motorcycle wreck so many years ago, someone wanted to remove my helmet and check me for head trauma, luckily I was alert enough to tell them NO!, since if a cyclist with a helmet has head trauma, that helmet might be busy holding it all in, so to speak). You may not like my politics, but that does not make the training any less valuable.
While you can’t train to be a master at everything, having a working knowledge can at least equip you make accurate evaluations.
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February 29th, 2008 at 1:27 pmSouthern Beale says:
Hey Dolphin — you’ve been tagged!
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March 4th, 2008 at 12:00 ammostlygenius says:
Thank you for the discussion on my blog.
The pros are frequently a false sense of security. You assume a greater disparity between the competence or relevant ability of the pros and the novices than really exists. Relevant ability is key here. Shooting is a novice skill, knowing what to shoot, and when is the hard part. The less ambiguous the situation the easier it is to solve. Active Shooters are not ambiguous, and from the prospective of a potential victim are much more of a marksmanship problem rather than a tactical one.
I would also point out that a “pro” like the average police officer has far less range time than the average avid hobbyist shooter. A hobbyist shooter is totally unconcerned with learning or understanding department use of force policy, traffic law, or the rules of evidence - standard components police academy training. In my state the firearms training block for police officers in the academy is roughly 40 hours. 40 hours is easily surpassed by most people who like to shoot in a few weekends.
I would also point out that based upon the state of world in the last decade that in any in any classroom gathering of students that it is entirely likely that at least one has prior military service and training, and quite possibly extensive combat experience. I would have no problem saying that a USMC vet of Falluja taking advantage of the GI bill is more of a ‘pro’ when it comes to shooting people who are trying to kill them than a cop just out of the academy.
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March 4th, 2008 at 11:11 amdolphin says:
I disagree with a number of your assertions, but the key is this: Writing the professionals off as only an option for the lazy, timid, etc, leaves you with one less option and that option that is sometimes the best one to take.