Saturday, January 15, 2011

If I Ever Have To Use My Gun ...

I'm confident that most gun carriers - concealed or open - have contemplated this circumstance. Any gun owner ought to. Weer'd Beard has his Gun Death tabulation to provide a context within which to place the nature and variety of violence that remains part and parcel of human interaction regardless of technology or social structure. JayG tracks the occurrence of specific instances of successful individual defense of violent attack using a gun in his Dead Goblin Count posts. I'm certain there are others, but these two examples provide sufficient documentation of the routine existence in all segments of human society of the potential for having to defend ourselves against active, violent attack.

That's not what this post is really about.

I'm equally certain that most gun owners/carriers have long acknowledged the likelihood of what to expect after the titular circumstance has occurred. Like myself (and most others I've read these past 9 years or so I've been online in one fashion or another), I suspect most of us have fatalistically accepted the near-adage that seemingly always accompanies that opening statement, "... I'm gonna get sued and maybe arrested."

Heretofore the best response I've read has been the plaintive urge to discover the name/phone number of a defense attorney (leaving unsaid his continuance in practice and/or availability in your specific time of need) and carry that in your wallet or purse. I think I've discovered the - or at least, an - corrective for all that.

Houston, Texas law firm Walker, Rice & Wisdom (specifically Michael D. Wisdom, Esq; wisdom@texaslawshield.com) has a retainer arrangement on offer to Texas gun owners and/or concealed handgun license holders. I've gone ahead and committed the $130+ ($150+ w/ one-time registration fee) to sign up and retain their services for a year on the strength of a trusted acquaintance's recommendation.

TexasLawShield.com

(warning: turn down your speaker, has an annoying auto-start ad with no obvious off button, though turning down the sound further stopped it the last time I clicked on the site. Not a total advertising Fail if that's an intended result.)

From their CHL brochure comes the following partial listing of services included:

-Texas wide protection
-established attorney/client relationship
-24/7 shooting hotline for clients
-legal representation for any police investigation, grand jury proceeding and criminal or civil trial
-no additional attorneys fees through trial

I leave it to my fellow Texans to determine for themselves if this meets their individual potential needs. If it needs be said, I'm not selling the program and get no credit or benefit from mentioning it on my blog; I am a client as I mentioned above.

I am curious to discover if there are other similar resources available in other states (or countries) that entail the same general selection of preventive measures and is there a website reference to them? My understanding is that Texas Law Shield confines it's present business model to Texas licensee's and residents only, but intends to expand beyond the state's borders in future. Are there any other efforts known to other gun bloggers that they (Wisdom and colleagues) might consider allying with to extend protection beyond Texas and create a system of reciprocity with? Are there any gun bloggers who are also attorneys interested in expanding their practice into a massively under-served market?

Wouldn't it be nice if we each could travel about the several states with the confidence that, having managed to survive "the gravest extreme", we aren't out there all alone afterwards?

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