It seems like a big part of the value of a gun might be the ability to wave it around and say “I have a gun”. So, as an alternative strategy, have you considered buying a prop gun and practicing the words in a mirror?
No, don’t do this. If you threaten someone with a higher level of violence than you can deliver, it’s more likely they try to pre-emptively attack you (i.e. shoot you first) and you will have no defense against this. If you cannot win a violent encounter then compliance is generally the safest strategy.
I understand that—if you’re facing down someone else who’s armed you should obviously just comply. I’m mainly expecting this strategy would work against e.g. unarmed looters. Do you not think it would?
I don’t think there are good general solutions to this question—it’s going to vary a lot based on the situation, participants, capabilities, and what they (think they) know of each other. If you want to go deep in your spare time, start with Von Neumann and Nash, work up to Schelling (it’s important to go that far, as you’ll need to include partial-knowledge and precommittment in your thinking). That’s fun reading regardless :)
A mixed strategy of sometimes shooting first, sometimes threatening, sometimes complying, sometimes just not reacting and pretending you’re asleep is probably where you’ll end up. Usually making yourself a worse target (in terms of risk/reward to your opponent) before the confrontation even starts is going to be right, but it’s non-obvious exactly what makes you worse—a sign that says “I’m armed” means “I have valuable guns to steal, and shoot me first so I can’t shoot you”. Solid doors and barred windows are good options to stop the problem before it starts.
In many locales, escalating “unreasonably” is a crime in itself. Also, you probably don’t know whether the looter is unarmed (for the same reasons you didn’t tell them you were armed), so conditional actions (threaten if unarmed, comply if armed) aren’t available to you.
It seems like a big part of the value of a gun might be the ability to wave it around and say “I have a gun”. So, as an alternative strategy, have you considered buying a prop gun and practicing the words in a mirror?
No, don’t do this. If you threaten someone with a higher level of violence than you can deliver, it’s more likely they try to pre-emptively attack you (i.e. shoot you first) and you will have no defense against this. If you cannot win a violent encounter then compliance is generally the safest strategy.
I understand that—if you’re facing down someone else who’s armed you should obviously just comply. I’m mainly expecting this strategy would work against e.g. unarmed looters. Do you not think it would?
I don’t think there are good general solutions to this question—it’s going to vary a lot based on the situation, participants, capabilities, and what they (think they) know of each other. If you want to go deep in your spare time, start with Von Neumann and Nash, work up to Schelling (it’s important to go that far, as you’ll need to include partial-knowledge and precommittment in your thinking). That’s fun reading regardless :)
A mixed strategy of sometimes shooting first, sometimes threatening, sometimes complying, sometimes just not reacting and pretending you’re asleep is probably where you’ll end up. Usually making yourself a worse target (in terms of risk/reward to your opponent) before the confrontation even starts is going to be right, but it’s non-obvious exactly what makes you worse—a sign that says “I’m armed” means “I have valuable guns to steal, and shoot me first so I can’t shoot you”. Solid doors and barred windows are good options to stop the problem before it starts.
In many locales, escalating “unreasonably” is a crime in itself. Also, you probably don’t know whether the looter is unarmed (for the same reasons you didn’t tell them you were armed), so conditional actions (threaten if unarmed, comply if armed) aren’t available to you.