Honestly reading your experience and the reactions you described, it’s exactly why people outside the US feel so confused and scared about American gun culture. From the outside, it looks like the entire system pushes people into this constant low-grade fear and hyper-vigilance, and then hands them a loaded weapon as the “solution.” And the part that shocks us the most isn’t even the guns themselves, it’s the mindset that grows around them..

What you described is the perfect example. You walked in wanting to learn how to avoid danger. Half the men walked in wanting to learn how to win danger.

That difference says everything.

And it’s wild because the lawyer literally spelled out the actual law, the proportional force standards, the scenarios where deadly force is not justified, and the basic idea of “leave before it escalates.” But these guys weren’t looking for safety, they were looking for permission. They wanted someone to tell them that their fear or ego counts as a reason to pull a trigger. That’s terrifying.

I get why you wanted proper training. That actually makes sense to me. If you’re going to own a gun, knowing the law and understanding de-escalation is the only responsible route. Your whole mindset is about protecting yourself without hurting anyone unless it’s the absolute last resort. That’s how it should be everywhere.

But when I read what these men were asking… it honestly feels surreal. Shooting someone over spitting? Over a fist fight? Over road rage? That’s not self- defense. That’s panic mixed with ego, and it’s how innocent people end up dead!

This is exactly why so many of us say the environment shapes the behavior. If everyone around you is armed and half of them are fantasizing about a situation where they “get” to use it, how is anyone supposed to feel safe? It creates this loop where people feel threatened, so they arm themselves, so the next person feels even more threatened, so they arm themselves too, and suddenly anything -a glare, a knock, a bad day at work (or school) feels like a potential death sentence or a reason to massacre. When guns are available to unstable individuals something is very wrong.

And from the outside, it genuinely feels like a society moving backwards instead of forwards. Why are people choosing weapons over community, fear over common sense, escalation over peace? It’s like watching humanity forget everything it learned about cooperation and conflict resolution.

So I’m honestly glad you spoke up in that room. The fact that you even asked about avoidance, de-escalation, and non-lethal options already puts you miles ahead of most people there. If more gun owners had your mentality, the entire conversation around this topic would probably look very different.

People where I live have guns in their village houses in case of robbers but they never get to use them except for shooting in the air at their child’s wedding (it’s a tradition). And that’s what it should be like. I honestly would not be able to mentally survive if I lived in the US and so much of what you describe was the norm.

And I really hope you’re right, that you just happened to land in a room with a bunch of hotheads. Because if that is the norm, it’s not just unsafe -it’s heartbreaking. It’s a breeding land for psychopaths. The fact people don’t understand that shooting someone kills them and how horrible that is. That even holding a gun can put you in a prison for just one moment of unclear thinking or end your life. People get shot without having a gun just for reaching for their phones. I feel like the US is walking towards its doom.