[mylife]

What you forget is the second you draw.
You become a threat and that escalates a situation.
Makes the other party desperate.

No.
I think it is wiser to talk a situation down rather than ratchet it up.

If you have draw, you had best shoot.

At that point words aren’t working.

[marktwain]

“What you forget is the second you draw.
You become a threat and that escalates a situation.
Makes the other party desperate.

No.
I think it is wiser to talk a situation down rather than ratchet it up.

If you have draw, you had best shoot.

At that point words aren’t working.”

There are many counter-examples on this thread to your theory of what is likely to happen. Every study that I have read indicates that guns tend to de-escalate the situation rather than escalate it, the vast majority of the time (at least when the one with the gun is legally in the right). The opposite can happen, but it is far less common.

[SampleMan]

So if you have good reason to think someone is about to pull a weapon on you, are you going to kill someone, that might just be an odd duck meaning no harm, or are you going to let them strike first? Think about it, because I've been in that very situation more than once. Twice I'm very certain in retrospect that they were going to assault and rob me, once it was a low IQ person that made a dumb decision about entering a house I was beginning to flip in the ‘hood and approaching me from behind with a hammer (that I had dropped in the street). That latter person was half a second from swinging if he wanted to, but turned out to be a very nice and good man that lived next door. I'm certain in retrospect that he meant no harm. The way I look at it, I saved my life twice and saved the last man's life (and mine) by not having a "pull it-shoot it" mentality.