If someone is trying to rob you with a gun is it smart to point a gun back at them?

Answer 1

Depends on the circumstance: that the robber wants your property while you only want the rest of your natural life. So in some case, no. In all other cases, no as well. There is only one outright answer to your question: it is in-arguably NOT smart.

In such a circumstance where a gun is pointing at you there can be no argument: to attempt to point a gun back is not only not smart, it is foolhardy in the extreme - no ifs, ands, or buts. To think or hope otherwise is like believing that movie scenes showing such acts are anything but fiction - and the movie image of such kinds of face-downs in the American old west is just that: pure fiction.

When confronted by the business end of a gun and a demand for property, the first thing you would (and should) consider is to avoid being shot; the most intuitive way to do that is obviously to satisfy the robber's demand in hopes he will escape; and you also escape, his threat.

On the other hand, the surest way to get shot - more urgent even than not complying - is to put the robber (already in a fearful, irrational state of mind) in an even more intense state of fear, and anger your attempted resistance, by attempting to point a gun at him, which will be (and must be) taken as an attempt to kill him. . . .to do so also when, in old west terms, he "has the drop" on you.

Note that I said, attempt to point a gun . . .because the almost certain outcome is that you will not succeed before being shot, possibly killed. About this there can be no doubt, he who points a gun last loses; so its smartest not to point last; and armed robbers always point first. Tough, but that's reality.