Originally Posted by
tjspiel
Just curious. The muggings that have occurred on my routes have involved 2 or 3 guys. They hide behind bridge abutments or whatever. One knocks the unsuspecting cyclist from his/her bike and the other 2 will jump on top of the rider after they hit the ground. There might be some punching and kicking and at least one cyclist had a knife held to their throat. Mostly the muggers took wallets, and purses. They'd generally leave the bike. These have all occurred at night.
Could a largely untrained gun owner deal with the situation effectively? What would a trained one do? It seems to me if you carry the gun on your bike, you're pretty well screwed anyway. On your person, you have a chance, but the muggers may find it.
There was a rash of these a couple of years ago. They've pretty much stopped since they were highly publicized and volunteer patrols started on the affected trails. People were also told to ride with a buddy.
No weapon is perfect is all situations and if they get the drop on you, then you are at a severe disadvantage. The rider has the advantage of knowing that he has a gun and knows where the gun is. In the situation that you describe, if the rider pulls his gun and shoots one of the goons as they are punching and kicking him, then they are not going to stick around to see how many more bullets he has. If just one rider had done that, all of the muggings would have stopped immediately. Criminals are not dumb. They are not going to risk their lives over trying to mug someone.
Also, anyone that has a CCP is going to be trained on how to use their gun. Every CCP application that I have seen has a mandatory safety and usage class.