Originally Posted by
scroca
I am asking whether it is practical to know when deadly force is necessary.
How do you know someone's intention unless they are polite enough to announce it to you? How do you know the guy walking toward you is mad enough that you need to draw a weapon? How do you know you will have time to draw it from it's concealed location once the fur starts flying?
Somebody mad and walking toward you probably isn't a serious threat (but: Does he have a knife in his hand? Has he made verbal threats?). Somebody beating on you might be. As Mas Ayoob says, it depends on the totality of the circumstances.
As far as how much time you have to draw from a concealed holster? If you're drawing in a situation where you
need to be drawing, you've got all the time in the world - the rest of your life.
But if you want to see how long it really takes to get a gun from a concealed holster and into action, attend a local IDPA competition. You'll see everyday people using real concealed holsters, real cover garments, drawing and shooting real concealed carry guns shooting at targets in simulated defensive scenarios - and a sub 2 second time from bell to first shot on target isn't unusual. Don't assume that it takes 5 seconds to draw a gun from concealment just cause you heard it in a Jeffrey Donovan voice-over in Burn Notice.
Carrying a gun isn't for everybody. You don't want to, that's fine. Everybody makes their own choices on the amount of risk they're willing to take, and the preparations they make for unlikely circumstances.