If you are in a 7/11 during a holdup, should you draw your CCW just because you can? Why escalate the situation? Now to your Walmart scenario. Would you be standing in sporting goods having a shootout with someone in women's underwear? In a Hollywood movie, perhaps. Sounds to me like a situation where retreat is not only possible, but wise and more responsible than trying to prove your long range handgun prowess.
Well, lets look at it in another way...youre at the back of the church, and at the other end, is a nut job shooting people, what do you do? Run away, or deal? Maybe your wife and kids are up there in the front of the church, maybe its mine across the store at the Walmart. Would you want me to at least take the attention off those being shot, and preferably, end it outright (some of us do carry handguns that can, practice regularly, and have the skills to accomplish it), or should I just do as suggested, and run away, call 911, because Im "x" number of feet away, and because I can slip away?
Sometimes you need to man up and deal with things that need dealt with, whether or not you want to. Hopefully, youre at least somewhat prepared and capable to do so.
These days, is seems everyone on the internet and in the gun shops, is a self defense expert, and "knows" exactly when and what they can do, right down to the millisecond and millimeter. Run away seems to be a favorite response, because youre...to far away, it doesnt concern you, yada, yada, yada. Self defense is self defense. It may be in defense of you, it may be in defense of others who cant defend themselves, and youre the only game in town. You brought that gun along...what?.... right now youre not to sure?...Uhh... let me get my SD rule book out and see what I should do.
What I dont understand is, if you really feel the need to carry a gun, why dont you carry a gun that will allow you to cover the broadest possible range of what you might encounter? Instead of a gun thats the equivalent of a Hail Mary. I swear half the people I know, carry them as a badge of authority ("I just got my permit! I just got my permit!") or a fashion statement("This gun doesnt go with my tightie whities!"). Those same people are the ones you rarely see at the range practicing too.
Carry what you want, and practice how you want. When it all goes down, youre the one what has to deal with what you do, or dont do. No whining if what you get, isnt the gunfight you always win in your head.
I just hope if its my wife and kids at the end of the isle in Walmart, its mavracer, or one of the others who understand, who happens to be there.