If you were to be out hiking and you came upon a cave, you might decide to go inside to explore. You turn on your flashlight and you pat the stainless steel .380 that you carry on these hikes. Mainly for snakes and your fear of bears, but also because you just never know when you’ll come upon an unsavory character that is also trying to get “lost” in the woods. Inside you go, into the eerie darkness that is broken only by the shaft of light raging from the end of your Maglite.
You can hear the muffled sound of a waterfall. It sounds if it is all around you and you can feel the cool mist of air that is creeping through the mouth of the cave as the waterfall churns it’s moisture into the thin air. You can’t see it, even with the flashlight focused in it’s way to far away and is very likely on the other end of this maze of a cave.
Within all of this noise you can hear faint little sounds that can only come from something alive and on the move. What is it? You don’t know but you pat that .380 and brace yourself for the worst. The worst happens, the light goes out! The sounds get suddenly louder and you can tell that something - much larger than you thought - is heading your way. You can’t see a thing but you still instictively reach for your .380, rip back the hammer with your thumb and start aiming in the direction of the noise. It’s hard to keep focused on the direction of the noise as the sound is being played off the voids of the cavern walls so you are rocking back and forth on your feet straining to hear.
You decide the only way to determine where and even if you fire, is to actually wait for contact. Then you can just jab that gun into it’s side and squeeze the trigger and it’s over. And you also know that it’s not just your imagination and you don’t wind up firing without actually identifying what you are shooting.
The contact never comes, in fact, you can now tell that the sounds are getting more faint and whatever it was is running away. But, you were prepared. You had your trusty .380 and you had made a responsible decision on how to cope with your sudden handicap when the light went out.
You were lucky that the dealer that sold you the pistol didn’t know you would be going into this cave or he would not have sold you the gun.
This is farfetched, but you should appreciate the analogy.
Being blind, in and of itself, does not preclude the need for personal protection. Just the opposite is true. By definition, being blind makes personal protection even more important as the individual is left more vulnerable than sighted persons.
Just as a responsible sighted person can adapt their use of a gun in differing environments, so can a blind person.
After all, you do carry your gun at night don’t you?