"could have" is the point. Sometimes even if it "could have" it isn't. Better to have something that might not need be used than vice versa. OP also isn't guaranteed to always be alone in situations that can't be de-escalated (and plenty of fights happen with prior warning, belligerence etc.). It is always better to be able to contribute than not if your friend is attacked or some other thing happens.
And you bringing up mugging is irrelevant, because nobody would ever say that someone who has you at gunpoint in a mugging should be struggled against, martial arts or not. No serious martial arts instructor would ever recommend or even float that as an option. You always give them your shit. That's not what self-defense is for, fighting back against armed muggers.
Having a gun can help de-escalate through threat if there's distance and it hasn't broken out, but if a fight has already started or the distance can be closed before you can access it or even worse after you've drawn it but can't point and fire it, now you've added a lethal variable and turned a fight of-some-kind into an almost certainly lethal scenario. And by that point too if you aren't trained enough to know how to control someone's limbs in wrestling for the gun, you're increasingly possibly fucked.
It is very very good to train martial arts, and very very good to train the ability to run away fast, and always hope you can opt for the latter in most cases.
your advice about using guns to de-escalate is literally illegal and dangerous advice, at least in america. see my other comments in this thread.
you should consider reading this article (warning: NSFW, CW: SV, SA), it has a slightly different focus than this conversation but has tangentially relevant insights imo. no one is saying not to train martial arts
"could have" is the point. Sometimes even if it "could have" it isn't. Better to have something that might not need be used than vice versa. OP also isn't guaranteed to always be alone in situations that can't be de-escalated (and plenty of fights happen with prior warning, belligerence etc.). It is always better to be able to contribute than not if your friend is attacked or some other thing happens.
And you bringing up mugging is irrelevant, because nobody would ever say that someone who has you at gunpoint in a mugging should be struggled against, martial arts or not. No serious martial arts instructor would ever recommend or even float that as an option. You always give them your shit. That's not what self-defense is for, fighting back against armed muggers.
Having a gun can help de-escalate through threat if there's distance and it hasn't broken out, but if a fight has already started or the distance can be closed before you can access it or even worse after you've drawn it but can't point and fire it, now you've added a lethal variable and turned a fight of-some-kind into an almost certainly lethal scenario. And by that point too if you aren't trained enough to know how to control someone's limbs in wrestling for the gun, you're increasingly possibly fucked.
It is very very good to train martial arts, and very very good to train the ability to run away fast, and always hope you can opt for the latter in most cases.
your advice about using guns to de-escalate is literally illegal and dangerous advice, at least in america. see my other comments in this thread.
you should consider reading this article (warning: NSFW, CW: SV, SA), it has a slightly different focus than this conversation but has tangentially relevant insights imo. no one is saying not to train martial arts
another related article