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Sometimes we on this board might be guilty of over-thinking things. I've recently been rethinking some of that over-thinking, which I admit is just another form of over-thinking. Still, we've seen several events in the last year that have caused me to reconsider several pieces of conventional wisdom.

I'm not conclusively saying to go against these, but they do warrant a little more thought.

1. Choose common calibers, because you can find them anywhere, they're always available, and in a disaster, they'll still be manufactured.

Several threads have already discussed this. It might be wise emergency preparedness to have one firearm in a less-common caliber. Throughout the ammunition shortage of the last eight months, a 10mm owner wouldn't have noticed anything different. They could've gone to any of the stores near me and bought all the ammo they wanted.

2. After a shooting, never talk to the police, they'll use everything against you. Politely refuse to give a statement and ask for a lawyer.

This might still be good advice, but it would have backfired for George Zimmerman. He didn't have to take the stand in the trial because he gave those six mostly consistent statements to the police. His cooperation helped paint him as less suspicious, especially when the detectives testified. It's come out that he did want to testify in court and his lawyers talked him out of it because 1) the prosecution's case was weak and 2) the state submitted all of his statements. Taking the stand could have been a disaster with those aggressive prosecutors.

3. Stick to the script "I feared for my life." "I shot to stop the threat."

Again referring to the Zimmerman case, the key words are out there and known. They aren't magic words, and if - God forbid - you have to defend yourself with deadly force, looking groomed or rehearsed could backfire.

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For 2 and 3, I think the conventional wisdom is still the way to go, but we must use common sense and avoid perfunctory delivery. In the general public perspective, the good guys trust the cops and work with them because the cops are on their side. I think I would give a quick statement to the police.

Also, if such an event gets pulled into the media machine, expect all of our conversations, hypotheticals, and advice on this forum to end up as part of the prosecution's case against you.

Have any of you noticed your views of these topics shifting even slightly over the last year?