Tom Givens, American Handgunner article

[GJM]

Not sure if this was previously posted:

http://americanhandgunner.com/when-citizens-fight-back/

Includes student statistics on encounters and recommendations.

[Chuck Haggard]

I saw that last night. Excellent reading, basically a short version of his lecture, which is even more excellent.

[GJM]

A few excerpts:

Only two of my students’ shootings occurred at contact distance. In one of those cases the physical contact was purely accidental. In the other case physical contact was intentional, but the victim missed a large number of cues before he was struck with a club.
At the other end of the spectrum we have had three students who have had to engage at 15, 17 and 22 yards. The other 92 percent of our student-involved incidents took place at a distance of 3 to 7 yards, with the majority occurring between 3 and 5 yards. The rule of thumb then is most civilian shootings occur within the length of a car.
Only about 10 percent of our student-involved incidents occurred in or around the home, while 90 percent occurred in places like convenience stores, parking lots and shopping malls. The majority of the incidents began as armed robberies or carjackings, with a few violent break-ins involved.
The success/failure tally among the incidents involving my students is 62 wins, zero losses and two forfeits. Every one of our students who were armed won their confrontation. Only three of those were injured, and those three recovered. To the best of my knowledge, two people have gone through training with us and subsequently were murdered in separate street robberies — but neither was armed. This is why we put a great deal of emphasis in our training on the necessity of routinely carrying your gun.

Training Implications
Based on this data, we believe the following are key skills the private citizen should concentrate on in their training:
Quick, safe, efficient presentation of the handgun from concealed carry.
Delivery of several well-placed shots at distances from 3 to 7 yards.
Keeping the gun running, including reloading and fixing malfunctions.
Two-handed firing. We train our students to use two hands if at all possible and most have done so in their fights.
Bring the gun to eye level. This is the fastest way to achieve accurate gun alignment. All but two of our students brought the gun to eye level, and as a result got good hits. Two had to shoot from below eye level due to unusual circumstances.
Some effort expended on the contact distance problem, including empty hand skills and weapon retention skills. However, these are secondary skills for the private citizen.
Some effort dedicated to longer shots in the 15- to 25-yard range.

[JHC]

Good read. I bought the mag this morning just for it. Best thing in the issue.

[MVS]

Haven't seen the article yet, but have heard the lecture more than once. One of the takeaways for me is always the fact that none of the victors ever used or needed a light. We have to remember, and Tom readily admits, this is a very small database. Still, it is the only one I know of that gathers the relevant to us details.

[Savage Hands]

Great article!

[GJM]

Haven't seen the article yet, but have heard the lecture more than once. One of the takeaways for me is always the fact that none of the victors ever used or needed a light. We have to remember, and Tom readily admits, this is a very small database. Still, it is the only one I know of that gathers the relevant to us details.

I wasn't aware of that on the light. Possibly a function of more urban settings?

I also find fascinating how little physical contact was involved, either 1 or 2 instances only, out of 64 shootings. Never would have guessed that.

[joshs]

I wasn't aware of that on the light. Possibly a function of more urban settings?

I think I remember Chuck Haggard pointing out that this was very consistent with his experience. His theory was that the amount of ambient light needed to rob someone was generally sufficient to identify and engage a bad guy.

I also find fascinating how little physical contact was involved, either 1 or 2 instances only, out of 64 shootings. Never would have guessed that.

I've always thought that this was due to the the defenders having training on early identification of bad stuff. Although, it is also pretty consistent with data from the Armed Citizen(R). But, that data set has a huge selection bias because it generally only reports successful DGUs. It's possible that defenders do a lot worse once there is physical contact.

[GJM]

I've always thought that this was due to the the defenders having training on early identification of bad stuff. Although, it is also pretty consistent with data from the Armed Citizen(R). But, that data set has a huge selection bias because it generally only reports successful DGUs. It's possible that defenders do a lot worse once there is physical contact.

Not sure about the Armed Citizen validity, but Tom G's data set, as presented, is pretty definitive that his students went 62 or 64 to nothing against the bad guys, with two "forfeits" being unarmed.

[joshs]

Not sure about the Armed Citizen validity, but Tom G's data set, as presented, is pretty definitive that his students went 62 or 64 to nothing against the bad guys, with two "forfeits" being unarmed.

Sorry, the selection bias comment was about the Armed Citizen. The training comment was referring to Tom's data. I was giving the Armed Citizen data as a counterpoint to my theory about training being the factor that limited physical contact, since many of the defenders reported in the Armed Citizen have very little or no training.