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JodyH
02-09-2012, 06:13 PM
How many times have you heard that defensive shootings happen so fast you won't have time to do anything except react?
Usually followed by a dissertation on why night sights, lasers, aimed fire practice are all a waste of time and all you need to be able to do is hit a dirt berm at 3ft. and you're good to go.

Aaaarrrrgggghhhhh!!!!!

Bad guys don't just appear out of thin air.
"He asked me for a cigarette and the next thing I know, he robbed me!"
No...
He was robbing you when he asked for the cigarette. It's just your situational awareness and your ability to manage the initial contact sucked.

The better you are at seeing trouble coming and staying ahead of or at least even with the bad guys escalation the more skill and tactics come into play.
People who think that the only thing they'll be able to do is react... are probably right.

DonovanM
02-09-2012, 07:05 PM
Agreed.

In a related argument, I don't know crap about how humans react under stress and I've never been in a fight for my life, but I think the attitude that rational thought and the ability to actively problem solve go completely out the window when you get violently attacked isn't true for all people confronted with such behavior. Now they certainly may be diminished, but I'm just not willing to assume I'll suddenly forget how to use my slide stop or assume a proper firing grip or something under stress even though I've performed like a thousand reloads where every time I've swiped the slide stop as soon as the mag is seated and in the past 6 months or so only blown my firing grip 2-3 times in practice.

Like that line in a Magpul DVD. "How will you know your grip is 60/40 in a gunfight?" Uh, because I've trained that way every single time for the past 2 years.

If someone puts a gun in my face and I suddenly blubber like a fish out of water, I will happily change my mind and eat crow so fast it'll still be flapping its wings in my stomach. Til then I continue in blissful skepticism.

JHC
02-09-2012, 07:51 PM
I've always seen them coming but I can appreciate how they could be on you in a blink; seemingly out of nowhere too. Hence all the training. It might not all go one way. OTOH, even when you have a moment to realize something is developing, it still develops really quickly. "Ah had to think fast. Faster than the squirrel."

JHC
02-09-2012, 07:59 PM
Agreed.

I think the attitude that rational thought and the ability to actively problem solve go completely out the window when you get violently attacked isn't true for all people confronted with such behavior. Now they certainly may be diminished, but I'm just not willing to assume I'll suddenly forget how to use my slide stop or assume a proper firing grip or something under stress even though I've performed like a thousand reloads where every time I've swiped the slide stop as soon as the mag is seated and in the past 6 months or so only blown my firing grip 2-3 times in practice.
.

It seems some folks have the panic gene and they go to mush under this sort of pressure. But some don't seem to have that gene at all. So that being suddenly aware of being stalked by a handful of bad guys or realizing your car is completely out of your control on a busy interstate trigger very similiar dreamlike states of seeing, thinking, reacting, forgetting nothing, thinking of solutions, executing solutions you didn't have to "think" about - all in seconds. So I think your quite right. And IMO, the fact you believe that, predisposes you to make that so.

"Stand UP!" "Hook UP!" triggered mind numbing fear in me. Once the shuffling to the door started, that dream state kicked in and it was nothing.

NETim
02-09-2012, 08:10 PM
Yep, situational awareness is your friend.

HeadHunter
02-09-2012, 09:56 PM
From a 5 year analysis of The Armed Citizen (482 incidents) I did years ago:


Incidents rarely occurred in reaction time (i.e., ¼ second increments). Most commonly, criminals acted in a shark-like fashion, slowly circling and alerting their intended victims. The defender(s) then had time to access even weapons that were stored in other rooms and bring them to bear.

3) Frequently, the defenders were aware that something was amiss before the action started and then placed themselves in position to access their weapons. Awareness of the surroundings appears to be a key element of successful defense.

Al T.
02-09-2012, 10:31 PM
Only time I had a bad time was when a guy came running in to our position after dark. It took me freaking forever to chamber a round and put a Surefire in his eyes. But I got it done and he lived. My feelings of being slow were only apparent to me. If you train, wargame, mentally and physically rehearse, (IMHO) you tilt the odds in your favor in case of conflict.

Several years before, I had a pair of hoods cruise me and two blissninnies I was with. When I looked back, they had both turned around and were stalking back towards us. They got fairly close when I generated a sharp metallic click as I turned towards them. They had business elsewhere, back in their original direction of travel. Blissninnies never noticed.

jthhapkido
02-10-2012, 07:28 AM
Several years before, I had a pair of hoods cruise me and two blissninnies I was with. When I looked back, they had both turned around and were stalking back towards us. They got fairly close when I generated a sharp metallic click as I turned towards them. They had business elsewhere, back in their original direction of travel. Blissninnies never noticed.

[snork] I have GOT to find a way to use that in the next class I teach. That's a fantastic term, and absurdly apt.

NETim
02-10-2012, 08:30 AM
This guy (http://lightingdiscourse.blogspot.com/2012/01/personal-experience-carwash-ambush.html) has it down.

Al T.
02-10-2012, 10:41 AM
JTH, glad to be of service... :D

Tim, car washes worry me. Lots of channelization and distractions if you are washing your ride manually. Years ago a buddy was braced in a car wash, turned out OK by a measure of good luck.

Back on topic:

One of the reasons we train and practice is to get to the point of "unconscious competence" with core skills. As Jim Cirillo wrote in his book, in his first gunfight, he was astounded to see his revolver firing seemingly by it self. Under stress, he had internalized the steps needed to get that life saving tool up and running with out much conscious thought. IMHO, that's where I'd like to be when it comes to steering out of a skid, taking a fall, reacting to a punch or clearing a malfunction.

Tamara
02-10-2012, 10:46 AM
From a 5 year analysis of The Armed Citizen (482 incidents) I did years ago:

The problem with using "The Armed Citizen" as a database is it only recounts the tales with happy endings, never the ones where people got their heads stove in with tire irons while their derringer was still in their purse.

It's like stating that auto crashes are rarely fatal because 100% of the people you interviewed had survived them.

BLACK
02-10-2012, 12:48 PM
If you train, wargame, mentally and physically rehearse, (IMHO) you tilt the odds in your favor in case of conflict
Now thats a butthole group right there....right on the money!!
Cheers

BaiHu
02-10-2012, 01:34 PM
A proper training regimen, IMO and coming from a HTH background, is threefold.

1. Proper, slow, solo, technique training until it is so good you can do it at 'combat speed'. I hear it all the time on this forum. Dryfire trigger control, dryfire reloads, dryfire draws, dryfire TRBs, etc.

2. Proper, slow, solo, live technique training with a partner for HTH until you can do it at 'combat speed'. I hear this too all the time on the forum. Look at the list of drills that this forum has accumulated.

3. When 1 and 2 are done at full speed and your fundamentals are within the 'flawless' spectrum, then you add stressors like multiple attackers in HTH, being 'caught' in a technique already, being prone, supine, knife against unarmed, etc. I see these drills all the time on this forum too: hit smaller targets, moving targets, SOM, different shooting positions, timed drills, a buddy yelling out targets and number of shots, etc.

These 3 things, no matter what you are training in, are necessary in order for a practitioner to have spontaneous, efficient and correct practice UNCONSCIOUSLY. So when the SHTF, your technique will be on autopilot so that your awareness can begin to delineate proper threat priorities, etc. I believe that this is the essence of professionals practicing until they don't get it wrong.

ford.304
02-11-2012, 11:00 AM
The problem with using "The Armed Citizen" as a database is it only recounts the tales with happy endings, never the ones where people got their heads stove in with tire irons while their derringer was still in their purse.

It's like stating that auto crashes are rarely fatal because 100% of the people you interviewed had survived them.

This, and exactly this.

It's a much stronger data point for encouraging street thugs not to telegraph their intentions.

Sometimes you have time. Sometimes you don't. Whether you do or do not largely depends on two things:

1) Whether the punk gave it to you. A smart predator waits in ambush, and strikes with overwhelming force. If he screws up, assumes you won't notice, and/or doesn't take you seriously as a threat, then you might have time. Some guys sneak in with a request for a light. Some guys ambush you when you start worrying about the guy asking for a cigarette. Or sucker punch you in a line at McDonald's. The thing is, *you* don't get to control this part.

2) Whether you noticed that he made a mistake. This is the part situational awareness gets you. This is what you can control.

Situational awareness is important, and it makes the bad guy's job much harder... but even the best guys get surprised sometimes. Just finished reading Meditations on Violence, and even its author admitted to having been surprised by attacks. Your immediate reaction following that is as important as trying to make sure you see it coming.

So... always look, but don't expect to always see something before it hits you.