To muzzle or not to muzzle

[GJM]

I am interested in a discussion as to why a civilian in one instance, and why a LE person in another instance, would muzzle a person they are not in the process of shooting. The Fairfax thread covered part of it, and got me thinking about having a thread dedicated to this one issue.

I have discussed this offline with Gabe and Darryl, and know they have some opinions on this topic. Hope they and others will describe the reasons a civilian or LE person should or should not muzzle someone they are not in the process of shooting.

[breakingtime91]

Good thread GJM. Tagged to learn

[Dagga Boy]

I am jacked up with a massive sinus infection. This is too important a topic to type without full attention. I will likely do a typical DB dissertation on my personal thoughts on the subject over the weekend.

[gtmtnbiker98]

I've directly held a pistol on several suspects that I didn't have to shoot. We don't deal with absolutes, certain situations require a rapidly escalated use of force continuum. Did I have the intention to shoot the person, given provocation, absolutely. Luckily I haven't had to shoot in the line of duty, but I've certainly drawn on a number of non compliant individuals.

LE has societal roles to perform, whereas the armed citizen does not have a role and only chooses to go armed for self protection. There will always be differing responses to confrontation. One has a duty to react the other does not.

[cclaxton]

I am interested in a discussion as to why a civilian in one instance, and why a LE person in another instance, would muzzle a person they are not in the process of shooting. The Fairfax thread covered part of it, and got me thinking about having a thread dedicated to this one issue.

I have discussed this offline with Gabe and Darryl, and know they have some opinions on this topic. Hope they and others will describe the reasons a civilian or LE person should or should not muzzle someone they are not in the process of shooting.

I assume you mean intentionally, rather than by mistake?
Cody

[Mr_White]

I thought the side discussion on ready positions/muzzling/justification in the other thread was a fascinating topic, so I'm glad this thread was started.

Speaking only from the private citizen perspective, I have several thoughts. Sorry for the long post, but I think the subject deserves it.

I think the discussion of muzzling vs. a muzzle-averted ready vs. leaving the gun in the holster boils down to three essential parts that end up intertwined: safety, efficiency of engagement, and legal justification.

Safety: I think it is unquestionably safer to not point a gun at a person than to point it at them. Someone is a lot less likely to get shot if a gun is not pointed at them.

Efficiency of engagement: a fundamental chain of events must be understood here. Before we can shoot, we have to decide to shoot. Before we can decide to shoot, we have to see something that tells us that we need to shoot. The chain goes from seeing to deciding to acting. In order to get that chain started as efficiently and correctly as possible, we need to enable the decisionmaking with a ready position that allows unobstructed vision. So that means not being on the sights before the decision to actually fire has been made.

And the finger needs to be in register too. There is plenty of time, while the gun is being presented, to work the trigger efficiently and not add unnecessary time to the equation.

The engagement efficiency part of this is worth spending a significant effort on in training. People need to 'get it', deep down in themselves, that they can be in a proper ready position that allows unobstructed vision (muzzle averted and not on sights), with their finger in register, and still engage very efficiently. They need to practice this and know it, and I personally think this is one of the big antidotes to some extremely dangerous behaviors like trigger checking.

Legal justification: I realize that this is going to vary somewhat by locale, but I personally think that private citizens do not have very wide latitude to threaten deadly force against another person. I think that requires justification very similar to that necessary to use deadly force against another person. LE ends up having somewhat more latitude because of foreknowledge about a person or situation, such as responding to a call reported to be an armed robbery, or the person involved is known to be armed and has assaulted LE before. If private citizens had that kind of foreknowledge, maybe we could use it too, but we normally just don't have it. I do think a private citizen will have somewhat more latitude in a home defense situation though.

Generally speaking, I think that any time one person makes another person aware that they are armed or brings further attention to their visibly armed status, typically by assuming an armed posture (ready position), putting a hand on a visibly holstered gun, or displaying a gun that was previously concealed, and then issues commands, it is likely to be construed as a threat of deadly force, and I believe that threat is going to need to be justified or it may be viewed as a criminal act of one type or another.

I think the exact position of the gun will be largely irrelevant to this aspect of the discussion. It's hard to argue it's not a threat of deadly force to point a gun directly at someone. But I don't think that not having a gun pointed directly at someone necessarily means they are not being threatened with deadly force.

Let's consider a couple of examples.

A person walks into a store, lifts their shirt making the cashier aware of a pistol in the waistband, says give me the money. That's an armed robbery. Robber didn't even put a hand on the gun.

Different person, at home, neighborhood teens are skateboarding on the sidewalk in front of the home, waxing the curb, they get in the driveway a bit, and the resident doesn't like it. Resident comes outside with a pistol in hand, pointed at the ground, tells the teens to stay off the property. My belief is that there is a large possibility that those actions are going to be seen as an unjustified threat of deadly force against the teens.

I think that the justification needed to threaten deadly force against someone is very similar to the justification needed to use deadly force against someone. It's essentially the same, but with an allowance made for either a luxury or necessity of time, imposed by the physical situation, that either allows us to threaten before shooting and possibly gain compliance, or requires us to get the gun in hand if we expect any realistic opportunity to protect ourselves.

Two examples.

Robbery being committed as described above, with the presence of the gun and the robbery announced, but with the gun left in the waistband. Justification for use or threat of deadly force against the robber is present. But if the cashier were armed, they might make the choice to initiate and draw their own gun to a ready position, effectively giving the robber another chance to avoid getting shot, a chance allowed by a small luxury of time due to the fact that the robber's gun is still in the waistband.

Or, same cashier in a confined area, this time with an apparent mental case with a knife in hand, relatively close, inside the proverbial 21 feet, gesturing, threatening the clerk, going off about the devil, radio transmitters in his teeth, saying I'll come over there and cut your head off, etc. Obviously threatening the clerk with the knife, but not presently commencing the attack and closing distance. Justification for the use of deadly force is present in my view (particularly given the amount of time the medical establishment tells us it can take for pistol bullets to physiologically force incapacitation through loss of blood pressure), though I think sometimes there might be some argument about justification when the attack is not presently underway. But I do think there is an articulable necessity to get the gun in hand to enable a faster response than without a gun in the hand. If the defender's gun is still holstered when the attack commences from that distance, there is unlikely to be time to employ it effectively.

------

So what does all this lead to for me? For one thing, I am going to be very conservative about assuming any visibly armed posture, and reserve that for situations where I believe the use of deadly force is essentially justified anyway, with the same level of specific articulation. I don't think that "I was afraid" or "I didn't know if he had a gun" or "he could have a weapon" are going to be sufficient. If I am going to get the gun in hand, I want to stick to one of several positions that offer slightly differing utility. I want a general ready position that allows the muzzle to be averted while maintaining unobstructed vision and an extremely efficient engagement. I want a ready position that allows unobstructed vision and protects the gun better when there is, or could be, a proximate threat. I want a ready position that allows unobstructed vision and does not explicitly project deadly force in the forward direction. And I think it's worth considering establishment of master grip on the holstered pistol as a form of ready position (the essential characteristics are there - unobstructed vision and gun in hand, but the gun can remain protected by the holster even if we simply let go of it.)

One thing that doesn't fit into this for me is an 'enhanced' attempt at gaining compliance by conspicuously aiming directly at a person. One LEO that I know has told me that is something he's experienced some success with. I don't have the experience to have any real opinion on the effectiveness of that, but I'm interested in what other people think there, and looking forward to this discussion generally.

[Chuck Haggard]

Very good observations Mr. White, I concur, strongly.

More when I have time, but in the past I have muzzled literally hundreds of bad guys over the years, before I changed philosophy about this sort of thing and used safer ready positions. I noted zero difference in bad guy behavior between muzzling and not muzzling said bad guys.

Uncle Scotty is well known as a no bullshit gunfighter, I take note of his observation ref bad guys being well intimidated by low ready and a resolute good guy; https://www.swatmag.com/articles/the-low-ready-position

Many suspects actually commented on the fact that they felt we were “ready” for them when confronted with a low ready position. When the very real bad guys issue statements to this effect, it tends to validate the overall issue.

[Peally]

Great post Gabe. I'm interested in that last bit as well, at least for LEO (I have a hard time imagining many uses for private citizens).

Warrants, high risk stops, etc can often go south quickly and I do think there's a big degree of "we're not fucking around, comply or get shot" in effect during many police actions. Pointing guns at people is a tool in the toolbox to make them stop what they're doing in that regard (IMO).

ETA: beat to the reply by Chuck. Great input gentlemen!

[TGS]

I've pointed my gun at someone trying to break through a window, but not shot them.

I would do such again .

[23JAZ]

I am going to be very conservative about assuming any visibly armed posture, and reserve that for situations where I believe the use of deadly force is essentially justified anyway, with the same level of specific articulation. I don't think that "I was afraid" or "I didn't know if he had a gun" or "he could have a weapon" are going to be sufficient. If I am going to get the gun in hand, I want to stick to one of several positions that offer slightly differing utility. I want a general ready position that allows the muzzle to be averted while maintaining unobstructed vision and an extremely efficient engagement. I want a ready position that allows unobstructed vision and protects the gun better when there is, or could be, a proximate threat. I want a ready position that allows unobstructed vision and does not explicitly project deadly force in the forward direction. And I think it's worth considering establishment of master grip on the holstered pistol as a form of ready position (the essential characteristics are there - unobstructed vision and gun in hand, but the gun can remain protected by the holster even if we simply let go of it.

That is the perfect explination of my stand on this matter as a civilian. Could not have been said better. Thank you Mr. White.