This is actually a pretty timely thread for you then dude, because one of the evolutions on Sunday in particular has alot of what we're talking about underscoring it.
This is actually a pretty timely thread for you then dude, because one of the evolutions on Sunday in particular has alot of what we're talking about underscoring it.
Lots of police officers who have never pulled the trigger have been faced with situations where lethal force is authorized.Originally Posted by Joseph Bell
Use of lethal force is a judgement call and it's generally one that normal people are hesitant to make. I mean, I don't really know a whole lot of people who are just itching for the chance to go through a gunfight on the street.
Here we're veering into the lane of people who have considerable experience dealing with bad guys and watching the aftermath of shooting incidents but I'll offer my 3 drachmas:
An interaction with a bad person is an interaction. The quality of the interaction can determine the ultimate outcome. Speaking personally, if I can get out of a situation without having to actually pull the trigger, I'm all for it. If in my interaction with the bad guy I can convince him that what remains of his existence will be blood-soaked agony before cold death and he decides he'd rather not gurgle out his last breaths at my feet, huzzah. If it takes pointing a gun at his face to make him believe he's about to meet Jesus, then so be it. I'll point the gun at his face. If he insists on pressing the matter past that point then he's insisting on oblivion and I'll oblige.
While there are some situations where there is absolutely no doubt about the correct course of action and immediate use of lethal force is the only answer, there are also situations where a display of the means and willingness to use lethal force can put an immediate end to the hostile actions without gunfire. People can argue about how representative the data set is, but it's absolutely clear that a significant number of defensive uses of firearms every year do not involve actually pulling the trigger. There are many factors that can contribute to a situation going down that way, but chief among them is the fact that introducing a gun into the situation significantly changes the dynamic for some bad guys. (Others may not give a rip)
If I'm making the final decision to shoot, I'd much rather make it with the pistol already in my hand than with it sitting in my holster. Now I may not have a choice in the matter due to circumstances...but if I've got enough situational awareness to spot a potential attack coming and I've taken some proactive actions to put myself into a better position as it's in the initial stages I may well be able to have my pistol out before the other guy has me completely in his trap. In that situation I'm pulling the pistol because I've recognized a criminal assault in progress and I expect that in the next couple of seconds I will probably need to pull the trigger to stop the other guy's hostile actions. I may not yet have made the decision that I need to shoot, but I'm in a position where I think that decision is literally a heartbeat away...and even though my draw is decent I'm not about to wait until I have the compulsion to pull the trigger to get the gun into a position where I can use it.
When the gun comes out I have every intention of using it should the bad guy force the issue. If it happens that when I start to pull the gun or that when I cover him with my muzzle that he decides he's had enough and runs, fantastic. Saves me a lot of headache. If producing the firearm causes him to pause for a second because his plan just went to hell, well, Ok. I'll improve my position as best I can and do whatever I think I need to do to convince him that yes, I really will end him on the spot. If I start to pull the gun and he isn't dissuaded at all from his course of action...well...I'm better off with the gun in my hand than with it in my holster.
What I think is being missed here is the recognition that criminal assaults are not binary events. They are highly dynamic. If you can spot one forming and do something about it before it gets to the point where you are facing incoming gunfire/stab wounds, then by all means do so. We're not taking about pulling the gun willy nilly just because somebody gives you the creeps, here. You've recognized a criminal assault and you're taking legitimate defensive measures to protect yourself.
I utterly loathe to use myself as an example, but I'm kind of forced to in order to make the point:
When the dude tried to rob me at the gas station I understood from the moment I saw him change direction to intercept me that he was going to rob me. I've mentioned previously that as soon as I saw him change direction I immediately thought I was going to have to shoot him. I didn't pull the gun then because at that point he was just a dude walking across a parking lot and it wouldn't have been a justifiable use of force. I watched the guy like a hawk as he closed distance on me and picked a spot at which I knew for a fact he was coming after me. When he hit that point I spun on him, dropped my stuff, and got into an interview position and started with verbal challenges. Mild at first, while I continued to make distance. He continued to encroach on me and got frustrated enough to drop the ruse and demand the money. When he did that he'd initiated a criminal assault and that was all the justification I needed to go from avoidance and attempts at deescalation to aggression. I stopped moving backwards, started moving AT him, and started to draw. As I was doing this I told him to back the ***CENSORED*** up at maximum volume. On top of all that, I'm watching his hand which is still in the pocket of his peacoat. I expected him to produce a weapon and try to kill me with it. I intended to stop him. I hadn't yet come to the conclusion that I had to shoot him...but I expected it to get to that point in literally a matter of a couple of seconds and I wasn't about to spot him those couple of seconds.
Now it so happens that somewhere in that process he decided to break off the attempt. I don't know exactly why he chose to break off the attempt because he fled into the darkness never to be seen again. The best read I can give is that he figured out I was pulling a gun and flight took precedence over fight.
If he had merely paused his attack out of shock or to regroup, I would have continued to draw and I would have pointed the gun right at him, started giving commands, and tried to put at least an obstacle (as much of the gas pump as I could get without loosing situational awareness) between us.
Had he approached with a drawn gun, things would have been different...but bad guys tend to wait to spring the trap until they're close. I was confronted with an unmistakable robbery attempt but the guy didn't have a weapon visible. He had a hand in a pocket concealing Heaven only knows what. Shooting him in the face wouldn't have been appropriate. Using absolutely no force wouldn't have been a good idea either. When it hit the point where I felt he was about to pull a weapon on me, I immediately started working on getting mine into play.
In a situation like that I'd argue it would have been a bad idea for me to wait until I needed to shoot the guy to begin putting myself in a position to offer a successful defense against his actions.
Last edited by TCinVA; 03-07-2012 at 11:25 AM.
Nice job on that Tim.
Agreed TCinVA and you put far more eloquently than I did. Having a lightning fast draw to first shot is awesome, but that precludes any deescalation. Again, I won't and don't advocate the gun as a deterrent, but as you put it, the dynamic nature of incidents like this aren't like a draw stroke count.
That's a great statement.
So just in a couple of threads in the past couple of days we have a story from TCinVA, Zhurdan, and one other poster (the story of the "maintenance" guys coming into his house) about managing potential problems with the presence of firearms at various levels of "touching the gun" and "out of the holster" that did not involve a ballistic ending. That's in this one....internet.....gun-forum.
Does anyone still believe that the "vast majority" of "citizen" firearms application will be a decisive draw and fire from the holster?
Prove it. Not saying someone can't. Just want to see it.
So are you saying that managing unknown contacts is more complicated than that?
I've only pointed a gun at someone as a civilian once, and I had every intention of shooting him. The short recap: dude came around the corner of my office with a knife/stabbing implement in one hand demanding my car keys and wallet, I threw a latte at him because it was in my hand and then went for my gun. I didn't end up shooting him, because the situation went from "shoot this guy" to "oh, he's running away" in the time it took me to get my gun out of the (shitty) pocket holster. I was running behind the curve because the guy caught me completely flatfooted outside my office; everything I did was a reaction to his actions from throwing my coffee to drawing my gun to not shooting him.
I swore off pocket carry after that day.
Amen. Just as I had to swear off glovebox carry. There a myraid of scenarios where overt and clear intent to do harm to you or another has been demonstrated that may justify producing the weapon, including covering the BG with it and not firing. From my limited experience, even with alertness providing some warning, things happen very very quickly. Then change even faster. With training and developed skills, you may find you have confidence because you are mentally able to keep up with the speed of it; pulling 3Gs in your OODA. I have to imagine poorly skilled folks without mental prep must go into blind panic.
“Remember, being healthy is basically just dying as slowly as possible,” Ricky Gervais
So, subject to the range of different possible interactions, is it possible to define best practice, starting at the beginning of the continuum and progressing all the way to pressing the trigger?
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