Frank Ettin said:
Is there anything to be learned from this?
The importance of preplanning and clear thinking under duress.
I believe that one of the most important things that anyone can take away from forums like The Firing Line is that they've *considered*, by participating in these discussions, how they would behave under certain circumstances.
You should ask your self, and seriously ponder, a great many questions about hypothetical situations such as this one.
If I'm driving a car and a deer jumps out in front of me, I don't swerve. If I haven't thought about it, seriously, really considered it, my reaction is to swerve and we all know how that ends up so often.
If I'm at the range and hot brass goes down my shirt, what do I do? If I've thought about it, I carefully put down the gun and THEN I can flail around to get the brass out. I preplan to accept the burns that it will cause, knowing the importance of the safety aspect. If I haven't thought about it, I just flail around.... and maybe shoot someone.
It's a lot like the concept that we default to our training under extreme stress. The same goes for even basic mental training.