Hey, why fight at ALL?

LaSur

LaSur, there’s a world of difference between having some options to diffuse potentially violent situations and simply ‘giving up without a fight’. Sounds like you’ve been faced with some horrible incidents, but we cannot simply come out shooting whenever we think there MIGHT be violence. You ask where we should draw the line. Excellent question, and one each of us must consider before push comes to shove. Please do keep in mind, though, that we have to survive two fights, the first violent encounter, and then the legal and emotional aftermath. If we are forced to kill someone who is threatening us, then our actions leading up to that point will be scrutinized very closely. Having attempted to diffuse the situation should stand one in good stead.
I think you’re coming down kind of hard on Levan. It sounds to me like he’s trying to explore all options. I don’t see his question as being indicative of ‘giving up’ at all. His thoughts seem prudent to me. If / when I’m faced with a verbal altercation, I’ll try my best to diffuse it. In my experience, it can usually be done. If things escalate, I can respond accordingly, up to ‘front site, trigger press, repeat as necessary’
 
Powderman:
Unfortunately, the REAL combat mindset--the ability to hurt badly, even fatally if needed, and the maturity to retreat whenever possible--is something you can't buy in schools for any price.
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Outstanding sentence! Can I use that? :)

I especially like the last part - "the maturity to retreat whenever possible." You are obviously an adult - not many such around nowadays.

Skorzeny
 
Thanks for the compliment.

I am reminded of a line from one of my favorite movies--Full Metal Jacket. (I STILL get flashbacks from watching that movie!!!)

This might be a rather loose quote:

"If your heart is not pure, you will HESITATE at the moment of truth.

"You will become DEAD Marines--and then you will be in a world of ****;

"Because Marines are NOT allowed to die without permission!"

--GySgt Hartman (F. Lee Ermey)

Incidentally, from what I understand, almost ALL of the Boot Camp dialogue from Lee Ermey was ad libbed!! After all, he had the experience of being a real Marine Drill Instructor to draw on.

However, movie or not, the saying is true without exception.

Carrying a firearm may make you feel better. Indeed, the person who carries the latest hi-cap whatever, with 3 pre-ban mags, loaded with the best and most accurate ammunition money can buy.

He or she might have tons of well paid for training from Front Sight, InSight, LFI, Thunder Ranch, Blackhawk, Gunsite, etc.

But the one thing that is missing might be the most important thing, and that is the resolve and determination to pull the trigger if needed.

Believe me, all the hardware in the world don't mean jack.

Much more dangerous than the person described above is the person who may carry just a Colt Detective Special, or maybe a Taurus .38 snub--or maybe even a Colt Gov't Model mil surp, without the bells and whistles, who is READY, WILLING, and ABLE to cut loose without hesitation. From Dune: "Fear is the mind killer". And yes, hesitation kills.

To all who read this, I posit this question:

Are you ready? REALLY ready?

Can you stomach another human being, crying for his mom, as he lays there on the ground to your front, bleeding his life away?

How about the guy who just threatened your life moments before with a weapon, laying there in agonal reflex, blowing his lungs through his mouth from the double tap you just dealt?

Maybe a teenager, with half their head gone from the impact of two .45 hollowpoints.

Or the home invader with their head totally avulsed from the full charge of 00 Buck you just hit him with?

God forbid, what if you have to shoot a WOMAN??

Think about it long and hard, my friends. THAT is what you buy into when you carry concealed. That is what you are prepared to deal out. Death, in all its horrid, bloody majesty.

If you choose to carry, then fine. Know the potential. Prepare for it.

On the other hand, what if YOU are the one shot?

Can you keep up the fight? Can you respond through grevious injury? Remember SA Edmund Mireles, from the Miami Shootout. His right arm was almost TOTALLY blown away from the close range impact of 5.56 rounds.

Yet, he was the one who finally dealt the killing shots to those who tried to kill him.

Get into the groove, folks. Develop the REAL combat mindset.

And again, above all--know that walking away is the better choice, even after minor injury. At whatever price there is to your dignity or pride.

Good luck, stay safe, and God bless.
 
Another element of this "combat" mindset, I would think, is the ability to (what I call) "externalize" pain - that is, feeling pain, yet so remotely (as if it is outside your body, or more accurately, outside your brain) that you can appreciate it but not let it affect your resolve and determination to continue.

Pain hurts, and it breaks down everyone eventually, but one can learn to, to some extent, separate the sensation from one's mind.

Along with the ability to "pull the trigger in the moment of truth" and the maturity (and good tactical sense) to rereat where possible, I think the ability to take pain and suffering, yet continue forms the fighting mentality.

Skorzeny
 
Powderman

You may be right, I may have been too hard on Lavan...for that I apologize, but I wanted to bring a harsh reality to this thread that I hoped that the readers picked up on and I am not very good at saying it.

Sounds like you've seen the elephant too. What years were you in 'Nam?

Skorzeny states it better than I can. When caught off guard, you use whatever you can to buy time so that you either have the best advantage that you can to fight or run. (or if you can, leave peacefully without fighting)

The best defense is not to be there...if you can see it coming.

In regards to Lavan's thread, it is better to verbally de escalate the situation before it can get to the point where you have to fight. (if you can) or submit to the BG and look for an opening. Then the BG already has an advantage.

In the toolies, we learned that a good (longer lived) soldier learned when to fight, when to bugout, and when to do other tactical things. In civilian life, we have to consider more options because of other factors (civil lawsuit, etc., etc.)

Hope that was more related to Lavan's thread. Peace, brother.
 
Wasn't in Viet Nam, friend. But, that wasn't due to lack of effort.

In 1974, being all of 14 years old but really big for my age, I walked into a recruiting office and took the ASVAB. Scored really high, too.

Fortunately, I thought better of it, and dropped the whole packet in the mailbox. Left it alone, and joined in 1977.

No, unfortunately, the elephant I've seen was in the supposedly safe place--my home town, the City of Chicago, on the South Side. There, many times I was witness to the things that men can do to each other over some really trivial stuff.

Example #1 was an acquaintance who made a really bad mistake for that neck of the woods. He started a sentence in anger to an antagonist with the words, "your momma..........." The other guy capped him with a small caliber handgun, I think a .32. The victim was gutshot. He died in the hospital.

Example #2 was a police shooting. The BG was shot twice in the chest with a gun I now recognize as a S&W Model 10, I think.

Example #3 was a slight paraphrase, derived from a picture I saw recently during training. A guy caught it from a 12 gauge, at powder burn range. VERY ugly.

There are others. At 9 years old, I saw a guy get his gut opened up with a straight razor. Don't know why. My father and I were walking to the store at night. These two guys seemed to be talking. Then, one seemed to move his hand from lower to upper, and then just walk away. The victim turned, grabbing his gut. He moved his hands, and his intestines spilled onto the ground. He picked them up slightly (so they weren't dragging), walked over to a doorway, and sat down. The police found him the next day.

I've seen stuff no kid should ever have to see at that age. And, when the first time came that I had someone at gunpoint, I could only think of two things:

As I drew, I thought, "front sight". As the pistol settled aimed at center mass, I thought, "target". No jitters, no raised pulse, nothing. I guess it was a combination of military training, police training, and the stuff I saw when I was a kid.

However, and this may sound strange--I KNOW that if the time ever comes when I have to drop the hammer, I will. May sound a bit like bravado--but I don't think so.
 
Similar pathes

Powderman,
Sounds like you and I have walked similar pathes. Peace, brother....you have seen enough of the elephant. I hope the remainder of your life is in security and fairly boring but happy.
You're right, what we've seen as kids, no one should have to see.
As it is, you and I and many like us know why we fight for RKBA.

i don't see what you say as bravado...simply a statement of fact owing to your life experiences and making a commitment to the protection of lives for the ones you care for.

Someone in this thread mentoned that it shouldn't be our intent to gundown the BG, that we need to be concerned about the legal aspects of defending yourself. I agtee, but first things first. We need to survive the threat first. If possible, we escape from the threat. Often in real life, these are split second decisions. Ask anyone whose been there.

Many folks talk about seeing the threat to avoid the threat. That's why many of us practice for this and also play the scenario (what-if) games. Read a lot of the news accounts provided by a lot of TFL'ers....quite often the people did not see it coming.

Now, friend Lavan, brings up verbal defense once the baloon goes up. This has to be practiced too.

I propose as a means of practicing, use the security of your car and use verbal judo. Sounds silly? Try it when two BG's come up to you with one brandishing a knife and the other brandishing a gun. How about when three BG's come up to you with two pointing and cocking their guns at your head? Maybe 17 guys rolling up their belts and saying they are going to kick your "a$$!"?

These were not scenarios...these were real situations that verbal judo helped at the appropriate times.

Please practice it....out loud. People already think you're crazy, right? Practice can only help. Now people know that I am crazy.
 
I was taught a long time ago when I was working as a corrections officer. Always give them a way out. Meaning in that situation I had to be in charge and could not back down. I would always give them 3 options for an ultimatum. You go to the hole. We handle it here. Or you do as I say, which was always the easiest.
On the street you don't have to be in charge, swallow your pride and walk away. If you are forced into a corner give them an easy way out if applicable.
 
I don't usually post on this forum, but a question comes to mind while reading this thread. Can anyone offer an informed opinion on how to determine quickly, under stress, whether the adversary confronting you, verbally offering deadly force, is simply looking for an easy mark,(just engaging in his livelihood, as it were), or if the adversary is actually in a murderous rage, looking to kill someone to satisfy some inner demon?
 
Terrific question. I freely acknowledge that I've led a sheltered existence but I think I'd have more trouble not with "if" but "when." I realize the importance of awareness and that in some situations it would be pretty obvious when you need to act but in a lot of others you'll be walking a fine line between either over-reacting with someone who doesn't deserve it or reacting too late to someone who most definitely does.
 
Hutch:
Can anyone offer an informed opinion on how to determine quickly, under stress, whether the adversary confronting you, verbally offering deadly force, is simply looking for an easy mark,(just engaging in his livelihood, as it were), or if the adversary is actually in a murderous rage, looking to kill someone to satisfy some inner demon?
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I am by no means a CQB expert, so take it with a grain of salt, but in my experience, you can pick up certain signs of possible aggression - physical manifestations (for example, change in pupil size, rapid breathing or holding breaths, tightened/clenched muscles) that indicate rise in adrenaline level.

Since these are often minute signs that are difficult to read at distance, I ususally take it as a possible sign of aggression when people rapidly move into my "personal space" without verbal or physical indications of friendliness. When I was younger (and living in NYC for a long time), I didn't realize that I had this "space" or the "guard" up all the time until I moved out of NYC, lived in a nice, safe suburban area and went back to NYC.

Skorzeny
 
I appreciate the tips, but it's obviously ambiguous, and not something one can reliably depend on. As the Great Yogi said, "You can sum it up on one word: You never know".
 
A few weeks back, while driving in the Kendall area of Miami, I was confronted by three younguns in a convertable. The driver thought I had denied him the right to cut me off, and squeeze around me to turn right onto Sunset off of 117th SW. As we both rounded the corner, and drove East, they pulled around and got along side of my Pick up. The driver, and then front seat passenger were very abusive, cursing first in Spanish, and then when I just waved and smiled, in English.

They became enraged, and said among other things, that I needed to take some %&*$#$ driving lessons. I kept smiling, and told the main motor mouth, that when I finished my 'date' with his momma later that afternoon, I would look into those lessons.

At this point, it started to get ugly, but suddenly, it dawned on the little miscreants, that there might be a reason for my not fearing them. Two of the guys laughed and said:

El tío no está asustado de usted, licencia justa él solamente

Pretty smart on their part.
 
re:
To all who read this, I posit this question:

Are you ready? REALLY ready? Can you stomach another human being, crying for his mom, as he lays there on the ground to your front, bleeding his life away? ... Think about it long and hard, my friends.... If you choose to carry, then fine. Know the potential. Prepare for it.
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Good points by many. The Combat Triad is marksmanship, gunhandling, and MINDSET. Without the latter, you're kidding yourself. You don't rise to the occasion, you default to your level of training, as a sage said, and that includes how you've trained your mind and body to respond to threat scenarios. Also includes knowing when to retreat, which is preferable to fighting whenever possible.

Unless you are a sociopath, there WILL be some serious short-term (at least) psychological impact from your use of deadly force, unless you are ill-prepared or just unlucky, lose the encounter, and are dead. Worry about what happens afterwards when it comes to pass, and concentrate and prepare for winning and surviving.

My $.02 :) Be safe, smart, and prepared.
 
I've noticed that a lot of street critters need to psych themselves up to do violence... It doesn't come cold and natural to them, like it can to folks who've been trained...

They'll convince themselves that the jacket you're wearing is an insult, that it should really belong to them, that it's rightously theirs, etc., and work themselves up. By the time they come up to you, they're raging inside.
 
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