Action v. Reaction
As said earlier, it is quite possible for someone in close proximity to evade a gunshot or take your weapon if you're holding him at gunpoint, even with a SA handgun.
Have you noticed how, in many forums and training classes, instructors (and even amongst all of us) there is so much emphasis on "doing it right" or "doing it by the book"? There are a lot of legal technicalities to worry about. And the warning is
you'd better know for a fact that you were in the right or plan on years in jail.
That can cause hesitation at the wrong moment. I'll combine two points I want to make here. First, suppose your state's laws say that if someone enters your home through a
locked door, window, crawlspace, roof access, etc. etc. and offers violence, there is no need to retreat and lethal force is justified.
So here you are at oh-damn-thirty, standing in your BVD's, at the corner of the end of the hallway with a commanding view of the living room and kitchen, your favorite pistol braced against the corner in classic barricade stance. The sights are centered on Dudley Dirtbag who has dropped
your 8-inch chef's knife on the living room carpet and from about 9 feet away he's in the "surrender position".
Now, he starts talking to you, laying the story on you. He thought it was his buddy's house (doesn't explain the knife, me bucko!) because the door was "unlocked" or "wide open". He says he's sorry, but "man, if you shoot me, you're gonna be spendin' money like Congress." He tells you he's unarmed, that the cops are sure to see your knife as a "plant".
First, the uncertainty principle starts to work. We've all been
the devil is in the details -- like was the door/window locked? He can add to that by raising the issue your legal fees or the "planted" evidience. He's expecting you to try to assimilate this, sift through the "am I justified to shoot" decision tree and conclude there is doubt about your justification.
Meanwhile, he's managed with causal body movements while speaking to ease about 6-12 inches closer to you. This is calculated to allow him to get within
his striking zone while your brain is still figuring things out.
He wants you to ignore any weapons he threw down or objects he had in his hands. He wants you to ignore the fact that his unlawful presence constitutes a clear danger.
So, the really astute student will identify the threat is armed and when he realizes he's been discovered by an armed resident, he drops his weapon and "surrenders". At this stage, depending on distance from you, your ability to observe him out the nearest exit, and other factors, you give him short, terse, un-ambigious commands:
Get out of my house NOW! or
"Get on the ground. Get on the ground NOW!" If he begins to argue the point as above, repeat the command and if he doesn't follow your commands, it's time to see how well your JHP selection really works.
This means short-circuiting some of the "normal" decision processes. You've ID'd the bad guy as not belonging there, armed or posing a serious threat, he's uncooperative and refuses an opportunity to disengage and flee. Thus, his threat continues since he is unafraid of being shot/killed he must believe he can gain the advantage and disable YOU. At this stage, it is irrelevant if the door/window was unlocked or that he is (now) disarmed. Logic dictates he demonstrated his evil intent by being armed inside your home in the first place.
This is why old men and little ladies have bested bad guys with their own weapon, they refused to be victims, they react bad guy is surprised then he is shot. I'll take a 76 year old lady with spunk over a 22 year old game boy expert any day of the week when it comes to surviving a bad day. I don't care how fast Game boys reflexes are.
This may also be due to some of our senior citizens having a sense of outrage that someone would pick on them and/or not really knowing or caring about the technical details of the law. Simple disparity of force will favor the senior over the teen and offset some of the technical requirements. Plus, many people think of Seniors as slow, frail and frightened "old fogeys", forgetting that they've been in worse places, like
Tarawa, Iwo Jima, Dachau, Bataan, Pusan and
Khe Sahn -- and seen tougher foes. And it's simply tougher to hold seniors in those situations accountable for minor technical faults.
They simply focus on the problem at hand - dealing with a low-life with the
nerve to attack a senior citizen!
Why? Goats havn't started holding up liquor store yet, have they? I hope the researchers removed the lanyard around the goat's throat before the photo opportunity.
), my Dad's was .3 sec. This was on a course where we knew (had decided) in advance, what we were going to do when we got the signal. This is what I was talking about when I said the shooter had made up their mind to shoot if the actor moved. Unless you are frozen in doubt (and its a very human thing to be), if you have already decided to shoot at the recognition of movement (the start signal), I doubt there are many humans who could reach you before you could get a shot off.
