Tactically is this how it should be done?

Perhaps an effort to try and keep from having to shoot someone. There are ways to use graduated amounts of force, there's also this;
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Nope, just a combination of ignorance, stupidity and timidity. It's just as simple as that. No warning required or desired, in that situation.
 
Strickly from a tactics standpoint I'd say the warning was a serious mistake unless it happened while the BG was reloading. Still not all that tactically sound but the other guy being in the middle of a reload is a bit mitigating. He did good though. In the end the good guy accomplished his goal, and it's hard to argue with success.
 
I just got this in a VCDL update from Philip Van Cleave (VCDL President). I thought it was worth posting here as it has some interesting points, and does a lot to clear up the situation (not just what the news tells you). Sorry its a bit long, but there is no way to directly link to it.

On Friday I received a surprise call from the gun owner who has been
in the press this week for saving lives at a Richmond store. The gun
owner used a replica 1875 Remington Army .45 Long Colt with a 7 1/2
inch barrel to stop a criminal who had shot the store's owner.

He wanted to remain anonymous, but called so that the story could be
set straight, as much of what was in the press wasn't accurate.

Board member Dennis O'Connor and I ended up meeting with him today
(Saturday) at the Golden Market store, where the shooting had taken
place one week earlier.

Besides being able to actually see the layout of the store, Dennis and
I got to see the security videos of the shooting!

We also got to meet the store owner who had been shot twice during the
hold up, but is now back at his store. More on this great man later.

Here is what we know from talking to the gun owner and watching the
videos:

The gun owner (GO) was in the store waiting in line to pay for an item
when the bad guy (BG) came in wearing dark sunglasses and trying to
coverup his face while brandishing a revolver. The BG yelled for
everyone to get down and before anybody could react, immediately
walked over to the store owner and in a cold-blooded fashion shot him
twice. The owner then dropped down behind the counter. It wasn't
more than 2 seconds after the BG first walked in the doors that he
shot the store owner.

Those shots at the store owner missed a teenage boy's head by inches.

The GO yelled for the BG to drop his gun as the GO drew his gun. The
BG opened fire on the GO. The GO returned fire, hitting the BG as the
GO dove hard for the floor behind some barrels full of ice and drinks.

The BG ran towards the back of the store, aiming his gun at an
innocent man laying prone on the floor. Luckily the BG was too
distracted by the GO to shoot the man. There is no doubt in my mind
that the man would have been shot in cold blood that day if it weren't
for that GO returning fire.

The BG kept trying to get to the front of the store by walking up
various aisles and firing shots at the GO as he did so. At one point
cans of tinned meat exploded on a shelf as the BG took a shot at the GO.

What was bizarre was that the BG actually was strutting around like he
owned the place while under fire! As he approached the front of one
aisle, he again pointed a gun at a person on the ground and was about
to execute him, when he was again distracted by the GO.

Finally the GO spotted the BG at the front of an aisle standing in the
open.

Much to his surprise, the GO discovered that when he dove hard for the
floor he had somehow broken the trigger on his gun!

But the gun was a single action, so the GO pushing himself up with one
arm, aimed the gun, pulled the hammer back and let it fly forward -
twice.

Although seriously wounded three times, the BG came at the GO. The BG
tried to grab the GO's gun since the BG's gun was out of ammunition.
A life-and-death struggle began. The GO got a grip on the BG's gun
and the GO hit the BG twice hard on the temple with the 7 1/2" barrel
on his rather heavy gun.

The BG finally broke off the engagement, tried to run out the front
door, but collapsed at the door.

The GO secured the BG's gun and keeping an eye on the now unconscious
bad guy, called 9-1-1.

The BG has now died (he was in critical condition since the shooting).

The police showed up a minute or so after the 9-1-1 call and initially
had everyone in the store at gun point and handcuffed some until they
could figure out who was who.

What really impressed me was that on the surveillance video, the
owner, while shot twice by the BG, was walking around making sure that
all of his customers were OK after the shooting had ended. He only
let himself collapse after he was sure they were OK! Words fail me on
this. I am so glad that he made it. What a dichotomy - a BG who
shoots an innocent person without provocation, almost killing a
teenager while doing so - caring for no one but himself. And then
the store owner who, while seriously wounded, making sure his
customers were OK. Evil exists and so does Good. Both were on
display in those two minutes of terror. Luckily only the bad guy was
killed. The owner was walking with a limp, clearly in some pain. :-(

A lot of people owe their lives to that GO. However, he is having
none of it, saying that he simply did what he had to do.

--

The GO wanted me to share the following points:

* Buy a quality gun - don't use some cheap $90 gun to protect your
life. He considered his gun to be a good one and even then the
trigger broke under the extreme stress of a life-and-death battle.

* Practice with your gun, get training, and be good with that gun.

* More and more BGs are choosing to kill in cold blood to get what
they want. If they can't live the "good life, " then they don't care
if their crimes send them to jail.

* He also noted that fewer and fewer BGs are getting any jail time.

--

Here are my thoughts from watching that tape:

* Talk about a cold-blooded, fast attack where an innocent was shot
without warning! Unbelievable. Situational awareness is really
important. Luck doesn't hurt, either.

* Open carry was an advantage in this case because in the video I saw
just how fast the GO managed to draw his gun and begin to return
fire. You always hear about how open carry is so bad tactically -
you'll be the first one shot, etc. Oh, yeah? The GO had a HUGE gun
in plain sight and he was NOT shot. Who got shot first? An unarmed
store owner.

* I am betting that the BG was on drugs, big time. He was hit with
THREE 45-CALIBER BULLETS, with at least two of those hits causing
grievous injury, and he continued the fight as if he had not even been
hit at all! In fact he was strutting like a peacock who owned the
place as he was walking up and down the aisles trying to get to a
position where he could shoot the GO. As a gun owner, you need to be
prepared for that eventuality and keep shooting the BG in his center
of mass until he stops his attack. Don't think one shot, or even two
shots, are going to do it. And a head shot might well be what it
takes to stop such an attack quickly.

* If you are out of ammunition, a gun does make a great weapon with
which to bludgeon someone in hand-to-hand combat.

* This shooting bolstered both sides of the argument about how much
ammunition one should carry. The good guy got off only four shots (of
course his gun had a broken trigger and that didn't help). The bad
guy got off six shots and ran out of ammunition (thankfully). But in
my mind, and having had some advanced training, I think an extra
magazine for a semi-auto, or a reloader for a revolver, is a good
idea. WIth someone like the BG above, if you run out of ammunition
before he does, he will execute you. Period.
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Holy crap...trigger broke so he slip-hammered it. This would have been an Italian replica, likely Uberti or Pietta, possibly Armi San Marco if he's had it a while?

I'm glad I pack a Ruger.

Although to be fair, the reason slip-hammering worked is because the gun had no transfer bar or hammer block safety. It's still possible to carry a Remington fully loaded, as the cylinder has between-position notches to lower the hammer between live rounds, a practice North American Arms revived in their mini-revolvers. OR he was doing "five up carry", hammer down on the empty. Either way, he solved the matter with four rounds (and three hits) so it hardly matters.

EXCELLENT shooting and gun handling. The guy knew his gun and knew how to compensate for damage to it and keep fighting. Sounds like excellent use of cover, too.
 
That is a great example of a brave man right there. Doing what has to be done and no more. Awesome. I'll probably catch some flak for this but his single mistake was probably made in carrying a single action revolver for defense.
 
I'll probably catch some flak for this but his single mistake was probably made in carrying a single action revolver for defense.
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This is one of those cases in which everything worked out OK but things could have turned out worse.

I usually carry a five shot DA revolver. A lot faster to reload than an 1875 Remington or Colt Model P, but there's always the possibility that five won't be enough.

Two things amaze me here: The fact that the guy kept coming after several hits from the .45 (.38 Long Colt, OK, but .45?) and the armed citizen's choice of a replica of Frank James' sidearm.
 
things amaze me here: The fact that the guy kept coming after several hits from the .45 (.38 Long Colt, OK, but .45?)
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I've said it before and I'll say it again. If, for some reason, the person shot doesn't react to the PSYCHOLOGY of being shot ("Oh No, I've been SHOT") then it's down to how long it takes the physiology to shut down from either sheer trauma to the central nervous system or loss of blood (and oxygen to the brain).

If, for example, a person simply doesn't care (due to drugs, rage, etc) that they've been shot directly in the heart, they may still have a good 30-50 seconds of "operational" time before lack of oxygen to the brain renders them unconscious/dead.

In the typical combat situation a LOT can happen in 30-50 seconds!
 
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I'll probably catch some flak for this but his single mistake was probably made in carrying a single action revolver for defense.
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Well...did it really make a difference?

He got the first shot off damned fast, which is the SA's strong point. He hit with it, which was even better. And knowing follow-up shots weren't going to be as fast as, say, a Glock, he dove for cover and apparently maintained good use of cover and kept up effective fire - 3 out of 4 hits is damned good by any standard.

The gun broke, yeah - it was a cheap Italian piece. But the *design* wasn't half bad as it would still run with damage that would have turned anything else into a doorstop.

A Ruger SA likely wouldn't have broke, or at least would have held up under more stress than anything from Italy. (You can break anything, a Ruger included.)

One thing we still don't know about is ammo used. We know the caliber, but what was in there? You can get some very, VERY good modern JHPs in 45LC, including Speer's 250gr "giant hollowpoint from hell", basically the same slug as the 38+P 135gr except scaled WAY up. That Speer 250 may be among the world's most effective subsonic combat loads ever, in any caliber.

Then again, with a 7.5" barrel more or less any JHP should expand, and there are almost no really bad ones - the Winchester 225 Silvertip is likely the most common in circulation.

In any case, from the way the goblin was acting it's obvious he was high, probably cocaine...it can make people "feel immortal" like that.

Now, I carry an SA myself, Ruger New Vaquero in 357, 4.68" barrel. It's my daily carry CCW piece in Tucson AZ, carried in a fanny pack. It's loaded with the absolute nastiest 357s I can get - Speer's 125gr Gold Dot high speed variant slug loaded by Doubletap to warp speed...about 1,600fps, almost 800ft/lbs energy. It's a round I would NOT want to be hit with. And I've got exactly the same gameplan in mind that this guy pulled off: get an accurate and potent hit in fast then MOVE.

It worked for him.
 
Well...did it really make a difference?
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I simply can not see how a SA can have an advantage over any other gun. I can see disadvantages but no advantages, so the question is, why? Just for example, what if he'd been hit in the arm? He could have been unable to work the hammer. Imagine a broken trigger and a wounded arm? Very high chance in a situation like this. Did it happen? No, but he largely got lucky.
 
But don't rule out the kid who was trained by Great Grampa and Grampa with a single action wheel gun from 6 years old... Never having grabbed the grip of a glock or even a DA wheel gun his whole life just a few rounds from a long gun to boot... I had a 60-70 sumthin year old scout leader that could hit 3 yardsale coffee cups tossed up at one time with 3 shots fanning the hammer from the hip...
Sumbuck didn't miss them big ol' slow flyin' fence chickens (pheasants) with a .45colt. Ol' Ernie Zeidi was a bad sumbuck on the backside of a single action wheel gun... cancer and all he was "THAT DUDE"...
Brent
 
Well the trigger breaking was a fluke.

If he'd been shot in one hand, he'd have switched to the other. We can cock and fire these things one-handed with no problem, in fact these operate one-handed very nicely.

There's two advantages to these things over anything else:

* Fast into action on the first shot.

* Excellent "feel in the hand" and they tend to "point naturally" - better than almost anything else at naturally pointing the gun as an extension of your hand. Ergonomics are just superb - it was designed by people who used hand tools daily instead of CAD/CAM. Ergonomics is one area of science in which I believe we've gone backwards, not forward.

They also tend to be very accurate, esp. with upgraded (from 19th century standards) sights. Even with early style sights, with the longer barrel lengths they still work very well.

And they're usually carried with serious calibers, with the 45LC and 357 being the most common. Both are superb stoppers.

Yes, there's downsides. Rate of fire is a bit slower although in skilled hands...hell, check out this video:

http://flatlander.sixshootercommunity.org/videos/

It's only four seconds long...doesn't need to be longer.

The big downside is reload speed. And it's serious. But, KNOWING THAT, you're more likely to make your shots count. "Spray and pray" isn't part of the vocabulary. And the case we're discussing is a prime example - again, three out of four shots hit.
 
Ergonomics could be an advantage, but I've not seen many people claiming that there isn't ANY auto or DA revolver that is just as good.

Speed on the first shot? Well, I don't know, seems like a 1911 or a Glock, or any other auto or even a DA revolver, really, would be or could be just as fast.

Glock has no safeties, pull the trigger.

1911 cocked and locked, disengage safety, pull the trigger.

SA revolver, cock the hammer, pull the trigger.

Same/same in my book. All can be done on the draw, with no speed disadvantage to speak of.

So far as accuracy, well, I'm going to say that at 5 or 8 feet, this guy would have been just as accurate with anything with a trigger.

I would be interested in exactly what form of "broken" the trigger had taken.
 
I would be interested in exactly what form of "broken" the trigger had taken.
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So would I. The Remmies have an interesting triggerguard system where the guard and trigger assembly connect into the frame from underneath. It's possible that whole assembly broke?

Also, a lot of those triggerguards were brass, and it's possible it bent inwards and jammed the trigger backwards. That would make slip-hammering a breeze.
 
Also, a lot of those triggerguards were brass, and it's possible it bent inwards and jammed the trigger backwards. That would make slip-hammering a breeze.
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That's kind of what I wondered. It would seem like a broken trigger could easily make it possible to end up with the hammer locked back and no way to release it, or it could make it so there is no way to lock it back, which would be a WHOLE LOT better in this case.:)
 
UPDATE!!!

The police HAVE interviewed the good guy and are apparently sitting on his gun as evidence for the moment.

He just gave an interview with the paper to the same reporter that has seen the store's videotapes. The paper isn't releasing the guy's name, thank God.

In the interview he gives a detail not present in the VCDL account: once the goblin ran his gun dry (also a revolver) and clicked it a couple of times, the good guy stopped firing. THAT'S why he still had at least one round left (four shots fired). The goblin approached the counter area, wrestled with the good guy, tried to grab that Remmie, good guy retains control over it and beats the goblin upside the head - goblin tries to leave, collapses at the door.

It's apparently that period where the goblin is up and moving with a dry gun that the other people in the store urged some more action from that Remmie. And really, it would likely have been ruled justified under those circumstances if he had. Even a dry gun is an effective bludgeon and we know the goblin had murderous intent.

The key point here is that the good guy CHOSE not to keep firing. If the goblin had a speedloader and knew how to use it, he'd have been screwed but really, with this type of predator that's pretty unlikely and in any case he would have heard the "tinkle sound" of rounds dropping if the goblin had begun a reload.

http://www.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/local/crime/article/MART19_20090718-223008/280885/

So the Remmie didn't fail to fire, the good guy held fire. This to me absolutely seals the deal as far as this guy not getting charged. And while not totally tactically sound, holding fire once the goblin ran dry will likely help at least some with the post-shooting guilt syndrome...he was absolutely in the right the whole way and nobody will ever question that 'cept maybe the goblin's kin.
 
A lot of us talk about how we would react when TSHF, but really we are speaking in the abstract; me included. I can only hope and pray that I could react in the positive manner in which this gentleman did in protecting his friend and the other people in the store. He not only defended the people in the store, but he was also aware enough to think through whether he needed to take the BG's life and the consequences to himself. Understanding that he will never be the same because of the events of that day, I wish him well. I hope that people will help to protect his privacy unless and until HE chooses to go public.
 
Legally, that's how it should be done.

If he did not warn the robber to drop the weapon, and he was later identified, a corrupt lawyer could still argue some BS and pin some charges on the good guy.

Tactically, I don't think it's too bad considering the turnout.

The robber was reloading with a gun pointed at him. Since he didn't drop it, he was shot. The "cowboy" had good control.

Morally, well, BG already shot a guy. Plus, he was warned, but he still insisted on reloading.


Just my $0.02.
 
I wasn't there i dont know the circumstances all i know is what i have read and i am not going to pass judgement or say if it was right or wrong because NOBODY really knows unless you were in the store at the time it happened. I give major kudo's to the good guy and a job well done he did what he had to do to neutralize the threat and who am i to judge his tactics on doing so
 
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