Why Carry?--Minor Weekend Incident (Kinda Long)

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Mr. Meyer:

While I don't wish to be defensive about this, I find your attitude somewhat patronizing, as well as your implication that I am ignorant of firearms laws, self-defense tactics, etc., and that I limit my training to nothing more than "shooting at tin cans." True enough, you did not aim that comment specifically at me, but you implied it. If you can parse out of that sketch I posted all of the problems that you identify, my hat is off to you, sir. If you're that good, if anyone is that good, then I truly do need to refurbish my credentials!

As for the letting him get too close...I agree with you. That was too slow of a response on my part. In my humble opinion, issuing a challenge in this case would have merely escalated the situtation and I did not wish to do that. Even if he continued walking, disregarding a "challenge," I would not have been justified in doing anything more than what I did, since, as you stated, simply walking up to someone is no crime. Had he been brandishing a weapon at any distance, the situation would have changed. Since he never brandished, nor made any overtly threatening comments, he was no legal threat. If I had displayed my weapon at that point, I think he would have been justified in shooting ME in self-defense, and so long as he displayed no weapon or issued a threat that my wife could have testified to, he would have most likely gotten off scott free, while I would have been screwed. That's the way I see it. If that's wrong, then I'd do it wrong again next time to.

Having been shooting and hunting for more than 20 years now, I could list what I consider my "credentials" in this matter, but I'm not into doing that sort of thing with people I know, much less with those I don't, and you're certainly entitled to your opinion. I have already learned a thing or two.

By the way, I do enjoy shooting cans, particularly with a bull barrelled .22 on a warm afternoon.




[This message has been edited by Chris in AL (edited May 08, 2000).]
 
It is interesting how people react to these postings: critical positive, critical negative, supportive, or almost angry when commenting what someone has said. Fortunately, even the less supportive comments usually include useful information.

Unless I missed something, what is important to note is that Chris in AL did enough to alleviate the situation without any undue rammifications. He did not have to draw and more importantly he did not have to draw and shoot the BGs and therefore he did not have to deal with the personal emotional issues or those of his wife and children. He did not suffer any legal inquest to determine if he did the appropriate thing or not. And the absolute most important thing is that being out-numbered and potentially out-armed, none of the good people got hurt! From the sounds of things, the kids had no idea they were in danger nor that daddy was a hero. Chris in AL was a little green in his actions maybe, but he was wary and ready and the situation was successfully diffused.

I would like to pose a question concerning challenges. I live in an area with a disproportionately high number of deaf people. Deaf people don't necessarily respond to the same stimuli as hearing people and they certainly don't to verbal challenges. They are more likely to approach a hearing person and invade the hearing person's personal space in order to communicate. This may be by lip reading, writing a not on a small note pad that becomes quickly produced from a hip pocket, or what ever. The note pad could be quite frightening if you have verbally challenged the person to stop and then they reach for something behind them. Holding a hand up in a stop fashion may be perceived as a greeting instead of a a challenge to stop. What do you do if the challenge to stop is unheeded? The person may not be tipping their hand that they are BGs, only that they are deaf. Personally, I have been stopped by more deaf people than by BGs.

Of course, let us not forget that deaf people can also be bad guys. So I am not suggesting to not to be wary, only that there can be many facets to consider and each case is different. Chris in AL has learned something new by the actual experience and the comments. I thank Chris in AL and the others who posted their situational events. Since becoming a legal CCW person, I have not been in any situation where I have needed to challenge a person or defend myself, but should it happen, I have learned something new here.
 
It is interesting how people react to these postings: critical positive, critical negative, supportive, or almost angry when commenting what someone has said. Fortunately, even the less supportive comments usually include useful information.

Unless I missed something, what is important to note is that Chris in AL did enough to alleviate the situation without any undue rammifications. He did not have to draw and more importantly he did not have to draw and shoot the BGs and therefore he did not have to deal with the personal emotional issues or those of his wife and children. He did not suffer any legal inquest to determine if he did the appropriate thing or not. And the absolute most important thing is that being out-numbered and potentially out-armed, none of the good people got hurt! From the sounds of things, the kids had no idea they were in danger nor that daddy was a hero. Chris in AL was a little green in his actions maybe, but he was wary and ready and the situation was successfully diffused.

I would like to pose a question concerning challenges. I live in an area with a disproportionately high number of deaf people. Deaf people don't necessarily respond to the same stimuli as hearing people and they certainly don't to verbal challenges. They are more likely to approach a hearing person and invade the hearing person's personal space in order to communicate. This may be by lip reading, writing a not on a small note pad that becomes quickly produced from a hip pocket, or what ever. The note pad could be quite frightening if you have verbally challenged the person to stop and then they reach for something behind them. Holding a hand up in a stop fashion may be perceived as a greeting instead of a a challenge to stop. What do you do if the challenge to stop is unheeded? The person may not be tipping their hand that they are BGs, only that they are deaf. Personally, I have been stopped by more deaf people than by BGs.

Of course, let us not forget that deaf people can also be bad guys. So I am not suggesting to not to be wary, only that there can be many facets to consider and each case is different. Chris in AL has learned something new by the actual experience and the comments. I thank Chris in AL and the others who posted their situational events. Since becoming a legal CCW person, I have not been in any situation where I have needed to challenge a person or defend myself, but should it happen, I have learned something new here.
 
Glad you and family are okay, Chris.

While I do agree about the hammer-down stuff, you did just fine. A loud "What do you want?" or "Keep your distance!" or "Stop right there, put your fingers in your ears, and bend over!" or somesuch would seem to aggravate and definitely tend to escalate the situation.

I've had friends who have beat the "Tueller" distance easily in real life. Yeah, know your "bubble", and be aware it expands the further away from the rest of civilization, but use some common sense, too. You did fine.

"Proximity negates skill."
 
Glenn:

If I was in the area earlier and lost my wallet and was coming back to look for it and Chris started ordering me to stay back, I would think to myself that this is a public place and I have as much right to be here looking for my lost item as much as he does and would have consequently ignored his commands to stay back by responding that I just wanted to look around for the lost item.

I think that would have been reasonable on my part.

If Chris drew his weapon, I would have obviously left but concluded that he has my wallet (with credit card information) and I would have contacted the police to report that a man had treatened me with a firearm. In most states, that's considered aggravated assualt and Chris would be looking at jail time.

Chris:

I think that you handle the situation better than most people would have. The only thing that I would fault you for is for your choice of carrying a BHP. I also own a BHP & a 1911 and my personal belief is that single action pistols are not a good choice for concealed carry. Cocked & locked creates a possible problem with getting the hammer caught on something as you try to bring it into play and carrying it with the hammer down on a live round is also not very safe.

I would recommend either a traditional DA/SA pistol or a DAO design for concealed carry. Other than that, I think you did better than I would have done under similar circumstances.

Share what you know, learn what you don't -- FUD
FUDeagle.gif
 
Chris, nice to see that everything came out okay. These things tend to be messy, complicated affairs, especially with the wife and kids along to add in more variables. You might want to show her these posts to try to convince her of what was really happening. Trust your gut, I'm sure you were right.

However, I completely agree with Glenn's post, even if he did come off sounding patronizing. You left too many things to chance. That's the nice thing about this type of forum, we can pick apart your incident and see what we can learn from it. Glenn pointed out some of your more questionable actions. Take it for what it's worth (and I'd say his ideas on this are worth quite a bit).

That's the problem with discussing self defense. There are so many variables that make up an incident like this one. This time it worked out well, but the situation could go horribly wrong the next time. That's what Glenn is talking about, reducing as many unpleasant variables as possible.

Just food for thought: You have your hand on your holstered gun. I've got my hands down by my sides. I'll bet I could outdraw and shoot faster than you could. Action beats reaction. There's a reason you couldn't get to sleep that night. It was closer that you think...

Damn glad everything came out alright!
 
Gino brought up an interesting point about action beating reaction. No argument there. This sort of statement implies that you will always lose (time-wise) to someone else if they draw their gun first. The statement was made in context to Chris having his hand on his gun and Gino saying that Gino could probably beat him. Gino would definitely beat Chris (all things being comparable) if Chris didn't have his hand on his gun. By hand placement, Chris managed to reduce what would be part of his over all response time - the time it takes for the hand to travel and find the grip of the gun. If the BG drew on Chris first, then the action beats reaction ideal means Chris would lose either way. The only way to beat it would be for Chris to draw on the possible BG first, thereby breaking the law in this case because he was not actually threatened. Chris simply readied himself for a possible incident that may not necessarily have involved the BG with a gun.

Action beats reaction, but first you have to understand that any action necessitating a good guy drawing their gun in a situation like this means he will always be reacting - reacting to the threat.

If there is some sort of corollary to "action beats reaction," I would like to hear more about it.

Yes, things could have gone terribly wrong for Chris, but he handled the situation. Next time it might not go the same way as was stated in another post. Chances are, it won't. Chances are Chris won't be in the same park with his family and have the same group of people approach him in the same manner. Things will definitely be different and Chris will undoubtedly perform as the situation demands, empowered with new information and ideas, and hopefully be just as successful.
 
these posts are one of the reasons i read all this stuff. hardware is pretty much a matter of prefference and caliber-well we have been down that trail, et nausem. tactics and training the attention and mind of the CCW carrier is were it is at. try and keep your defensive circle-yes. it is not possible all the time but here it clearly was. while these guys were still a ways off i would have challenged them as to what they wanted. when he said he wanted dollars it was time to clear up any misunderstandings. did he want a handout? was he looking for a lost wallet or cash? was this a robbery? i am sure if it was a strongarm robbery he would have made that clear at that point. remember approaching a family with an adult male in charge was a risky gamble for thieves even in force. add to that the fact it was daylight and i think you had a misunderstanding or some dern bold punks. in either case the first step was to establish threat and to react ASAP. never ever let a group circle you like that. even if both adults were armed it would have been risky. the challenge should have come well before that. if it was established that the boys were intent on a robbery i would have no problem covering my pistol grip with my hand. at the same time i would not draw or show my weapon unless a deadly weapon was shown by them or they attempted to lay hands on one of us. in N.C. the law reads "a reasonable person could believe that death or serious bodly harm/rape was possible" (paraphrased). certainly in this case if one of these guys put hands on you or your family member it would be cause to escalate the situation.

showing deadly weapons or threats of the same could set off a bad reaction if robbery was not the original intent of these guys. i saw a situation with a homeless guy here in my city go down that slippery slope. a bum was panhandling and approached one of my friends as we left a resturant one night late. his mistake was to lay hands on my friend and not let go. he got knocked to the ground and my buddy pushed back his coat and grabbed his pistol but did not draw. the homeless guy jumped up and went nuts. he started advancing on my buddy shouting for him to shoot or he would take his gun and insert it in his neither regions. despite our efforts to defuse the situation he kept advancing, shouting and failing his arms. when he backed my friend against a wall he felt had no choice but to draw on him or risk losing control of his weapon. i was praying my friend would not fire. it was then i woke up remembered i had a less than lethal weapon available to me. i drew a canister of pepper gas and hosed the bum down. he stumbled off a short distance and fell, wailing like a banshee. i told my friend to go and get help while i watched him to be sure he could still breathe (medical training kicking in). my buddy came back with a bottle of drinking water he got out of his car. i rinsed him off as good as i could and as the pain began to subside the bum started talking about kicking MY butt. we left the area. the point is that going to the gun to soon can backfire. plus always carry a less than lethal means of defense.

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Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what is for lunch.
Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the outcome of the vote.
Let he that hath no sword sell his garment and buy one. Luke 22-36
They all hold swords, being expert in war: every man hath his sword upon his thigh because of fear in the night. Song of Solomon 3-8
The man that can keep his head and aims carefully when the situation has gone bad and lead is flying usually wins the fight.
 
Chris,

Your gut instinct was right on the money.!
If your wife's premise was corect both of the teenagers would have come directly to the area together letting you know they needed to look for some lost cash or wallet.

The minute the second teenager pulled up short, and let the other continue on to circle and confront you with a unclear request, you had it right!.

Your actions backed the leader off....I have no doubt.

NO one , comes up to a stranger and says....
" Were looking for some dollars ".

To me, and I dare say a Jury....it means "Give us some money....or else!"


So you in my book did just fine.
No one can do it perfect.
Living your life at a Tactical, confrontational, hightened agressive posture would surely strain your health and your mariage.
As well as project a sense of fear and dread to your children.

So reacting as best you can as soon as you can, must be all you can expect from yourself.
I for one, think you did just great.


My only suggestion to you or others would be.
Never hesitate or wait to contact the local LEO agency in the area.

Given , you are a legal CCW holder and were within the law.
You should have been the first person to contact the police and make a report.
Right away!

I have seen it happen on more than one occassion were the bad guy, reports the good guy as brandishing, threatining.
Even if it is not true, you got problems.

Be the call of record of the incident.
Make the initial complaint. Let the LEO's look for 3 teenagers in a tinted car cruising around hassling people for money.

You may just be saving yourself/false charges/legal suit.
Or someone else from round two with these potential felons.

WOLF


[This message has been edited by WOLF (edited May 08, 2000).]

[This message has been edited by WOLF (edited May 08, 2000).]
 
I am sure glad this didn't happen to me!
I am also glad I am in the company of such intelligent and responsible gun owners, trainers, and experienced law enforcement types here in this forum.
What a complicated world we live in! All because a few bgs spoil the whole deal for the rest of us.
In a perfect world, you would not have to worry about someone approaching you with harm in mind.
We do not live in that perfect world, and I am glad to be able ,in my state anyway, to defend my family and myself against someone who WOULD cause harm. Thanks to all of you for contributing to this post.
Steve

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"I learned a thing or two from Charlie,don't you know. You better stay away from Copperhead Road" Steve Earle
 
Ya handled it perfectly.

You said your actions were unmistakeable. How do you know that? The gun was covered by a shirt? You talk from the choir - did they know?

They knew. Three seriously questionable looking characters appear. One stays at the wheel. One takes up position to block the most effective escape path. One walks up to the targets and makes it clear that he wants money. They obviously knew what they were doing and had it planned out. They also know that when the target reaches under clothing to a particular spot in that particular situation, and leaves his hand there while remaining very calm, aware, and uncooperative, it's pretty obvious to the perps that the target is armed, knows what plan is about to go down, and is prepared to kill in defense of family. They knew.
 
You did okay, Chris. In that situation you did what a "reasonable" person should have done. There is no verbal challenge in that circumstance that would have prevented him from approaching that wouldn't cast you in the light of the aggressor. Saying "can I help you?" is an invitation to come within normal conversation distance. Screaming "Don't move!" is hardly appropriate where no overtly threatening behavior has happened. Those guys had it all planned out. He didn't say, "Gimme some money or I'll cut you bad." He said, "I'm looking for some money." If you had been a police officer or if a police officer had responded his defense was just that he had lost some money. He was not threatening overtly but was still sending a clear subtextual threat. You responded exactly in kind. You MIGHT have just been scratching your back, just he MIGHT have been looking for a $20 he dropped earlier. Since you both knew better he decided to find easier prey. You did everything right, especially reporting it to the police as you did.
 
TBeck and the rest of you, who say it was handled perfectly - you are just incorrect.

The outcome was good but that doesn't mean that it was handled perfectly.

When you let an potential opponent get in back of you and close to you - you have not handled it perfectly. Many posters are mistaking the outcome as justifying the technique. The technique had significant risk.

As far as the challenge - TBeck - instructors like Greg Hamilton, who has won the NTI, says there are ways to do this. I've had them work for me. Would you cite your evidence that a polite but firm challenge when the possible bad guys were further away, would not have worked?

A determined "Can I help you?" is one suggestion. Just heard John Holschen of Insights give the same story at their Defensive Knife classes.

I don't want Chris to feel bad but there is a little too much chest pounding over a successful outcome. It makes you feel good and you can imagine yourself in the situation.

I would suggest that you might even handle this one preemptively without reaching for your firearm or having a hand on it.

One thing about scenarios and incidents is that you cannot be too invested in your outcome. I once in a FOF resolved a situation to a nice outcome, after the fact analysis said it was very dangerous and I was blessed by the Fog of Battle.

Flame me but I stand by my analysis and don't
disparage the outcome or the actors.
 
Chris,
You did a good job.

Glenn E. Meyer,
As an LEO I've been involved in a lot of things that you may or may not have personal real life SHTF experience with. 99.9% of them ended well depending on your definition. NONE of them went down perfectly. It just doesn't happen that way. You do the best you have with what you've been given until something better comes along.

------------------
Tom Whitman
SSgt, USAF
 
As much as I hate to admit it, I have to agree with Glenn on allowing a threat to get close and behind you. However, you and yours came out of the situation unharmed and as they say any landing you can walk away from is a good one. Not a perfect one, but a good one. Same applies here. You had a good outcome. In the heat of "battle" no matter how much training you have had, mistakes will be made. Just because we are here Monday morning quarterbacking your situation and pointing out some mistakes we think you made, does not mean we believe you to be incompetent and should have your CHL revoked. At least I certainly dont.

As an aside, when somebody volunteers their life experences for us to learn from, we should take as much care as humanly possible in replying to them. If we dont then people will stop letting the rest of us learn from their experiences.

Glenn, you made some very good comments, but unfortunately one must wade though considerable arrogance and belittlement in getting to them. That is not something that is conducive to more posts, nor does it help the person trying to read and learn from you.
 
1. Since it turned out all right, it turned out all right. Nobody was harmed. Good.

2. I think it's apparent that Chris' innate courtesy--and some amount of inexperience--allowed the Bad Kid to get too close.

I have found that a friendly challenge phrased in the form of a question, for instance, "Hey, what's up?", puts the load on the other fellow. He has to either think up a reasonable response, which messes up his original plan for badness; or he comes back with some response which indicates he's either for sure a Bad Guy or not a Bad Guy. Unless he's already decided to charge in on you, you have bought some preparation time.

Isn't that part of the key? To gain yourself some time for fight or flight? Sure, there are Bad Guys out there, but a lot of Good Guys are dumber than dirt, too.

I think Chris correctly identified the potential, but was a bit slow in his initial reaction. His body language of "I am not a victim!" was probably the deciding factor. That's not "just" luck; it's part of the total package of self-defense.

All in all, Glenn's points are well taken. And as others in this thread have rightfully pointed out, every situation is different.

$0.02, Art
 
Sorry, if I was cranky. I said I was in the initial post.

My response was that the outcome doesn't prevent the post game analysis of the moves.

I just want people to be safe and as such wanted to separate out various items.

Give me the Ayoob Humbleness Prize.
Yes, I have met the man.

I'm a bad boy. :)
 
Good points:

1. Condition yellow not white, enabled you to
2. Pick up on orienting bahavior of potential perps.
3. Putting hand under shirt cut reaction time and sent non-verbal cue to go with posture

My only critique: USE YOUR LEGS. You can back up or mover laterally since you have a stand-off weapon to keep perp in front of you and in-between you and his buddy. Nelson called it crossing the T. I also agree that pepper is a MUST for ccw holders. If your only tool between hello and pow is some harsh language, you're cruisin for trouble. Otherwise, good use of stituational awareness!

God made all men, but Col. Colt made them equal.

[This message has been edited by simonov jr (edited May 09, 2000).]
 
Congratulations on a positive outcome Chris! You did a great job. I thank you for allowing all of to analize your actions.

I have spent quite a bit of time thinking about your situation since yesterday. I have not been reflecting on how you reacted, but trying to decide how I would have reacted. It is for these reasons that we all choose to carry.

I have shared your story with several of my shooting and CCW buddies, one told me how he would have responded to the BG's question: "I don't have no dollars but I've got some lead I can show you!" He is an x-LEO and is very quick with words. What he can say instantly, I can't think up in 48 hours.

Again, Chris, thanks for sharing with us. --plinker2--
 
This thread has been both educational and depressing:

Educational because it gives an example of a real incident, how it was resolved, and many ideas on how it could have been handled better.

Depressing because if this scenario happened to me and my family, I'd be unarmed (being the nice, law abiding Ohioan that I am :( ).

Anyway, I think it's good for us all to think about how a crime might unfold. Some criminals will simply strike out of nowhere, but others will play upon a normal person's unwillingness to let defensive considerations outweigh social norms. The latter type know how to employ just enough subtle intimidation to get what they want without pushing the victim into active resistance.
 
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