Aguila Blanca
Staff
Let's keep the discussion on topic ... which is the incident in the video. If you have personal (as opposed to tactical) issues with what someone else posted, take it to private message.
Convenience store shootout,
- Thread starter HiBC
- Start date
FireForged
New member
separating from your compatriot or leaving cover to go and lock the door may be a good thing and it may be a bad thing depending on what is happening and what the badguy is doing. I would not arbitrarily suggest that going and locking the front door was automatically the best thing to do.. it may not be. There is always a chance that the badguy returns but how you manage or mitigate that possibility depends on lots of things. Maybe you reload and stay where you are, maybe you move to a more defensible area of the store, maybe you run out the back door, maybe lock the front door or maybe you turn the lights out. What you do depends on many nuances which are currently unknown to us. Should they have locked the door when he left?.. maybe.
If you don't lock the door, its definitely a choke point, and if you think your opponent coming back, at least thats the place to open up on them, as opposed to shooting at them all over the store, or something similar. At least you have them pre-sighted and in a fixed place of sorts, even if they are moving.
I get the impression from the video, the extent of things as far as the mom and daughter go is, they had "guns" under the counter, and they figured they were good to go. Beyond that, I dont think they gave it much thought.
Hell, just watching a few videos of stuff like this on YouTube would pass more for education and training than they seem to have. At least they would have a better idea of what to expect, and maybe think about it more, and/or take things a bit more seriously.
Or not.
I get the impression from the video, the extent of things as far as the mom and daughter go is, they had "guns" under the counter, and they figured they were good to go. Beyond that, I dont think they gave it much thought.
Hell, just watching a few videos of stuff like this on YouTube would pass more for education and training than they seem to have. At least they would have a better idea of what to expect, and maybe think about it more, and/or take things a bit more seriously.
Or not.
FireForged
New member
surface thinking vs dynamic thinking
and when the bad guy suddenly appears while you are standing 5 feet from the door and no cover.. then what? What if he return with help? Is the cheesey little lock on the front door really going to do anything against 1 or more armed and determined attackers who have returned with the intent to commit violence? You must consider how important the task truly is before you commit to it. What exactly do you gain vs risk involved vs the potential for it to get worse.
What I am saying is you must weigh this choice within its proper perspective and not arbitrarily assume that its the best thing to do simply because it sounds good. If you are going to leave cover to perform any task, you need to weigh the potential for getting caught in a worse spot that you are already in. Its a basic tactical imperative.
Similarly if you have a partner(backup) or simply someone else you are protecting- leaving them, separating from them even when its only for a few moments.. you need to consider how this might work against you or how it may offer an opportunity for your adversary to exploit.
and when the bad guy suddenly appears while you are standing 5 feet from the door and no cover.. then what? What if he return with help? Is the cheesey little lock on the front door really going to do anything against 1 or more armed and determined attackers who have returned with the intent to commit violence? You must consider how important the task truly is before you commit to it. What exactly do you gain vs risk involved vs the potential for it to get worse.
What I am saying is you must weigh this choice within its proper perspective and not arbitrarily assume that its the best thing to do simply because it sounds good. If you are going to leave cover to perform any task, you need to weigh the potential for getting caught in a worse spot that you are already in. Its a basic tactical imperative.
Similarly if you have a partner(backup) or simply someone else you are protecting- leaving them, separating from them even when its only for a few moments.. you need to consider how this might work against you or how it may offer an opportunity for your adversary to exploit.
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FireForged
New member
exactly
zincwarrior
New member
Everything is situational. one priority should be to put as many barriers between yourself and the threat as possible to delay them until police arrive. Thats why locking the door if practical is a good idea.
FireForged
New member
Well, from the very limited angle that we can see.. it sort of appears that way.
BUT!..The fact that he immediately came back could suggest that he wasnt breaking off the attack.. just working another angle. We also don't know if he was still pointing the gun at them or not. A person turning their back might be trying to flee and they might be trying to get to cover so that they can continue attacking you. To fairly judge, we need more information.
FireForged
New member
Sure.. in a general sense I agree 100% but in this particular situation I think it would have been the wrong thing to do. The main priority is to survive.
If you are armed and have decent cover, that's a good thing. If the badguy has to traverse an open area to get to you or to get a shot... you have the advantage. If you happen to meet him in the middle of that open expanse as you are trying to secure a very minimalistic locking mechanism.. that's bad. Locking a [glass] door which is secured by a small courtesy set ( as most are), is not worth the risk. What if he or his accomplices come in the back door and utilize the cover you abandoned and then use it to attack you standing in the open. The smart thing would be to 1. get a 911 call for help. 2. Reload or at least remain behind cover ( watch each others backs) and prepared to continue defending. 3. Retreat to a more secure office or area which can be more easily defended. In this specific circumstance I would have said "heck with the front door."
Think about what you are calling a door or a barrier.. its likely a sheet of glass with a small courtesy set. Its more of an imagined barrier than a true barrier. If locking it is FREE.. sure, lock it. If a guy with a shotgun might come back through it at any second or might be standing 5 feet from it.. nope, I am staying put.
Mantras and checklists are great to reflect on but they do not rule the day in every conceivable situation. If you understand the spirit of the training you have received or the spirit of whatever "priorities" you cling to, then you can apply that understanding to construct an appropriate course of action which is unique to your specific circumstance.
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I agree, not enought video footage to tell... It was just the only thing that stood out to me though and begged the question if its reasonable to continue the lethal force defense if there is a temporary break in the immenence of the situation?
FireForged
New member
yeah me too. I half expected to see granny running out the door after him. I was glad she didn't. In fairness, its hard to tell but its an important observation on your part.
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As I asked in another thread, what's the difference between retreating and moving to cover? If someone is moving to cover to try to gain a tactical advantage, am I not supposed to engage simply because that person is moving away from me? I think the notion of not chasing the adversary or attacking a fleeing opponent is well and good, but it's not always easy to determine and it surely isn't easy during the moment. And this question comes up often in police shootings.
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FireForged
New member
that's not what I am saying. I was suggesting that in my mind those two things are different. fleeing is one thing.. efforts to continue the fight is something else entirely.
Personally I think her actions were justified but ONLY because the guy came back. There is an important distinction to make here, she got lucky he did just that.....
There was a breif lull in the imminence of the situation, werent there comments made even here suggested she could have locked the door?
The big takeaway I see from this is mental training to somehow keep your cool under stress. Not certain how to train for that but imminence is a requirement for self defense at all times, as I understand it.
What if the bad guy had enough and really wasnt coming back and that shot she fired killed him?
There was a breif lull in the imminence of the situation, werent there comments made even here suggested she could have locked the door?
The big takeaway I see from this is mental training to somehow keep your cool under stress. Not certain how to train for that but imminence is a requirement for self defense at all times, as I understand it.
What if the bad guy had enough and really wasnt coming back and that shot she fired killed him?
FireForged
New member
In training, a person can at least take steps eliminate the mental clutter and confusion which are normally associated with this kind of event. You have minimize the clutter through scenario development and physically carrying out these actions in a training environment. If you go through the analytical issues now, its much easier to make complex decisions in the future. One huge hurdle is for a person to come to terms with exactly what they are willing to do in regards to defending themselves in any given situation. Really come to terms with it. Moral, mental, spiritual, legal, ethical conflicts which arise in the moment can be devastating to your ability to take decisive action. Harmony comes when what you [say], what you[ think] and what you [do] all align honestly with your warrior spirit.
coolness under this type of pressure is usually a byproduct of being subjected to similar levels of mental stress (involving danger) over a period of time. It a form of desensitization which can occur sooner in some people, later in other and some do not develop it at all. There are also people who have been known to lose steely nerve after meeting some sort of breaking point.
Regarding desensitization..Police Officers develop this, soldiers, corrections officers and other protective service people who deal in physical dangers regularly. There are some unique physiologies which may exhibit a natural coolness under pressure of unusual lack of stress responses but those are few and far between. Citizens who develop this sort of desensitization are often those who have lived in rough neighborhoods where the threat of violence is a realistic (every day) occurrence.
coolness under this type of pressure is usually a byproduct of being subjected to similar levels of mental stress (involving danger) over a period of time. It a form of desensitization which can occur sooner in some people, later in other and some do not develop it at all. There are also people who have been known to lose steely nerve after meeting some sort of breaking point.
Regarding desensitization..Police Officers develop this, soldiers, corrections officers and other protective service people who deal in physical dangers regularly. There are some unique physiologies which may exhibit a natural coolness under pressure of unusual lack of stress responses but those are few and far between. Citizens who develop this sort of desensitization are often those who have lived in rough neighborhoods where the threat of violence is a realistic (every day) occurrence.
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zincwarrior
New member
Thats why I said "if practical." You're trying to buy time for the police to get there.
The other advice I would note is "learn how to do a Bill Drill." I will it at that.
And what if she did kill him? Let's run this down because I think there's something worth noting here. I've talked with trainers that were police officers that have emphasized to me the importance of having a narrative were I to be brought in front of a jury. This man entered the store, threatened her with a firearm (a felony in some states by itself), robbed said store, came back after the women had complied, and closed on her and her daughter, and then when the woman shot him he fought them, struck them, stole a firearm from them, and attempted to discharge said firearm at them with the likely possibility of causing a mortal wound.
If this man had left the store and the mother or daughter had chased the man outside and continued to fire, I see that as one thing. If they fire a shot at a person that as far as we know was still a threat as he was moving, making use of the time the distance to their assailant had given them, would said woman be guilty of a crime? That I can't answer, both as a cause of not knowing the laws of her state nor being a lawyer myself. Were I a jury member on that case and the woman was being tried for a crime in my state, I wouldn't vote to convict her under those circumstances knowing the laws of my state as I do and my own evaluation of the situation.
I have no desire to harm anyone, nor any desire to end up in jail. At some level when someone is attempting to end your life, as was the case by the end of this video, how much can we reasonably expect a person to pause and evaluate the exact actions of their assailant, step by step? FireForged made mention of the desensitization of police officers, soldiers, corrections officers, etc. But there are also examples of people from all of those professions that have been brought to trial because of questions with regards to use of force.
Does that mean I think threat assessment should go out the window once a fight has started? Not at all. My point is humans are emotion driven by nature, and while I see areas where these women could have done "better", truly empathizing with someone in such a situation and being able to clearly understand their threat evaluation is not an easy thing and some leeway has to be allowed. Police officers brought to trial for use of force are cleared far more than convicted. I believe that is in part due to the notions I expressed here.