Hi there folks,
I’ve watched most of the videos out there of people resisting armed robbers and to put it mildly, there’s a rather large probability that you will at least be injured before you can hit an anatomically significant position on the perp. Furthermore, even if you are able to, often times your moving backstop is an innocent person and you’re probably going to miss at least a few of your shots. And for what? So that you get to use your training? It’s been extremely rare when I see a video of someone present during a robbery comply and still be hurt. I’ve only seen that once or twice out of hundreds of videos. Active Self Protection channel which has 1300 videos uploaded only has about 4 instances where people got hurt by complying. I understand that one is legally authorized to shoot him dead right there, and if you absolutely know you can take the shot without any risk at all, then sure, go ahead and do that… but how many times is that going happen? The best odds I think anyone could reasonably give, is 85% that they won’t have the time to turn around and fire at you or someone else after they’ve been shot. We know from the Tueller drill that the average person can cover 21 feet in 1.5 seconds. I’m just not convinced that it’s worth the risk, for the protection of mere property. What are your thoughts?
Well I’m in IL Castle Doctrines are sketchy but nuts and bolts are: IL does not allow using deadly force against any intruder in a home. You can however defend yourself if you think imminent death can be prevented.
It will be prosecuted as a felony crime of criminal recklessness if you pursue in any unsafe manner. Also; can open yourself up to be sued in a civil suit.
So what I’m telling you is you really need to know your state laws in regards to your choices.
If already involved in bad situation (we’re talking about armed robbery)…
- on clear shot - I would take my chance and draw.
- no clear shot - recognize situation correctly, wait for opportunity then draw.
“We don’t negotiate with terrorist”… and we don’t give up and risk our lives.
I saw too many videos when victim complied and got shot anyway… no way, I wouldn’t take that risk… Even this might be 1% of all situations… I’d rather not be within this 1% 
Okay but its a robbery they’re there for your stuff not your life. But once you pull out a firearm, they know that you can shoot them legally and they are gonna need to shoot you before you shoot them. At that point aren’t you raising your chances to 90%+ of being in a gun fight whereas before you had a 90% chance that you would Not be in a gun fight right?
If they have a weapon they are there for your life. If they are just burglars they are after stuff. The fact that they are armed demands a lethal response. IMO af least.
First, correct you don’t defend property you defend life…
So you’re willing to take the chance that someone who pulls a gun on you to rob you will not harm you? You’re willing to bet your life on that? You’re willing to bet your family’s life on the HOPE that compliance will result in no harm coming to them?
That’s not always true, watch the videos below…
To each their own, but I’m not willing to take that chance for my family.
Also, regards to only see a couple of videos, please watch John Correa’s channel where he talks about this exact thing (leaving your safety or your family’s safety to the criminal). And this is only a few of his videos…not real enthusiastic about the statistics on the compliance strategy as a first option.
Think about it…
Protecting property isn’t the goal. Self defense is justifiable when one believes that the danger of death or great bodily harm is imminent. Protecting “stuff” isn’t a good enough reason. That being said, each of us makes our own decisions, which can include doing nothing or using deadly force or anything in between. You choose how you will respond and at the same time you choose your consequences. There are consequences to any response, including no response.
There are no rules for the criminal. that person has already stepped outside the rules and breached the social contract. “Giving it up”, as you put it, is no guarantee of safety. The bad actor does respect the rules, the law, the customs and morals of the community, and he certainly doesn’t respect your rights or your expectations.
I don’t shoot to protect my stuff. I shoot to protect my life.
I am well familiar with those videos, and with his channel. In the first of “three incidents” no one is hurt. I have no idea why its included. In the second one no one is hurt either. Finally in the third one, someone is hurt. Its a deceiving video. Of the thousands of videos on ASP, 1 video does not impress me. There is only one other one that I’m aware of. 2 or even 5 incidents does not impress me in comparison to the hundreds of videos where no one is hurt by complying. I look forward to your reply as I too am an ASP fan. However, from watching ASP, I know that its better to comply. There are so many videos where the self defenders or others are hurt.
Sure you have the right, but is that the safest choice for you? That’s the question.
I get that but that’s all theoretical. I’m pointing to actual evidence that it turns out most of the time when they point a gun at your head and say give me your stuff it’s not because they want to shoot you. It turns out they really do just want your stuff. Otherwise people would be able to produce more than a handful of videos of people complying and still being hurt. Now if someone is coming after you for a reason other than your stuff thats a completely different story. But when you start shooting, the chances are near 50% I’d say of getting shot at and you would not have been in that position had you complied.
John’s aim is to educate not scare so it seems he tries to provide a realistic overview and as such shows where compliance can work.
It doesn’t seem like you watched all three videos…video #1, compliance works 2 of 3 times (33% chance of being killed), video #2 compliance works 1 of 3 times (66% chance of being killed), video #3 compliance works 0 of 3 times (100% chance of being killed).
Again, that was a 20 sec search on John’s channel,…I’m confident there are 100’s more on his channel…you can search through and find them if you like.
Hmmmmm, that’s actually not the lesson from John’s videos (he states clearly that when you comply you’re taking a chance and your life and putting it in the attackers hands) also of all the videos I’ve watched over the years…very very few of them actually show the defender shooting someone else unintentionally (yes there are a couple, but that’s what’s very rare).
Having said that, feeling the way it seems you feel (per your posts) you should probably NOT carry as it doesn’t sound like you would take an action unless a life were definitely in danger, and that being the case if the robber starts fleecing you and feels that weapon on you, you will have just given that robber another gun to run the streets with (since a gun is only “stuff” also).
So if you don’t intend to carry the tools, you probably shouldn’t carry the tools (but it is America and as such your choice).
It’s situational…do you draw from the drop? (where the attacker has a weapon drawn on you and is looking right at you), nope not unless it’s a last resort.
Do you draw when the attacker is not looking or you have some piece of cover to make your move behind? Well that seems like a much better case to take an action.
I disagree with your conclusions.
First I would ask just how many videos have you watched and what was their source? I can collect a significant number of videos, police reports, and victim statements which completely contradict your information. In fact, when I lived in Detroit the police stopped advising people to comply with robbers. The results weren’t significantly better than non-compliance.
Point of interest: Do you also recommend that women who are sexually assaulted should comply with their rapists because by “giving it up” they may avoid getting beaten up?
In addition, giving criminals what they want only serves to encourage more crime. The only effective deterrent to the criminal mind is risk. The more risk involved in a particular crime, the fewer who are willing to attempt it.
You can’t compile statistics of when compliance works from videos labeled by how compliance fails. That’s just totally a misuse of numbers. I know John Correia’s conclusions and I don’t agree with them given the fact that he cannot produce more than a couple of videos of people getting hurt resisting. There are not hundreds more videos of people being hurt complying, those are the videos. John can’t come out and say, hey you should probably give up your stuff because that beats the whole point of his channel and would upset the people that watch him. No one asked you about whether I should carry or not. That’s not part of this discussion or relevant.
Do you consider rape to be merely the taking of stuff? Is that what you’re implying? You don’t seem to want to extend good will in this intellectual discussion so since we’re going to go ahead and start asking the dumb questions, I thought I’d ask you that. No. Women who are defending against a rape should not “give it up” as you ask, they should shoot him dead. We’re talking about people who are after stuff here. Not rapists.
Those were not the titles of those videos and as you pointed out so very well, they seem to be pretty balanced as in the very first one, he’s shows two instances where compliance actually works.
But fair enough, those are all anecdotal
How do you know there are not hundreds more videos? I pulled up 6 in the span of 20 seconds from one source…I’m confident that if a google/youtube search were done you would find hundreds of videos where compliance did not work. You would also find hundreds where compliance did. But again, that’s all anecdotal.
So if that’s all anecdotal, that means the videos you’ve watch are statistically insignificant as well and also anecdotal and as such no statistical correlation able to be drawn.
The only hard number we have are from the BJS and CDC showing that in 2018 there were approximately 3.3M violent crime victims over the age of 12…during that same period it’s estimated that guns were successfully used defensively between 500k and 1M times a year. Using those numbers its seems the odds are pretty good for defending yourself with a handgun vs just complying (where you’re 100% guaranteed to be the victim of a violent crime).
There are no stats on individuals being accidently shot during a defensive shooting because they’re statistically non-existent (otherwise you would have all kinds of anti-2A groups touting them).
In fact, I was wondering if you considered rape to be “the taking of stuff”. I am glad to see that you do not.
As I stated before, deadly force is not necessarily appropriate to protect stuff. The laws vary from state to state, and some do actually allow for the use of deadly force in defense of property under certain circumstances. That notwithstanding, my personal morals do not allow for the use of deadly force to protect stuff. However, should the criminal use force in his attempt to take my stuff, then the use of force in response may well be appropriate,
Every situation is unique unto itself so no general rule can be uniformly applied to all. There are many factors to be considered when confronted by a criminal demanding property–his aspect and affect, the perceived level of anger and aggression, deducing state of mind through the language used, not to mention what weapon he displays. All of these things, and many more, must be apprehended and analyzed in a split second. then a course of action decided and acted upon. We all hope that, in the extremity, we will make a reasonable, rational decision which does the most good while causing the least harm, and that we act on that decision with courage and restraint.
The taking of stuff can happen in many ways, from a sneak thief stealing a package off the porch when nobody’s home to a drug-crazed, violent felon kicking in the front door and swinging a deadly weapon. In all of these situations, just as in most of life, context is everything. Compliance may be the best course of action and it may not.
General rules only apply generally, not specifically.
Well I know because I’ve searched for them!
That’s how I became aware of those ones from Correia. In fairness to you the CDC number you quoted is 500k-3 million not 1. And i absolutely agree that those numbers are closer to the 3 million than the 500k. They refer to the number of times that guns are used to prevent crime and that is why I support people having their guns on them. I’m merely suggesting that an armed robbery is not the place to do it. I became aware of this after watching most of the videos on ASP… and seeing good guys hurt over and over and over again. I’d estimate that in at least a quarter of them, the good guy is seriously hurt in some way. But the number of times that compliant people are hurt is very little. I could count them on both my hands… but fair enough you are correct that I did not make a study of such things and write down the exact occurrence.
I used 1M as the low end of the CDC report as there is still debate on the 3M so I was attempting to be conservative but we can go with the 3M, as it makes my point even more. So of those 3M times…what percentage do you think are robberies? A third maybe with homicide and rape being the other 2/3? So that’s 1M times a year someone prevents a violent robbery.
I’m very reluctant to use your anecdotal data any more than you’re willing to use my small sample data, but I’ll indulge you here and lets call them hard stats…so 25% of the time the good guy is hurt in some way when they resist…so 75% of the time they are successful? Sounds like pretty good odds to me. I’m still curious as to your “very little” number when compliance is used as the strategy and the victim is not hurt and what that number is.
In my personal experience that number is 0% in that the robber sill pressed the point despite already having all the money. Luckily I did not take your advice as it didn’t work out well for his previous two victims. But again…that’s anecdotal.
So compliance works fine…except when it doesn’t…and then it’s often too late to do anything else.
But to go back to your original post, and where I will agree with you is if someone gets the drop on you and pulls a gun and asks for your wallet…you give them your wallet…where things start getting “situational” is what they do after that. If they leave fine…if they stay and continue the attack, then all bets are off.
But hopefully, I’ll have identified the threat before the robber gets a chance to pull his tool and will have already gotten the drop on him (which is also a lot of what Correa’s, USCCAs and Gun Talks videos focus on identifying the threat early).
I beg to differ @CriticalThinky. Jason Spencer was an acquaintance and my counterpart in church security at one of our other church campuses. He and his new bride had just gotten home from their honeymoon and were taking a stroll through Cherokee Park In Louisville when a car stopped, a kid got out with a gun and demanded money. Jason complied and was still shot and killed. After being shot, he drew his weapon and returned fire to protect his bride, now widow. He hit one of three of the assailants.
If someone is demanding property and is doing so with a deadly weapon, it will always be my assumption that they intend to cause me harm and, If I believe I can do so safely, they will be met with force.