A defender has OODA loop too. A criminal’s interest is to disrupt O(bserve) O(rient) parts, and to scoot once the defender is in the A(ct) part.
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I’m not sure how much contemplation you can cram into the extra 0.1 seconds it might take you to pull a double action trigger vs a single action or striker fired trigger. That deliberation should be taking place before a finger gets placed on the trigger.
Agree that pulling the trigger is a very serious decision and you must be as certain as possible that the threat is real and action justified. Unfortunately though criminals often don’t give us time to carefully deliberate.
That is why I believe it is important to train and work through mental scenarios in order to decide how we are going to react to various situations before we are in the middle of them. As @Alexander8 pointed out criminals want us stuck in the OO part of the OODA loop. We need to get to the Act part as quickly as possible. The rest of that loop is vitally important but we need to work our way through it as efficiently as possible in order to force the criminal to have to reset their loop.
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My last day on the job as a cop many moons ago found me, finger on my 357 mag revolver standing in front of a pickup after an extended high-speed chase, pointed in between the eyes of the driver ready to pull the trigger if the truck came forward in the slightest. Turns out that long heavy revolver trigger stopped me from killing a 16-year old child who had taken his Dad’s truck and ran because he was afraid of getting in trouble.
I believe that my life and the life of that child and his family would have been forever changed (for the worst) but for that long heavy S&W trigger that made me stop and think first. Shoot deliberately, not fast is the lesson I learned.
Can’t plan that sort of thing out in advance, BTW.
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If you are not ok with pulling the trigger, you shouldn’t carry. Are you ok with someone pulling the trigger on you or yours?
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Thank you for putting your life on the line to keep us safe and for sharing your experience. Forgive me for not completely understanding the advantages of the long DA trigger pull I have limited experience with them and have never trained with them for self defense.
Are you saying that you started to pull the trigger but before it could break you were able to use that extra required time to determine that you were not faced with an imminent threat and were able to stop your trigger pull? Or was it the extra weight required that made you stop and reconsider? I am not trying to argue or be a wise guy. I’m here to learn and am truly interested in understanding how the heavy trigger might impact one’s ability to not make a poor decision or more easily stop after one had been made.
I can imagine a situation where I am about to fire and placed my finger on the trigger because the threat was clearly imminent but haven’t completely committed to pulling the trigger for some reason. If I then heard a sudden noise or had some other startle cue my trigger finger might instinctively close and fire the gun before I intended. In that case maybe a DA trigger might overcome my adrenaline and stop the unintended trigger pull? This and added safety when reholstering are two potential advantages I can see with a DA trigger.
It’s just hard for me to imagine that extra 0.1 seconds (even 0.25 if I am being really deliberate with my trigger pull in a SD situation) giving me enough time to process new inputs, use that information to change my mind on pulling the trigger and override the signal to shoot that I already sent to my finger.
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Then your finger shouldn’t be on the trigger but placed high along the register, I believe that’s the correct wording. At least for me, when I place my finger on the trigger, I’ve already decided it’s important enough to shoot when I placed it there.
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The long trigger pull on a DA firearm is much different than a striker gun or a SA pistol with a crisp, short trigger. In the heat of a confrontation, there is a significant potential for a discharge that may not be deliberate that is reduced with a DA gun. In my last day’s experience, we were chasing the boys in the truck because they matched a description of a murder suspect (3 white males in a black 4x4 with a rifle rack) fleeing the scene of a homicide. My partner and I chased them for a very long time @90 mph and they rammed our patrol car more than once, but they had nothing to do with the murder – just scared kids. The driver came very close to dying but for the long trigger pull on my S&W DA 357. Had I had my SA Browning Hi Power or my striker fired VP9, the driver would be dead and I would have killed a child. Maybe that was God telling me something and/or protecting me from myself.
Based on that experience, my favored carry firearms are revolvers (yes, it takes some practice, and yes 5 or 6 rounds in a revolver is less than 15), DA/SA semi-autos and Kahr pistols. “Obvious threats” in the real world may not be what they seem. In my opinion, one should take every opportunity to think, and think again before sending a round down range. Deliberate is better than fast in my view.
Also, that “safe action” dongle safety on the trigger of striker guns can be defeated by a drawstring on a jacket that gets tangled in the trigger guard in the heat of something as simple as reholstering. It’s bad for sure, and even worse if you appendix carry.
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hey, no biggie!
I swear they dont pay cops nearly enough.
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I could never be a cop because of all the after actions reviews and second guessing. The pressure of just trying to be a good cop bad enough. Thanks for your service.
My question though is: I’m taking it when you say rammed you mean side swiped? I can understand being angry about that but is it reason enough to pull and aim your weapon without one first being seen by you or pointed at you? I know it sucks because that puts you, aka cops, at a disadvantage.
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It’s a (mostly) thankless job.
Thank you for your service. 
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It sounds like, despite these kids threatening behavior and the misidentification as murder suspects, you used your intuition to decide that they were not a threat and chose not to pull the trigger. I’m still not clear exactly how the DA trigger affected this process for you.
I have never been in an imminently threatening situation where I had a firearm available so I don’t know how I would react in the heat of the moment. But as @William191 described above, I train to not put my finger on the trigger unless I have already decided it needs to be pulled. Though I could imagine a situation where I felt the trigger needed to be pulled but really didn’t want to and I might hesitate with my finger on the trigger in that rare circumstance. A young kid threateningly pointing a gun at me for example.
Regardless of the circumstances , I would never make the decision to put my finger on the trigger lightly. I would need to be convinced I or someone I care about is in imminent danger and I had no viable options.
As for holstering, I don’t trust any safety mechanisms to keep my pistols from accidentally going off. I check to make sure my holster is clear every time before holstering.
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I think you misunderstand my question. I get that he was rammed but how was he rammed. Was it like in the movies on a high speed chase and the sides of the cars were hitting or did they slam on the brakes causing a ramming, did he try the PIT maneuver and they somehow didn’t let him place his cruiser correctly?
The gist of my question really is; is ramming their cars together enough to draw and aim? He was in his cruiser and they in their father’s car. Kind of on equal footing so to speak. They could have killed him or he could have killed the kids if a car went out of control. I get it would make him mad as I would be pissed off too.
I could never be a cop. Thanks again Mark for your service
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It wasn’t the ramming that caused him to pull his weapon it was the fact that he thought he may be facing a murder suspect which was why the pursuit was initiated. 
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Otay, I get it now.
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Appreciate it. It also speaks to how minds work, how it can force us to pause and think, even a split second can offer that, if time permits it safe to pause.
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When I was deployed to Taiwan for the 1958 Taiwan Straits emergency the powers that be wanted all NCOs to take a turn at being an MP. I know my temperament. I am not suited for police work. I advised my boss, the legal officer that I would be willing to stand telephone watch every evening of the week but it would be a big mistake to put me on patrol out in town minding drunks. I told him that he should make every attempt to keep me from MP duty. I do not suffer drunks gladly. There was a significant risk that there would be an incident that would make everyone sorry that they had overridden my disclosure and assigned me to patrol. He must have been persuasive. Not only did I not go on MP patrol but I didn’t have to stand phone watch 7 nights a week either.
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Have you ever taken a test and you write an answer down but then later you second guess yourself and actually get the question wrong when you had it right at first? The question of could you actually pull the trigger is something a person can only speculate. What would you do if? You can have it in your mind that you would do something if this happened to you but in reality, you just might not! There is a lot to determine the need of, and the willing to. Training properly does help this matter as well as having some experience. Have you ever gone through your house to get something in the kitchen and get surprised by your teen, who you thought wasn’t even home? It is startling to say the least! Your reaction would be increased if you did not recognize them even after the initial shock this whole thing is increased in shock and aw! You would be going from condition white and hitting condition orange in milliseconds! Your reaction to fear then having to contemplate what to do and pulling a trigger! Even better, have you had anyone ever jump out from behind a door to scare you? How did you react?
Okay, let’s say you felt as though you had no choice but to shoot. Except your first gut response. It is so important to understand that later you may see a fault in your action, but you made a choice and only had so much info to make this choice. If later, you get more information it was not a factor in your decision to act because there is only so much information available in miliiseconds when making your choice to act.
Practice, train and be safe!
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I’m very hard to get to jump like that. it does happen but extremely rare. I guess I’ve been desensitized so much by life in the past I just look at you and ask what’s your problem. My wife on the other hand jumps when you look at her and say boo.
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Both. When I finally got out of the car they had directly T-boned us in a cul-de-sac and the cruiser stalled. A real Hollywood moment to be sure. I wasn’t angry, but I definitely scared with lots of adrenaline flowing. There was a rifle in the rear window rifle rack.
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