You deal with the situation at hand. You have distance on your side and most likely cameras everywhere.
This can work many ways but the safest approach is to keep distance on your side, get in position, draw and tell the guy to drop the knife.
If he drops it, everyone lives, and you’re still a good witness. Call the cops. If the guy runs out, let him, and you’re still a good witness.
This is something we need to overcome, a LEO has a uniform he is automatically the good guy, all I have are good intentions.
This leads me to a question I’ve asked during a mass shooting class.
How will LEO know I’m the good guy when SWAT rushes in during a mass shooting?
The answer, and I’m paraphrasing, is most people are running out of the danger areas and I’m running towards the sound of bullets. Unlike that Florida Sheriff who stood there like a frozen, trained coward.
Hopefully you dialed 911 and advised your description, location and that of any perpetrator/s.
Let me say this to all of you saying you would draw your gun and wait, move to a better position or be at the ready. That clerk does not know you, he may think you are in on the events taking place. If walked into the store and saw the guy with the knife and you in the back of the store with weapon in hand, I would be justified in shooting both of you. You cannot brandished a weapon (Gun out, that’s what you are doing) then expect me to assume you are a good guy.
I’m going out on a limb here, but if I could have saved 1, 2, or three kids at Parkland or at the Colorado movie theater and was then killed by law enforcement, So be it, I did what I could.
I carry for self defense and that of my family, however if I’m in a situation that I can’t get out of and people are dying around me, I’m drawing and firing at the person who is firing towards me. Not doing so would be like going home with the immunity idol in my pocket. I don’t think I could live with the fact that I could have done something but didn’t. That formally trained sheriff did not even try.
Better to have one and not need it, than need it an not have it. That’s why I got my license. There are very rare occasions when my weapon is not attached to my hip, court houses, air travel, doctors visits, and the shower. I don’t drink and I don’t eat out much. I don’t do crowds and as far as I’m concerned, convenience stores are kill zones, day or night. No, I don’t ever go inside. I’ll take my chances at the pump with my credit card.
In closing, I’m not the hero type, but If I see a life in immediate life threatening danger, I will do my best and hope to tell you about.
Why not the doctors office, I have read of cases where people have lost it in an office?
@Anthony88, every time I get in the MRI machine my gun gets stuck on the wall, the nurses hate that. Perhaps if I owned a plastic Glock instead of a stainless 1911, things may work out better.
Please don’t ask what happens when the doctor asks me to turn my head and cough and I’m armed.
Thanks for the laugh this afternoon, @Scott52!
You know a cop in NY took his weapon in to MRI room and it discharged. Luckily it did not hit the Magnet, liquid Helium does not play well with sudden decompression
I would like to believe this is what I would do but until I am in that situation I really don’t know.
I believe I would use the corner of the shelf at the end of the aisle as a cover, draw my gun , lock my sights on his chest area and demand the person with the knife drop the knife and leave the store. Then call 911 and report what happened.
Of course if he charged or leaped for the clerk I would shoot.
would hang back. calling 911, gun ready just in case. You can try to defend the clerk, but in court a knife vs a gun to protect someone else may still be jail time. I am very curious on what the best procedure is.