Different instructor. Other than your own garage, he didn’t discourage walking into a kill box. If you are in your garage, you have hundreds of “weapons of opportunity” for both you and your taunter.
My garage, call 911 and set the phone in the counter, while talking louder.
Now, if I accidentally happened into this Kobayashi Maru, then I would have my hand on my carry gun, while telling the drunken fool I’m calling the cops. He is threatening you, and that’s a crime. Now the ball is in his court. If he advances on my position, he has escalated the situation. Even an unarmed person, can be a potentially life threatening individual. If(big if) he advances, I will draw, and become more aggressive in my commands for him to back off. When he is inside of “attackable” distance, I will use my carry gun. Don’t draw it, if you won’t use it. Don’t draw it, until it is the last option. Do what you can to de-escalate the situation. In the end, though, it may be inevitable that it’s you, or him.
And that is exactly what this scenario is. And my name is NOT James T. Kirk.
Okay, here are the correct steps,
first tell Alexa, call 911
Then pull out you knife and make him a sammich
Now shoot your instructor for proposing something so stupid
Turn yourself into the authorities
Ask to be placed in a cell with a philosopher
I would not even talk to an instructor that proposed such a scenario. He/she removed rayy to inalienable steps to begin with. I’ve handled several drinks in my life. One, I was glad my drunk dad was there to protect me. The guy was a Vietnam nut Navy Seal. My dad told me about him. He was much bigger than me.
Guy pulled a knife on my brother after a bar closed. I got between them and told him I’d shove that knife up his *** if he didn’t put it away. I meant it. Was very capable back then. Stupid but it was my best option considering the situation. It worked. Several other situations and managed to survive. That’s why Zi stopped going to bars.
I really do not mean to insult anyone here. I was just trying to cry for rational thinking. Don’t pull a gun on an unarmed person. If the guy attacks you then carefully fend him off. The scenario says you’re bigger. If you have a cell call 911. Everything from there depends on what the drunk guy does next. Every situation can be very different.
I think we can agree that drawing without an instant need to shoot is a mistake.
And so is any solution to that initial mistake, where you don’t come out alive.
My take is a little different.
All of the givens were put on you by your “Instructor”. You can’t go back and take the gun out of your hand and the PA cannot unsee it. So you have what you have even if I don’t like the “fueled by adrenaline” part because that does mean you ARE in FEAR.
Me personally… you already know the guy is going to close with you and attempt to take your gun, he told you that. Pull the gun in and make it as safe and hard to get at as possible to the point that my trigger finger is under the trigger guard and my left hand is on the slide. MY stride is about 3’ and gets bigger the faster I go so I want him right about where I’m pushing off my third step when I stick my elbow/shoulder out and bowl him over. I am not aiming to “get by” him I am aiming to GO THROUGH HIM and use my momentum and weight to knock him down. That will occur from launch to impact in a bit over a second. The intention is not to hit him and stop the intention is to get to the other side of him by any means possible. Keep your feet, keep your balance and KEEP MOVING. Once you are on the other side break contact and move to a fair distance while old boy gets up off the ground. Make sure you stop and look just in case he runs faster than you.
Just because you have a gun doesn’t mean you need to use it but since it is drawn it is now a very expensive and not very effective club as well as a liability. You need to mitigate the liability by retaining it which means you can’t use either one of your hands.
Cheers,
Craig6
I was trained to carry less than lethal options for self defense. In this scenario, although I had already been foolish enough to draw my weapon too early, I would pull my pepper spray out of my left pocket with my off hand while re-holstering my weapon.
I would give clear commands for him to leave or be pepper sprayed. If he stops advancing I would call 911 with my right hand and be ready to set the phone down if necessary. If he advances inside of 20 feet, I would spray him and pull my knife with my right hand. I am not in good enough physical condition to win most fights, but I think my knife and I together could take an unarmed blind drunk.
It’s Saturday night and I’ve been snowed in all week, so I’m just gonna be honest here. Assuming I’m the innocent party, If the dudes unarmed, drunk, and smaller than me, I’d probably just ignore him and walk right past. In the event he puts his hands on me leaving me no choice, I’d proceed to a good old fashioned fisticuffs.
This sounds like a “when can i shoot” kinda deal, when we really should be thinking in the context of “when MUST i shoot.” Situational awareness and conflict avoidance should help us avoid these situations, particularly getting hemmed in, like an alley with no escape. I don’t have an issue with scenarios, but I really think this ones a little to extreme.
Shark tooth knife!
Talking through what-if scenarios is a valid exercise that allows us to recognize and appropriately respond to a given set of circumstances faster, by optimizing our response, and successfully resolving the situation at hand. It’s used all the time in critical response management. When I learn to fly airplanes, as an example, the what-if scenarios were things like, What happens if I get a bird strike, what happens if the gear doesn’t come down, what happens if the engine quits, or what happens if I get icing. All of these what if scenarios had predictable outcomes so by talking through them we were better prepared to handle them.
Your scenario however, can’t have a predictable outcome because you can’t expect a rational response from an irrational person. In this scenario you are set up to fail. The moment you drew your weapon and exposed it to the PA you made the assumption that the drunk and obviously irrational PA would respond as a rational sober person. The moment the PA didn’t respond rationally you find yourself painted into a corner with no good response. You forced yourself, in this scenario from a Condition Yellow to a Condition Red and seem to bypass Condition Orange altogether. At least that’s the way I read the scenario. Alternative what-if responses to this scenario that I would’ve encouraged students to consider before drawing their weapon would’ve been what less than lethal options do I have to defend myself. Could I verbally de-escalate the situation? With minimal hands-on force could I have gotten past the PA or at least move the confrontation out on the public street? Were there any blunt objects in the area that could have been used as defensive tools? Should I have started recording the PA’s behavior on my phone or directed someone that was with me to record it should it be needed? Could you start verbalizing commands at the PA like “Stay Back” loud enough that it attracted attention? ( witnesses are good) .
Having said all that, again these were what-if training scenarios and what-if responses. There is no right answer and there is no wrong answer they are scenarios designed to better prepare you to appropriately respond to the circumstances at hand.
Remember the training fundamentals we teach; What would the Reasonable Person do?
Recording the PA is a good idea. I would reach for my phone, hit Home button twice, wait for the camera app to start, hit the red Record button, which is easy to confuse with the big Still button, especially with adrenaline rush, and confirm the recording started, and if it didnt I need to…
I think this is enough illustration of how much distraction from survival this is. Can you afford it?
"Because of the often immersive nature of the training, the brain and body absorb and process the experience as if it were actually occurring. If done properly and effectively, it can program a participant for effective future behavior to nearly the same degree as if it had been an actual situation. One of the problems, however, is that Reality Based Training (RBT) is often carried out in a haphazard manner by trainers who are unknowledgeable about the psychological and physiological processes that are being manipulated. Therefore, being a training participant there is a very real potential to create training scars that may lead to future failure." (emphasis added)
To be brief and clear, good reality-bases scenarios set participants up to succeed, not fail. They do not prescribe judgment errors – ever. They certainly don’t put students in “lose-lose” situations. Failures will happen if the simulation is good enough. The trainers can also induce mechanical failures, environmental obstacles (wet floors, trip hazards, smoke, strobe lights, cold/hot, etc.), and simulated handicaps (no talking, put the dominant arm in a sling to simulate injury, etc.). When failures happen, you train through them by re-running the scenario until the participant(s) achieve success. Programming people to fail in critical incidents is akin to negligent homicide.
Thomas153 it looks like you got a healthy discussion going!
Training is training and is preparation for real life. Maybe the instructors take away was. Don’t draw too early!
Yes. This.
So, I’m north of 50 years old, in decent shape, but I’m still not going to win many hand-to-hand encounters, even with a scrawny drunk. If he is really drunk. Keep in mind a guy on flakka or meth will have nearly superhuman powers.
My firearm is always my last option, and I usually supplement my EDC with pepper spray, a tactical knife, and tactical pen. #1, I call 911 and maintain my distance. #2, if he approaches I resort to pepper spray, trying to stay out of Bad Breath range. If it came down to drawing my firearm, I would keep squeezing the trigger until I heard “click, click.”
Thanks for all the feedback – great points all around! The common thread seems to be: You drew to early, so it’s gonna come back on you. That strikes me as a perfectly plausible – and reasonable – consequence.
But let me provide some more context; here’s the genesis of this inquiry: In my discussions with non-gun folk, I am often asked, “What the heck do you need to carry a gun for?” My answer is, just look at the news pretty much anytime, stupid [partially kidding].
But I really wanted to say confidently, "Having the weapon could save you from a deadly situation, and there is no reason not to carry one. So, I tried to imagine a scenario where just having your weapon might arguably put you in the wrong because you created a more dangerous situation than if you weren’t carrying.
So, let me see if I can put a finer point on the core issue: What if your gun is out but the other guy is unfazed completely? Maybe you drew in response to a threat with a knife, and PA threw the knife away once you drew – but then advanced on you anyway. Or consider the finale to the show Big Little Lies if you’ve seen it. Estranged wife is confronted by unarmed but menacing ex; wife pulls her gun and warns him off; and he laughs and advances on her, taunting “Go ahead – shoot me.” (Yes, there are battered-wife considerations).
I agree that in the way I initially teed this up, the answer is that you drew too soon. Obviously one tries everything possible before revealing a concealed weapon.
But I am really trying to home in on the “this person is simply unfazed by my drawn weapon” aspect.
The point I think you missed earlier is that a weapon is not for “fazing” someone. You don’t draw it until you have to. If I have drawn my weapon, I’ve drawn it because I feel I have to use it.
I am never going to use my weapon as a talisman to get someone to stand down.
Well put. If I have time to reassess the situation and then decide if I have a legitimate target, I was too early on the draw. I might decide the threat no longer exists but that is a different story.
A turtle was crossing the road when two snails mugged him. The police showed up and asked the turtle what happened. “I don’t know,” the turtle replied. “It all happened so fast.”
To the last couple of comments regarding NOT using a gun as a deterrent/threat/talisman, I agree: You do not draw your weapon for the sole purpose of intimidating/frightening someone or otherwise.
However, if, for example, the scenario is a knife-wielding miscreant standing about 20-25 feet away, you bet your a$$ I will draw and hold low ready. And in that situation, the best possible outcome is that bad guy runs away upon seeing you are armed.
That is the sense in which the weapon can properly be displayed with no shots immediately fired. Generally speaking, definitely not a talisman, and totally inappropriate as nothing more than a “show of force.” But here, the desired result is that the bad guy stands down.
My scenario is just a twist on this: You now have a now-unarmed attacker advancing towards you while you are holding a gun at low ready, attacker seemingly unfazed by the gun.
Now you’re just being argumentative. I’m out.
While the vast majority of people who carry respond appropriately to threats, the news has several examples where people escalated the situation needlessly because they were carrying a gun. This is why people who carry to defend themselves and others need to hold themselves to the highest standards when responding to threats, real or perceived. If we screw up by misreading a situation we better act fast to defuse the situation we have now escalated. Training, study and practice help to avoid screwing up.
Threat deescalation skills are good to have to prevent or repair this scenario. This often involves a good deal of intuition, empathy and the ability to ignore your own ego to be able to succeed in the heat of the moment. But we also have to always have in the back of our minds that sometimes violence is the only answer for dealing with violent people.