Someone else on this thread also wrote that a handgun could escalate what would have been a "fight".

I think its important to note that some guy who would actually assault a total stranger, either to accomplish a theft or because of being in an irrational state of rage, is likely not thinking "fight". More'n likely he intends damage on the scale of broken facial bones and a serious concussion, what ever it takes to leave you laying on the ground, possibly with permanent impairment.

Mike

Risk of where that bullet goes after it is shot in the air or on the ground. Also going back to what I was taught and has been repeated by different instructors (my state, their laws) is if you don't intend to shoot the person you should not draw. Drawing to fire a warning shot doesn't fit into that. However my thoughts of "the situation changed from draw to fire" is my thoughts and is not echoed by them.

Much of what is taught is forced on how the courts see certain things. It's unfortunate but that's the way it is. It's complicated and it's messy. A situation like seeing someone steal your bike chained outside a store isn't enough to draw where I am at though protecting a person who is in deadly harm (not just getting a slap) is. And on and on. About every three months I read through what could be called "The average person's guide to carrying concealed" and they cover the laws, situations and outcomes, etc. Each time I shake my head and know that I have to be very sure of what I'm doing if I was to ever draw my weapon. I hope to never do so but it's there if needed.

All good points - just to clear the warning shot. Talking about a situation where shooting to kill is justified. So no empty threat, but a real danger, and one is pulling a gun to kill the attacker. Ok?

In that situation, where I live it is strongly advised to fire a warning shot first (if possible at all, if there is enough time, of course), then shoot at the legs, lower part of the body (again, if possible at all - if the attacker has already pulled a gun at you, you must shoot to kill/disable).

What do you think of that? I was instructed to shoot in the air, or if in a city (with skyscrapers), at a 45 degree angle downwards, away from people (past the attacker). Does that make sense to you?

What our instructors tell us is for legal purposes and maybe not what they would want to believe but my personal opinion is that anytime you can use less than lethal or injurous (is that a word?) force then that is what I would want to do. Firing a warning shot does give the concern of where that round goes. Our instructor cited a few cases where warning shots have damaged property (even ones in the air) or hurt people and then you got problems.

It would appear that most Americans with firearms training have been taught to shoot to kill. No exceptions. Any forum I've been on where this topic comes up the 'experts' get right in there and insist you've got to have the intention to kill with the first shot. Hmmmm. It was widely publicized last year about one constrast between America and Europe with respect to firearms. It was noted that in 2011 the German police department. That is all of Germany, not just Munich or Hanover or Berlin, but the entire country... the combined police forces in Germany fired 90 rounds the entire year. In just one incident in NYC, responding officers fired 90 rounds at one unarmed homeless man in Harlem. They fired uncountable hundreds of rounds during that year, none of which were warning shots. Not the entire U.S. just NYC.

I can't believe that over decades of law enforcement experience, that the police instructors in Germany could persist in teaching bad firearms technique to hundreds of professional law enforcement applicants. It must be examined closer this dogged insistence on the part of American citizens that warning shots are dangerous, etc. There is lots of evidence to the contrary! Has there ever been, in fact, a recorded collateral death from a stray warning shot? A proper warning shot, fired upward or the proper angle downward? There certainly have been a number of collateral deaths from targeted rounds missing the target and wounding or killing bystanders. German cities are just as built up as any in America. Property damage?

More Americans have died needlessly at the hands of someone with a gun than in all the other countries of the world combined. I submit that it is NOT always necessary to kill an assailant, but it will sure help with the healing process for the American who does come up against a situation involving gunplay. They will shoot to kill. If they hit their target they have a good chance of killing him. They NEED to think that there was no other way out. Otherwise they would have to live with the fact that they have in fact committed murder, not justifiable homicide, but murder. A nation raised on Disney can't deal with that. The meanest, take no prisoners, bad*** out there needs that psychological 'out' for his actions when he takes someone else's life with his gun.

H

?? So what is your wife supposed to do for self defense when you are out and about with her handgun? Did you know that four armed police officers were gunned down at one time in the donut shop where they were having breakfast? Not even the last officer to be killed was able to get to their weapon to return fire and end the threat. So much for the use of firearms as defensive weaponry. If you are at a stoplight and arms grab you from behind and lift you off your bike, you could have a 357 in a shoulder holster and it will do you little good until you can first take care of the reality that you are in a very compromised situation. You'd better know how to break holds or other aspects of close quarters combat. Otherwise, your bike is gone and maybe you too if they find the gun. Maybe better to lose the bike? I don't know, I'm just asking.

H

There is a difference in mentality. Between different European countries, and between Europe and the USA. Crime is not the same. England has unarmed police officers, but such laws that you would rather shoot a SWAT member, than even consider hitting the unarmed policeman.

Police practice is also different. From what I could tell - US cops often patrol alone (one cop, one car). That is a totally different situation than when going in pairs, like I saw German cops do. I'm no expert, nor have I lived in the US, but I'm sure you need different tactics for different situations.

European caliber of choice is 9mm parabellum, which is considered not penetrating enough by the FBI (with a pretty good reason, to be honest).

So I guess in USA everything needs to be bigger, different.

That is incorrect, most Americans with firearms training have been taught to shoot to STOP.


The "shooting to kill" vs. "shooting to wound" thing is only an issue to those who have no experience actually shooting handguns and/or have mostly seen handguns used in the movies.

Handguns are notoriously hard to shoot with any degree of accuracy under stress. Add this to the fact that most shooting altercations occur 1) in the dark 2) within ten feet and 3) are decided in the first two seconds and considerations "shoulder", "legs", "warning shots" whatever fly out the window.

The way I have been taught, with a handgun one aims center mass and continues to pull the trigger until the assailant stops.

Some comfort I guess in that most people shot with a handgun do not actually die from the experience although the injuries inflicted are often severe and permanent.

Mike

I would argue that this depends on the level of training, experience and the situation. Recent shooting in my city took exactly 3 shots in self defense - one in the air, one in the legs of an attacker and the third was a ricochet to the head - a non leathal one - bounced off a wall. Man vs 3 thugs - robbery. Not arguing that is the best choice, but that it is possible and does happen.

Yes, and for the most part they are filled with Germans.

Socioeconomically comparable parts of the US, ie. Vermont, tend to have crime/police shooting rates similar to or less than comparable parts of Europe despite the fact that any law abiding citizen 21 or over in Vermont can pack a concealed handgun in their pocket anytime they wish; no records, permits or training required. It'd be instructive to know how many Cops have had to even drawn weapons in Vermont, let alone shoot.

Likewise step across the state line into adjacent areas of New York State, where handguns are closely regulated, and I'll doubt you'll find much difference, in anything. It ain't the laws, its the people.

I can say this as a guy who grew up in urban Working Class England, and who now lives and works in a high crime area of a major American urban center on a residential street where at least two drive by's and a fatal shooting have occurred.

Mike

Could it have actually been two misses (one a lucky ricochet) and one that just happened to hit the legs? Hard to imagine a guy being attacked, let alone by three assailants, would have the time to make the deliberate decisions you said occurred.

One practice drill is to take a handgun, stand 10 feet or less from a combat sihouette target, and attempt draw from concealment and fire two shots onto the target inside of two seconds. WARNING, one should BE SURE their feet are out of the way and that the gun is pointed downrange when the trigger is pulled, one had better try this drill with an empty gun several times first.

Now imagine doing that when you are facing imminent death, remember, you have two seconds to react.

Mike

I feel this is lawsuit generated. If a person intends to do you harm and you stop him with no deadly force then quite often the person who did the stopping gets into far more trouble than the assailant. Your live is torn apart all because you stopped someone from beating your wife, yourself, your kid, whatever. So they feel the best thing to do is to shoot to kill. Messed up, isn't it? The above is all when someone is using deadly force AGAINST the people I mentioned, not just smacking them with a fly-swatter, etc.

So.... in a sue happy country where many times the criminals have more rights and sympathy than the victim, you are instructed to sway the numbers in your direction.

Who is to blame for all of that is a conversation which goes in many circles and in the end people are going to believe what they want instead of what they see. You do that, I do that, others do it as well and each is sure they are believing what they are seeing and are seeing what is reality.

I completely failed to include a key point in my earlier post. Of the 90 shots fired by Geman police in 2011, 45 were warning shots. Professionally trained law enforcement personnel firing warning shots. That is my point. The American 'experts' insist that their way is the correct way. Maybe, but it isn't the only way. I have to observe that there were no credible witnesses to the George Zimmerman shooting. He killed his assailant. He is out of jail but he is behind a mountain of debt. Like a couple of million dollars worth of defense attorney expenses. Handguns make a person bold enough to stay and confront trouble. Often handguns cannot be used because their power to kill innocents along with evildoers make them the wrong weapon for the circumstance. Isn't it clear that if for the 200 years that we have been developing firearms in this country, if like R&D had been put into a parallel non-lethal technology that one could use to stop hostiles with minimal harm to innocents in the line of fire that this would be a good thing? A third of the population either has guns in their home or has them concealed on their person in public. Nevertheless when **** happens, it happens. Usually with little or no response from the gun carrying public. Tell the truth, 90% of the time when someone shoots someone, 99% of the time when the shooter is a LEO, the shootee is either unarmed or armed with far less lethal potential than the shooter. That's where guns excel. When the shooter has the control of the situation already. Under those circumstances I wonder why said shooter shouldn't face the full force of the law and be made to give a full account of their actions in a legal proceeding.

H

Are you seriously suggesting that American police open fire without warning given any time at all? Would anyone in this country assume that a Cop ISN'T armed ?

Well, to be realistic, lets limit this to the last 100 years, probably less. OK.... fired from firearms.... bean bags, rubber bullets... been around for years, useful to disperse crowds. But found inadequate to stop a determined adversary. It is useful to recall that Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was armed with such non-lethal munitions when he was killed with one of Eric Holder's "Fast and Furious" rifles in the hands of a Mexican National in Arizona. Tasers? A remarkable tool, IIRC carried now by most Cops in this country, still haven't replaced firearms.

Or both Actually the fraction that chooses to carry a handgun concealed about their person is relatively tiny, less than 500,000 in Texas, about 4% or one in twenty-five of those eligible. Of those, most will not be carrying all the time. Many more firearms in vehicles though.

**** usually goes down very fast, without warning, and is over in moments, the assailants then flee the scene PRECISELY because a response will occur, from the public in genera not just armed ones. This besides the many incidents where nothing occurs BECAUSE a firearm is present (why else would Cops carry them?), there are numerous incidents that occur wherein a legally armed citizen prevents/interrupts a crime.

I don't expect to have much credibility with an ideologue like yourself, but I gave eight incidents involving people known to me personally over the last thirty years wherein a gun deterred a crime. I hardly think I am remarkable in that respect. Another poster here claimed to have personally deterred four crimes with a handgun.

Anyhow... for a compilation from actual news stories see....

https://www.nrapublications.org/index...ed-citizen-18/


Please define "far less lethal potential". Virtually any fit, strong and reasonably skilled ex-convict within twenty feet of one's person can potentially inflict permanent physical injury or death within moments. It ain't like they operate by the Marquis of Queensbury rules.

With any blunt force trauma weapon (brass knuckles are commonly used by high school gang members around these parts) the potential for life-changing injuries or death goes up several-fold. In the England of my youth, steel toed Doc Martens were a common weapon of choice. Again twenty feet or less, a determined adversary with a knife is fully as deadly as one with a firearm, if not more so.

Mike

Ah. Well I'd have to be immersed into enough situations to have an informed opinion to be honest. And on the Zimmerman thing there were no witnesses and enough blatant lies told by all involved that it is impossible to say what really happened. There isn't enough evidence to point to anything so for anybody to say this person or that person is guilty shows which side of the generic argument that one forces themselves to be on.

As far as facing the full force of the law when they know they are in the right it quite simply just doesn't turn out that way. We know that the same situation could have different outcomes depending on the political stance of the judge, the ferocity of the lawyers, etc.

Either way I carry about 10% of the time on my person and near 100% of the time in my vehicle. I hope to never use them but if needed I will do what I have to do. And what that is depends on the situation.

I'm going to bail out of this conversation now as I feel we have strayed away from anything bicycle related. I'm always up for a good calm discussion like we have been having but I want to keep the forum focused on the bikes.

Could have, though I believe the story. Just like any chest shot could have been a missed warning shot.

Exactly. That's why I almost never carry. Takes me at least 2 seconds to draw and fire first round - too much IMO. 2 seconds is plenty of time to RUN - I'm a good runner.



I also believe that if the attacker has a gun, he will not give victim a chance (enough time) to draw theirs, even if they had one.

However, in some situations, even if an attacker doesn't have a gun, you should be allowed to use yours. Imagine two big thugs attacking a middle aged man, or a WOMAN. They could have no weapons, but still one should be allowed to defend themselves. The only positive thing I see about firearms is giving the small, weaker people some chance... though I'd still ban guns for ANY use.

re: carrying protection ... I used to, but then wifey and I got back together ... sorry, couldn't resist