Why you need to practice at 3’ and why “get off me guns” are a bad idea

Perp appeared to be totally out of his mind. PCP or bath salts come to mind. I agree with mag dump and reload. Either that or run like hell if you are not going to shoot to kill. I mean eliminate the threat. I think you are going to have to shoot to kill to eliminate the threat of a deranged oxygen thief with a hammer.
 
Don't think this particular case is a woman issue as we have similar events along with similar poor reaction/marksmanship with many many men.

As to "you can miss from 3 feet". Yes you absolutely can. Especially if you are incompetent at shooting guns. I think we could all agree if it were Jerry Miculek we would have seen a different result. Likely with a cluster of bullets in center mass and a room temperature body. Regardless of the gun used.
 
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NKD said:
As to "you can miss from 3 feet". Yes you absolutely can. Especially if you are incompetent at shooting guns. I think we could all agree if it were Jerry Miculek we would have seen a different result. Likely with a cluster of bullets in center mass and a room temperature body. Regardless of the gun used.
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Exactly this.

I'm not Jerry, but if I've got a J frame on me, I'm not exactly defenseless...

I think some folks around here are a lot more caught up on equipment than they should be.
 
Studentofthegun said:
Exactly this.

I'm not Jerry, but if I've got a J frame on me, I'm not exactly defenseless...

I think some folks around here are a lot more caught up on equipment than they should be.
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she fired at least 5 shots (from my count) and just grazed him so in this case 5 wasn’t enough to get the job done.
Practice of course is the most important but many people don’t shoot their “get off me guns” because they think they can’t miss. Clearly you can miss and you need to practice with whatever you carry.
 
keepcalmandcarryon said:
she fired at least 5 shots (from my count) and just grazed him so in this case 5 wasn’t enough to get the job done.
Practice of course is the most important but many people don’t shoot their “get off me guns” because they think they can’t miss. Clearly you can miss and you need to practice with whatever you carry.
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Her marksmanship, or lack thereof, failed to get the job done.

The gun was fine. It was so fine it was irrelevant.
 
keepcalmandcarryon said:
she fired at least 5 shots (from my count) and just grazed him so in this case 5 wasn’t enough to get the job done.
Practice of course is the most important but many people don’t shoot their “get off me guns” because they think they can’t miss. Clearly you can miss and you need to practice with whatever you carry.
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It is good that you're bringing this up because there are some folks here that need to hear it. Shot placement is key.

Pistol calibers are notoriously unpredictable. Sometimes, someone gets hit once in the pump works and they turn off like a switch. Other times, they don't. When I was growing up, my uncle used to tell me about all the shootings he was involved in (part of his job as fugitive retrieval). He had some very interesting stories of people not reacting to bullets the way one would expect. And in those days they were shooting what he called "full house" .357 Magnum out of a Model 28 Smith.

There's a video I saw a while back that was taken from a vehicle. It all happened at what looked like a stop light. Cop ends up shooting some guy in the chest a LOT and he sorta grimaces, growls, and keeps on coming. That's the stuff of nightmares, but that's pistol calibers for you. This is why shotguns (buck shot / slugs) and centerfire rifles are so important.
 
alpharius said:
Yes. Make sure you practice shooting someone while they are swinging a hammer at you.
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while you can practice that going to matches does provide some level of stress which will help you learn to cope with it. Many people decry matches as being “unrealistic “ which while fair, is not the point of multiple target, odd positions and so on. It is to provide a level of stress and unfamiliarity in order to test your training.
 
Get Off My Lawn said:
Like some fire depts, If she can toss a 200lb man on her back, climb down a ladder and carry him away from the threat, she’s qualified to continue training.
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Thats exactly how I got my wife to admit that there are just some things a woman can't do and don't need to try to be equal in.

I was a volunteer FF and we had our first female join. No problems but nobody wanted her as their backup. My wife was pissed about it until I asked her if she thought the female could pull me out of the fire if i went down or would she rather have one of the guys behind me.
 
keepcalmandcarryon said:
I feel drawing from a pocket is slower than drawing from appendix or 4 o’clock. Second I highly doubt it can be done back peddling if it is in your front pocket.
It is something we can test on the clock next time we are at the range.
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As someone who Carry’s in their front pocket, I walk around with my hands in my pockets anyway. If my hands are not busy and in my pockets, my right one is always touching the grip. Go shoot with some folks that practice this particular way of carrying, and see if you can outdraw them with appendix carry or 4 o’clock tested by a shot timer. “Draw from concealment “ my hand is already on my gun as it’s in my pocket, where’s your hand?
Just another point of view
 
Burt Gummer said:
As someone who Carry’s in their front pocket, I walk around with my hands in my pockets anyway. If my hands are not busy and in my pockets, my right one is always touching the grip. Go shoot with some folks that practice this particular way of carrying, and see if you can outdraw them with appendix carry or 4 o’clock tested by a shot timer. “Draw from concealment “ my hand is already on my gun as it’s in my pocket, where’s your hand?
Just another point of view
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Good points. If I carry a J frame, it is almost always in the winter time. Not sure why. Maybe for the sake of nostalgia? Something about the weather? But I carry lots of different guns based on what mood strikes me / where I'm going.

If it is wintertime, I carry in a jacket pocket with my hand on the revolver. Don't have to draw, just shoot through the jacket. I've actually practiced it before when I got steel target paint all over my old coat and was gonna throw it away. Works fine and I could hit what I was aiming at.

Be hard to out draw that.
 
Burt Gummer said:
As someone who Carry’s in their front pocket, I walk around with my hands in my pockets anyway. If my hands are not busy and in my pockets, my right one is always touching the grip. Go shoot with some folks that practice this particular way of carrying, and see if you can outdraw them with appendix carry or 4 o’clock tested by a shot timer. “Draw from concealment “ my hand is already on my gun as it’s in my pocket, where’s your hand?
Just another point of view
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Exactly…Conway Twitty style…

My hand was in my pocket,
And the gun was in my hand
 
keepcalmandcarryon said:
while you can practice that going to matches does provide some level of stress which will help you learn to cope with it. Many people decry matches as being “unrealistic “ which while fair, is not the point of multiple target, odd positions and so on. It is to provide a level of stress and unfamiliarity in order to test your training.
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Well that all could help but I think when the guy gets to you and starts swinging his hammer it becomes a literal crap shoot no matter how good you are.

There's not really a good solution except don't get into that scenario.

I doubt the officer did better than any of us would, barring pure luck. Her mistake was not shooting him before he got close enough to swing.
 
Burt Gummer said:
As someone who Carry’s in their front pocket, I walk around with my hands in my pockets anyway. If my hands are not busy and in my pockets, my right one is always touching the grip. Go shoot with some folks that practice this particular way of carrying, and see if you can outdraw them with appendix carry or 4 o’clock tested by a shot timer. “Draw from concealment “ my hand is already on my gun as it’s in my pocket, where’s your hand?
Just another point of view
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If’n I recall, @BatteryOaksBilly mentioned the only folks that won a Beat The Wizard shirt was pocket and appendix carrying folks.
That’s when I first tried appendix carry.
 
Jayne said:
Using her right hand to activate a lapel mic? She says something to someone on the radio, and she's probably got 10000 reps of hitting that mic with her right and and 4 reps of drawing the gun with that hand so training says to use the mic first and then panic
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*Ahem*

Seems that we had a discussion about this very thing just a few days ago.

"Laughable" was the word as I recall.

Be very careful of the habits that you form because...whether you realize it or not...you're training, and when the adrenaline dumps, you'll make that movement without even realizing that you've made it.

When a car suddenly stops in your lane, you don't have to think about lifting your foot off the accelerator and stabbing the brake. It just happens, and it happens because you've made that move hundreds or thousands of times in normal driving every time you slow down or stop.
 
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I have a friend who spent a lot of time as an ER nurse and when given the opportunity she would ask if they knew of the caliber used on the victim being transported to the hospital. If it was a .45 she would relax a bit because chances were high that they would be DOA. Not always, but enough of the time that it wouldn't be considered a coincidence.
 
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Get Off My Lawn said:
I do not approve of women being street cops. 99.8% of them are not built for combat against a man.
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If you can't have strength, you MUST have technique.
If you can't have strength or technique, you ABSOLUTELY MUST have determination.
the dude had strength and a solid acre of determination.
she had nothing.
 
Get Off My Lawn said:
Like some fire depts, If she can toss a 200lb man on her back, climb down a ladder and carry him away from the threat, she’s qualified to continue training.
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sheesh man, no need to rub it in. I'm ACTIVELY trying to lose some weight already!
 
John Travis said:
Her pistol should have been out of the holster when his trailing foot left the porch. Instead, she reached for her radio to call for backup, as per her training/orders.

"Don't escalate. Call for backup."

And when he started running toward her, her mind wouldn't accept what was about to happen.

The "Deer caught in the headlights" syndrome.
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I call it the missing rolodex card. We train for scenarios, so that we can file them away in our rolodex of responses. If we don't train for a scenario and are presented with it in life and there's not a card for it we freeze, wondering what to do. It doesn't help that our brain, under stress is unable to reason at that time either.

That said, while we can't train for "every" scenario, we can train for certain "default" responses, like lateral movement. Moving the aggressors target is part of resetting his OODA loop. Think of it as your GPS saying, "Recalculating route to target.."
 
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Jayne said:
Not knowing how to actually fight is the issue here.
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Its all a fight, whether wespons are used or not. This is key and why "combatives" is really the correct approach. Within the Tueller range, it's going to get hands on whether you like it nor not. It's eye opening for most when you can demonstrate that they cannot draw in time stop someone charging from 10ft away and can barely get a round of from the 21ft Teuller distance if at all. People don't want to believe it, but they can't beat physiology.
 
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georgel said:
If we don't train for a scenario and are presented with it in life and there's not a card for it we freeze, wondering what to do. It doesn't help that our brain, under stress is unable to reason at that time either.
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I'm wondering if she could have fired on him before he got to her because he was still some distance away and he was "only" armed with a hammer. And...given the recent silliness...WOULD she have fired? I timed him from where both his feet were on the ground until he made contact with 1 Mississippi 2 Mississippi...and it took him 10 seconds to reach her. If her brain didn't register that she was coming under lethal attack in that amount of time, I'm not sure that she would have in time to stop him.

Which brings us to the most difficult part of training. It's almost impossible to teach someone how to go from a decent human being to a killer with a 2-second notice. A surprising number of people simply can't pull the trigger.
 
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John Travis said:
I'm wondering if she could have fired on him before he got to her because he was still some distance away and he was "only" armed with a hammer. And...given the recent silliness...WOULD she have fired? I timed him from where both his feet were on the ground until he made contact with 1 Mississippi 2 Mississippi...and it took him 10 seconds to reach her. If her brain didn't register that she was coming under lethal attack in that amount of time, I'm not sure that she would have in time to stop him.
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I just re-watched the vid a couple of times. First request should have been followed with command voice and draw as he agressively came off porch. Once he rounded the fence, any further aggression made him an active target. Lateral movement, a side step or two with gun on target. Advancement by perp means firing until target is no longer in the sights, either by collapse or retreat.

She was distracted being on radio.
 
georgel said:
I just re-watched the vid a couple of times. First request should have been followed with command voice and draw as he agressively came off porch. Once he rounded the fence, any further aggression made him an active target. Lateral movement, a side step or two with gun on target. Advancement by perp means firing until target is no longer in the sights, either by collapse or retreat.

She was distracted being on radio.
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When I asked "could" she, I meant could she bring herself to shoot him even in the face of an imminent threat. Since she had the gun pointed at him finger on the trigger while he was some distance away, I have my doubts. See my EDIT TO ADD on my last post.
 
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John Travis said:
When I asked "could" she, I meant could she bring herself to shoot him even in the face of an imminent threat. Since she had the gun pointed at him finger on the trigger while he was some distance away, I have my doubts. See my EDIT TO ADD on my last post.
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Yes, good point. I think that's a question everybody needs to ask themselves.

Are you really ready to take a life and what are the conditions for that to happen?

This needs to be worked out beforehand. What are the triggers? What are the lines that get crossed that green light a response with deadly force? Thinking won't happen in the middle of a fight and hesitation can mean life or death. And life isn't black-and-white.

Every time I've been in any kind of potential scenario, afterward I ask myself what could have happened. What would have been the line that to be crossed in that scenario. And just as importantly, how could I have affected the scenario that would have made that line more clear and easy to define. Kind of Ayoob type thinking. It's taken a long time and lots of experiences to develop my "boundaries".
 
georgel said:
This needs to be worked out beforehand. What are the triggers? What are the lines that get crossed that green light a response with deadly force? Thinking won't happen in the middle of a fight and hesitation can mean life or death. And life isn't black-and-white.
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Bingo. Points that I've made many times over the years.

Beforehand. Absolutely.

A final possibility is that...because she had the gun and he only had a hammer...she fully expected him to comply right up to the point that he knocked her down. More than once over the years, I've seen the big/bad guy get his ass handed to him by the little guy because he didn't think that the little guy had the cojones to hit him, even though the little guy was obviously getting himself set to do just that.
 
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John Travis said:
Bingo. Points that I've made many times over the years.

Beforehand. Absolutely.

A final possibility is that...because she had the gun and he only had a hammer...she fully expected him to comply right up to the point that he knocked her down. More than once over the years, I've seen the big/bad guy get his ass handed to him by the little guy because he didn't think that the little guy had the cojones to hit him, even though the little guy was obviously getting himself set to do just that.
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Never bet on some else's behavior or reaction to anything you do. People do stupid $hit. He'll, we can't even bet on our own behavior.
 
John Travis said:
Bingo 2.

There are some people who are absolutely not intimidated by a disparity of force or a weapon. Some even take it as a challenge. Goliath probably expected David to run.
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Proof positive that shot placement is more critical than caliber. 😎
 
Schattenreiter said:
Proof positive that shot placement is more critical than caliber. 😎
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All the same...

Big holes leak blood faster.

And, I like overpenetration. Two holes leak twice as much as one hole.

I'll bet that when David went down to the river that day, he picked up a rock the size of a grapefruit and thought: "Man! I wish I could use this one!"
 
And if he had used one that big he might have died instead. Not really because of who was on his side.

Penetration is over rated and over penetration more so. One thing I learned deer hunting is penetration isn't the key to a kill shot. I saw a deer shot at 30 yards with a sabot round from a 30-30. Went thru so fast the deer never even knew it was shot. Seen plenty of deer killed with a silver tip round. One thing I noticed when they were dressed out was that without fail we always found the bullet lodged against the hide on the opposite side from the entry wound. Never saw one run that was hit with one. I believe it is because every ounce of energy in that bullet was expended in the deer.

I shot one myself one day with a ballistic tip bullet. Tracked the deer for 150 yards. So much blood a blind man could have tracked it. Found it 15 yards from where I started tracking it. Deer ran in circles crossing its own trail several times. Unusual for a wounded deer. They mostly run in a straight line. Not always but mostly. When I found the deer there was a hole in the opposite side from the entry wound that I could stick both fists in at the same time. And I have large hands. That deer still ran over 150 yards. The trail looked like someone had a laddle and 5 gal bucket of blood just spreading it around.

I will go with shot placement over caliber every time.
 
John Travis said:
I'll take my chances with two big holes when the critter is doin' his best to kill me, thank you.

Been there, done that.
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The big issue with overpenetration is that energy is being wasted. If your bullet went in and out the other end, then it still has energy that hasn't been imparted to the target. You might as well have a less powerful bullet, less recoil, and more shots at that point.
 
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