[W]hen it hits home it’s hard
You know, I’ve always had this thought that this could only happen to someone else, you know you only hear about these things, but when it hits home it’s hard.
–Kimberly’s maternal grandfather
Everyone that this kind of tragedy happens to thinks it could only happen to someone else. If you leave your guns laying around when children are in the house, you’re playing Russian Roulette with their lives.
An Irondale family is grieving the loss of a 9-year-old girl, who police say was accidentally shot and killed by her 3-year-old brother.
Watson said Kimberly’s brother got hold of a loaded gun on a nightstand at his great-grandparents’ home in the 2300 block of Monroe Drive around 1:30 p.m. Saturday.
The boy accidentally shot Kimberly while she was sitting on the floor in a bedroom.
Don’t let it happen to you. I don’t care if you buy my recording or not, but please lock your guns up when little children are around. You can’t teach the Four Rules to a three year old. I’ve done some additional research about how often this happens and, frankly, the results sicken me.
Thinking ahead
If we get carjacked, as long as you and I can both get out of the car, they can have it; I have insurance. But if either of us can’t get out of the car because we get hung up in the seat belts or something, turn your face away from me and close your eyes because I am going to start shooting. I don’t want his loathsome blood-borne pathogens to get in your eyes.
–my personal policy/Standard Operating Procedure, as related to a former girlfriend who lived near Murder Kroger in Atlanta
A California man shot the carjacker of his van Friday as the carjacker drove away. The carjacker died shortly thereafter and the shooter was arrested for Murder. Once the threat of Death or Serious Bodily Injury has passed, the time for gunfire has ended.
“Nice people lock their doors.” –my mother
‘Don’t sit around in unsecure parking lots working on your czechbook, writing reports, texting, or talking on the phone.’ –paraphrased from Bill Rogers and Craig Douglas
“Firearms shall not be discharged at a moving vehicle unless a person in the vehicle is immediately threatening the officer or another person with deadly force by means other than the vehicle. The moving vehicle itself shall not presumptively constitute a threat that justifies an officer’s use of deadly force.” —LAPD Manual Volume 1 Section 556.10 POLICY ON THE USE OF FORCE
Policies, SOPs, or whatever you wish to call them are simply committing to memory, or writing down, actions that you have thought about ahead of time. For some reason, the word ‘policy’ evokes a great deal of resistance on the part of people I talk to about it. Not thinking about things ahead of time is probably the most Serious Mistake Gunowners Make and I will have to add that to the next edition.
In a crisis, the conscious mind has an extremely short life span, probably less than a second. Once the conscious mind expires, either training/practice or the amygdala will take over. Trying to make up a plan on the spot is an extraordinarily difficult task.
Perhaps the inability or lack of desire to think ahead is the reason for the popularity of the OODA Loop. Relying on the OODA Loop implies that you can out-think the situation in the moment. This is just being lazy and an excuse for not thinking ahead. No plan survives the test of combat, as the saying goes, but it is ALWAYS easier to modify a pre-existing plan than to make one up on the spot.
Fighter pilots have been at the forefront of developing policy and procedure for ‘in the moment’ encounters. Their creations over the past century have shown increasing sophistication as they have evolved.
- Dicta Boelcke, a list of principles, was formulated during WWI by Hauptmann Oswald Boelcke, a German fighter pilot and squadron commander. It is interesting to note that he was killed when he violated one of his own dicta, never close in on a single combatant when others are also pursuing it.
- Lieutenant Commander Jimmy Thach recognized the superiority of Japanese fighter aircraft in the early days of WWII. To counter them, he developed, using matchsticks on a tabletop, the Thach Weave as a defensive maneuver. Then he tested the maneuver under conditions simulating the disadvantages US Navy fighters would face.
- No Guts, No Glory, a USAF training document, was written by Major General (then Major) Frederick C. Blesse shortly after the Korea Conflict. It was an explanation of his experiences flying F-86 Sabres against MIG fighters and how to defeat them.
- Colonel John Boyd wrote the Aerial Attack Study, which is the most comprehensive manual on fighter combat ever written, in 1959. In it, he methodically worked out all the possible attacks and counters a fighter could make in relation to both bombers and other fighters. His study was heavily based on a thorough understanding of the flying and weapons capabilities of both US and Soviet aircraft.
In every one of these documents, specific principles, procedures, and pitfalls are worked out in advance. Speed of decision in tactical situations is achieved by picking from a list of possible options to best solve an unfolding incident rather than trying to ‘think faster,’ which is physiologically impossible. The distinction between ‘thinking faster’ and picking from a menu of possible decisions escapes many common taters about the OODA process. Boyd’s description of the process is much more involved than generally assumed and explained using a simplistic circular diagram. That circular graphic does no justice to the concepts that Colonel Boyd developed.
In order to make decisions in advance, it’s necessary to think about likely scenarios, at least, ahead of time and decide how to solve them. This includes the legal ramifications of your possible actions. Thinking ahead is a key component of avoiding becoming a victim or incurring a Negative Outcome in the criminal justice system.
John Johnston and I will be discussing this timely topic in more depth on Ballistic Radio tonight. Ballistic Radio is available over the Internet.
Serious Mistakes now available as a download
There have been many requests for the Serious Mistakes Gunowners Make recording as a download. Despite being something of a Luddite, I figured out a way to do it.
The recording is now available as a download for $9.95. Link
The Woman’s Gun Pamphlet
Through an oblique reference, I recently found a link to The Woman’s Gun Pamphlet. Edit: The link and the server appear to be gone. A PDF of the Pamphlet is available at the edit of this post.
It’s a very interesting publication that was written and published by a colloquium of radical feminists in 1975. The intent was to provide information about both guns themselves and about personal protection attitudes to women of that era who knew nothing about guns or personal protection. As such, I consider it an historically significant document. There’s quite a bit of political rhetoric in it but also a goodly amount of information. Even dry practice is touched on. Some morsels of dry wit are quite entertaining.
Especially interesting to me is that it was written from the perspective of self-taught women of the time with some input from men and by doing primary and secondary research. What they considered important, how the information was structured, and how it was presented is insightful. There are a number of items in it that made me realize there are areas of my subject matter knowledge I take for granted.
Given this week’s confrontation between the Federal government and a quasi Posse Comitatus group in Oregon, I also found the political views and fears presented in a 1975 publication to be notable. When I graduated high school in 1972, I doubted I would be able to own a handgun, much less carry one in the majority of States, even slightly into the future at that time. The recent shenanigans regarding Weapons Carry reciprocity in Virginia by its anti-gun Governor and his lackey Attorney General echo items in the Pamphlet. The attitudes and tactics of hoplophobes and political control freaks have changed little in the past 50 years. A common one is ‘take something away, then give it back in exchange for something else.’ The saying ‘One step forward, two steps back’ comes to mind. Gun controllists play the long game, just like Mao Zedong, and never view their playbook as a zero sum game.
The Pamphlet took me a little over an hour to read cover to cover, so it’s not heavy reading. Anyone who teaches, either formally or informally, women or Gun Culture 2.0 will find it worthwhile reading.
Serious Mistake Again
I harp on Serious Mistakes because I get sick of reading about this kind of incident. Needless and completely preventable tragedy. In this case, an ounce of prevention would have been better than a lifetime of no cure.
The Serious Mistakes research I’ve done over the past two years has completely changed me in terms of how I prioritize things. Bad things happen too often, frequently because carelessness and incompetence.
If you own guns, you need a plan to secure them when children are around. Even if you don’t have kids, people bring theirs over to your home, especially your grandchildren.
Like many aspects of firearms, this needs to be thought of ahead of time. If you’re not willing to spend a little bit of time, money, and effort to keep firearms out of unauthorized hands, then get rid of your guns.
Practicing for your real world
This morning, I had an opportunity to do some work on putting my money where my mouth is. I’ve been haranguing about Negative Outcomes and wanted to come up with some actionable practice. If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem, as the saying goes.
Around 5 a.m., someone was loading a pickup in the parking lot outside my apartment. There was quite a bit of ‘bumping,’ which woke me up. Everything was still dark and otherwise quiet. I was satisfied that it was indeed a truck being loaded and what was being loaded wasn’t mine. While lying in bed, I realized I had been awakened by a ‘bump in the night.’ So, I decided to clear my apartment as a dry run.
First, I cleared my pistol and put an orange dummy round in the chamber. I then dryfired it once. If I hadn’t done that sequence correctly, I would have had a Negligent Discharge in my apartment. At 5 a.m., that would have been a Serious Mistake. No doubt an ND would have led to the Negative Outcome of Police Involvement when police officers showed up shortly thereafter. Putting an actual possible consequence into the equation makes it a little more realistic as a practice exercise. Being exposed to real consequences is something most gunowners don’t allow themselves to experience very often.
From this clearing task came my first observation; if one isn’t awake enough to competently perform a simple unload, load, and verify manipulation, is it wise to go through the house in the dark making life and death decisions? Probably not. One of things John Farnam taught in his classes I’ve attended is that it’s a good idea to be awake before you start handling firearms. His counsel is that having a pistol right next to your bed may not be the best idea if you are the type of person who requires a minute to wake up. Having your gun a few steps away might be a better idea. One incident in my Negative Outcomes database is of a man who shot himself in the foot when he picked up his bedside pistol before he was completely awake.
Having cleared the pistol and sterilized it, I then picked up my flashlight. Just to get out of my bedroom, I have to unlock and open the door while holding a pistol and flashlight. As I do this, it’s important that I scrupulously observe Rules 3 and 2, Finger off trigger and Don’t point the gun at [myself] while my support hand is extended in front of my body and holding a flashlight. Using the gun’s laser to check, it was clear that avoiding sweeping my hand is not as easy as might be thought. If there actually was an intruder, the worst possible case would be that he was on the other side of the door when I opened it. How to handle that is something many people don’t think about.
As I worked my way through the apartment, the night lights I have in every room were sufficient for me to see if someone was there. However, I would have needed the flashlight to make an identification. I do have some entertainment signs in my home, so I used them as substitutes for making a suspect identification.
The first thing I did upon encountering a sign was to practice the Challenge, “Who’s there?” It doesn’t have to be loud when practicing, but it’s important to get into the habit of verbalizing. If the ambient light wasn’t sufficient for me to read the sign, then it’s probably not going to be enough for me to make an identification. By lighting it up with the flashlight, I could read the sign, so I can probably make a good ID.
Maybe this seems like a somewhat involved exercise but let’s keep in mind, there are competing sets of probabilities in a home defense situation. The most likely probability is that the 3 a.m. bump you hear or shadow you see is, in fact, a member of your household.
It’s advisable to practice under conditions that resemble the ones you will encounter in YOUR real world, which is different than everyone else’s. Those who have been through shoothouse training will probably notice that the above exercise doesn’t even begin to look like making entry into the shoothouse with your carbine and shooting everything you see. There’s a reason for that, I’ll let you figure it out.
Another Serious Mistake
A father mistook his 14-year-old son for an intruder Tuesday and shot him in the neck, killing him, according to Cincinnati police.
People think I’m exaggerating when I say this sort of thing happens on a very regular basis. Well, I’m not. An awful lot of people regularly babble about ‘the worst possible case.’ This incident represents ‘the worst possible case,’ not some ridiculous fantasy about “providing covering fire one handed with your shotgun in your home while dragging wounded friendlies to safety.” Ugh!
Learn to Challenge before shooting and practice doing it regularly, to wit: every time you go to the range. Two words, “Who’s there?”, probably would have prevented this tragedy. People have no problem running their mouths at every possible opportunity except when it’s most important.
Have a flashlight to identify a suspect and learn to use it in conjunction with your pistol. Just turning on the flashlight in the general direction of the suspect will probably get a response from the suspect and the overwhelming probability is that the response WON’T be ‘the light draws fire.’
Does anyone think that this father will ever have a peaceful day or decent night’s sleep for the rest of his life? The saddest thing to me is that the solution to this problem isn’t rocket science, it’s actually easy if you think about it ahead of time for just one minute.
There are 11 possible categories of Serious Mistakes. Purchase my CD so you know them all and how they happen and don’t make them yourself. It’s the price of a box of ammo, for God’s sake. I’m sick of writing about this sort of thing.
Knowledge
I’ve had several parallel annoyance tracks running this week.
1) .22s for personal protection
2) .38 snub nose revolvers for personal protection
3) The ‘OODA Loop’
4) The value of knives versus guns for personal protection.
Here is my advice to the gun community:
Unless you have primary source information about a topic, meaning you have personally seen it, or better yet experienced and tested it, then don’t talk about the subject. Just keep your piehole shut and don’t spread misinformation. Everything you have been TOLD about the subject by someone else was TOLD to them by someone else, who HEARD it from someone else, etc, etc, etc. The ‘information’ was either bad in the first case, got badly distorted by six degrees of separation, or both.
This applies to gunshop commandos, law enforcement officers, gun manufacturers, firearms trainers, Internet Lounge Lizards, and anyone else who has ever seen a gun or seen a picture of one.
I know this will fall on deaf ears but I’m going to put it out there anyway.
The importance of gunhandling
Over the course of the holidays, I had several short notice taskings, one of which was to provide initial firearms training to a woman who has a stalker problem. Although it was a short session, she and I were both pleased with the outcome, so I shared my notes and outline with a few of my colleagues.
A colleague made the following comment:
One, it’s your usual excellence, and most likely as good as it gets for focused firearms training for the civilian … I do notice that the vast majority of what you present is focused on manipulation, handling, live fire, and some lecture/interactive discussion about legal aspects.
He is a very high level thinker and we exchange thoughts regularly with no reservations about defining and challenging each other’s views. My response to his query was that I have been immensely changed by my Negative Outcomes research over the past two years. I have come to question much of what I thought was important before. One thing that I have become sure of is that at the raw beginner level, which is where this lady was, teaching students how to avoid Serious Mistakes is of primary concern. My list of firearms incidents with Negative Outcomes, gathered over the past two years without even a serious research effort, is seventeen pages long single spaced. That’s a lot of Serious Mistakes.
In addition, I have become even more aware of how dangerous complacency is. The more often the gun is manipulated, the more it is likely to discharge. This has its basis not only in statistical reasons but also in the natural human process of ‘familiarity breeds complacency.’ When complacency is combined with incompetence and/or ignorance, the seeds of disaster have been sown.
The story mentioned “His injuries are not life-threating but he is receiving treatment from a hand surgeon.” Shooting oneself in the hand at close range with modern service ammunition carries a high probability of being permanently crippled. One of the things that I notice in the Self Inflicted Gunshot Wound section of my database is how often the person involved is a high level Law Enforcement Officer, either Sheriff or Police Chief.
There are two possibilities for this strong correlation: 1) it’s just more newsworthy when a higher up experiences a Negligent Discharge, or 2) higher ups, who are administrators, tend to be not that interested in firearms and perhaps a little more complacent than line officers whose gun is a tool of their work. It could be either, there’s no way for me to say.
Firearms ownership is somewhat like a minefield. You might take one step and get blown up, you might negotiate it quite a while before getting blown up, or you might get lucky and make it through. Putting your fingers in your ears will not protect you one bit from the consequences, that’s for sure.
When using a firearm, regardless of the circumstances, always follow the Four Rules of Safe Gunhandling
- Treat all guns as if they are ALWAYS loaded.
- Never let yourself point a gun at something or someone you don’t want to be shot.
If the situation forces a choice, point the gun at something not someone. - Keep your finger out of and above the trigger guard until the gun is pointed at your target and you are ready for the gun to fire.
- Be sure of what you are shooting at and what is behind it.
In addition,
- Store weapons where they are not accessible to unauthorized persons
- Know the law
- Immediately check the readiness status any weapon you handle
Whether in a morning Private Lesson or in my six month Total Immersion Program, I find that both new and experienced gunowners frequently don’t have an appreciation for the nuances of the mechanical complexities of firearms manipulation. A firearm is a mechanical device that has more moving parts in it than almost anything else you can hold in your hand. There are definite sequences and multiple conditional values that have to be observed with them. Some people dread hand tools as much as Kryptonite. Folks like that need to be shown, and then practiced, on how to operate complex mechanical devices, such as firearms.
In addition, smart people tend to assume there is logic involved in the making of laws. Nothing could be further from the truth. Consequently, the vagaries of the legal system are an alien concept to many well educated and intelligent people. I have personally known of several very smart people who got into a fair amount of legal problems in the course of trying to apply logic to both the Code of Federal Regulations and the Official Code of Georgia Annotated. Some things we can figure out ourselves; the law is not one of them. It requires research and/or specific education.
That’s why I am currently prioritizing my training efforts the way I do. It’s also why I created the Serious Mistakes Gunowners Make audio presentation. Many of the events in Serious Mistakes did not happen to novices but rather to gunowners of long standing who became complacent or finally ran into a situation they had never encountered before. The link for Serious Mistakes is at the top of my page. It’s now available on a Flash Drive, for those who prefer that format.
Friday Fundamentals: Know the law
At least as much as it can be known.
John Farnam once quipped that if he was read his rights and then asked if he understood them, his reply would be:
The Supreme Court hasn’t yet decided what my rights are; how am I supposed to understand them!
That being said, the level of willful ignorance many people are comfortable with regarding the guns they own is disturbing. Would any of us consider driving a car without having at least some cursory knowledge of the Rules of the Road? I certainly hope not.
Unfortunately, this sometimes leads to another of John’s quips:
You’re innocent until indigent.
Legal problems tend to be very expensive, even when ultimately resolved in the gunowner’s favor. The instructor of the Nevada Concealed Handgun Class I took had an interesting take on it. If you shoot someone, or even threaten them with a weapon, and then get arrested, you’re probably going to want to get bonded out as quickly as possible. Unless you have a large amount of cash, say $50K-100K, readily available, you’re going to require the services of a bail bondsman. The bondsman will typically charge 10-15 percent of the bond set by the judge as the bond fee. You don’t get that back, ever. It’s just $15,000 you threw into the financial incinerator of the legal system. It might be a good idea to figure how to avoid that ahead of time.
Firearm and self-defense laws tend to be arcane and frequently illogical. For certain, they vary widely from place to place, even city to city. For instance, a New York State License to Carry is no good in New York City, nor is any other Weapons Carry License. And yet, people periodically volunteer to the police at the entrance of the Statue of Liberty that they are carrying a gun because they have a License from somewhere else. The officer’s response is always the same: “Let me have it and put your hands behind your back. You’re under arrest.”
Usually, after three years of legal wrangling and a lot of burned up cash, the charges will be dropped down to something where the person doesn’t become a felon and doesn’t have to serve time. But you never get the gun back. A little research would have prevented that problem.
Handgunlaw.us is a wonderful online resource to start your research. As Steve and Gary, the curators, say though, verify independently what you find there. If you find value in it, donations are appreciated. I don’t get any cut of that, I just recognize that maintaining such a website is a big and expensive job.
Stay out of as much trouble as you can. Negative Outcomes are definitely possible with firearms. Five of the Serious Mistakes Gunowners Make relate to legal issues. And they’re usually avoidable.
tacticalprofessor 
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