Tag Archives: shoot don’t shoot

Shoot/Don’t Shoot and METT-TC

By tacticalprofessor on February 11, 2019 | 7 Comments

Every time we pull a gun on someone, a binary decision, ‘Shoot or Don’t Shoot,’ immediately ensues and continues until the gun is put away. That decision is not necessarily either conscious nor intentional. Because of that, we need to be very mindful of when we choose to place ourselves into that position. Two recent incidents, one involving a personal friend and one involving a gun celebrity, have reinforced that to me. In fact, we probably should change the common usage to Don’t Shoot/Shoot instead of vice versa.

Someone took me to task for criticizing Jan Morgan’s recent interaction with a car burglar. My comment was critical of her issuing commands to the burglar as if she was a POlice. Our objective(s) (METT-TC) as Private Citizens are very different than those who are duty bound to enforce the law vis-à-vis protecting ourselves and our loved ones. We ignore those distinctions at our peril. It’s a downside of taking our personal doctrine directly from the POlice.

The possibility of a Serious Mistake and subsequent Negative Outcome will always be present. That’s why developing our personal doctrine ahead of time, based on our needs and considerations, not someone else’s, is important.