'What if' Self-defense Tales: 'should' versus 'will'

Chances are that if you’ve spent enough time at your local gun shop, you’ve found yourself listening, at one time or another, to one of those “what if” self-defense bull sessions (usually because they tend to be the “louder” conversations). The classic set-up goes something like this: a bunch of trigger happy pistoleros swap a bunch of “real” stories that detail dramatize exactly what he or she would do if they were confronted by a bad guy and deadly scenario (or even better given the enraptured tone these tales are usually told in, an entire horde of marauding criminals) with a rifle in their hand, concealed carry handgun on their waist or some over-the-top tactical rig under their clothes, providing them with a crazy combination of defense weapons.

When you hear this talk, you may get the impression these “iron blooded warriors” would take out evil-doers faster than you can say “Hollywood”, run full bore into incoming fire with little regard for pain or emotion and not bat so much as an eyelash at the prospect of sending their enemies to meet their maker if they ever found themselves in a gunfight. When I hear this type of talk though, I get the impression the shooter doesn’t know what they are talking about (not to mention, blabbing your self defense strategy could come back and bite you later on, either on the street or in the courtroom).

I have long stayed away from answering such “what if” questions for many good reasons, the most important being that no one—not even me—can tell you how you they or anybody else will react in a life or death situation. Getting shot at The main reason I don’t often trade war stories about how I would react in hypothetical scenarios is because I know of what I speak, which is to say I know that I know nothing when it comes to attacks and my reactions. To help me explain this though (or why I feel this way) I’m going to have to ironically dig up a dangerous encounter from my past:Hunting accidents and what to do if you're shot at.

When I was 19 years old I was grouse hunting on my grandfather’s property, when suddenly I heard the sound of a bullet whizzing past me through some trees nearby.

This first shot rattled me and I froze—it was as simple as that and there was physically no way around it. One minute I was out hunting, the next I was tharn (a term used to describe this deer in headlights condition, first popularized in Richard Adam’s Watership Down). It was almost as if my mind was functioning but my body wouldn’t follow the commands. Run, shoot, hide—these were all things I knew existed, they were just things I found I couldn’t do at that moment. For a second even, I couldn’t accept that I was even getting shot at—no this must be some mistake.

If I’m honest with myself, I don’t think it would have made much of a difference had this first shot sent me into high alert, defensive mode rather than briefly incapacitated me. First of all, I had no idea from where the shots were originating and the complex patterns and thick vegetation characteristic of the Adirondack Mountains made it unlikely I would be able to discern my shooter's position without exposing myself to fire for an extended period of time.

Additionally, I had nothing more than a side-by-side shotgun and a pocket full of shells on me. This would have been a great option had the attack been hand-to-hand but I was facing ranged attacks. Where was my carry pistol? Well, if I carried one at the time (I was just getting into pistols at 19), it would have likely been at home and could you really have blamed me? I was out hunting in the middle of nowhere (these were also woods I had been hunting with my family since I was a tyke so they also had that “my own backyard” feel to them for me), not walking through the inner city with a wad of cash in my back pocket. I was more worried about black bears than people and they could be taken care of with a loud shout or a couple of blasts from my scattergun if need be.

Even now, thinking through the scenario pretty much affirms for me that throwing a pistol into the equation wouldn’t have really made much of a difference because a) the shooter was using a rifle and was out of handgun range, and b) I didn’t know where the shooter was, period, because the attack came so quickly. Between a Rock… The first shot was followed by several more and these murder attempts thankfully removed all doubt as to whether or not I was the intended target, snapping me back to reality. Instinctually, I sought cover. I did my best to get small and ended up hiding behind a large rock as more rounds sailed by me or ricocheted off of tree trunks.

It’s worth mentioning here that even though I was somewhat protected by the rock, I did not by any stretch of the word feel my position was “safe”, in fact I had very little faith in the effectiveness of my cover. For starters, I kept picturing this crazed sniper quietly changing his angle during any brief lulls in firing in an effort to catch a part of my body peaking out from behind the rock. The fact that I only had a rough idea as to his position was perhaps the scariest part (aside from bullets flying past my head).

Secondly, I knew that larger caliber rounds could actually penetrate certain types of rock leaving me to pray that my rock wasn’t one of those types. The bullets glancing off the trees around me didn’t help build any confidence in my defensive position either and though it’s been decades since this incident, just typing it out now makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up

How many more rounds this maniac fired at me I don’t know but I can tell you I didn’t move from that spot for a long time even after hearing the last shot. I found out later that the guy shooting at me was the owner of the neighboring property (which I was not on, making this a totally unprovoked attack). Needless to say, he was not a fan of hunters but, to make the whole ordeal even more bizarre, he was also a member of law enforcement. Response from the Peanut Gallery As you can imagine, I have told this story many times over the years and the graphic nature of content has inspired all sorts of responses, from quiet sympathy to full blown tutorials on how I should have handled myself better. How do you respond when you're shot at?

I have had to listen to people go on the yarns about how they would have returned fire, slurking around the woods like Rambo in First Blood and descending on the shooter like a hawk. I have had people tell me I should have been better prepared and been carrying a pistol or a rifle to defend against the attack. I have had people tell me I should have yelled at my shooter in an attempt to convince him to stop shooting at me (I guess by humanizing myself or persuading him I wasn’t his man?). I don’t buy any of it.

I’ve even had a few people suggest with carefully chosen words that I should have done something illegal, which adds a whole new dimension to why I can’t stand mall ninjas and their braggadocio. “What if” statements like these, especially if they detail defense tactics outside the law, can come back to haunt shooters in a big way if they actually do end up in a gunfight or end up shooting an intruder. Be sure that after any deadly force incident, the police will question your friends and people you know and I sincerely doubt it would help your case if several people heard you talking about blasting some criminal into next week. ‘Should’ versus ‘Will’ In our role as armed citizens, we train with our firearms to ensure that we are proficient with them. The more we train, the better we get and the more the defense techniques we’re studying become second nature—that’s the point of self-defense training, to prepare ourselves to defend ourselves, and hard practice and repetition can go a long way towards making a responsive, educated shooter that reacts the way he or she should, according to the scenario.

But ‘should’ is an operative word here because even though you can know what you ‘should’ do, don’t confuse this with thinking you know what you ‘will’ do.

Gun owners have already gotten a bad image over the years and almost all of it is false, but there are a few of us in our midst that are about as popular as Michael Vick at Pet World (and who do the gun world’s reputation as much good). Shun these slack jawed Walter Mittys and distance yourself from “what if.” You will be better off in the long run.

I have been a participating member of the gun culture for 50 years, and I have never run across the type of bull session that this author describes. I guess it depends on who you are associating with, perhaps on the local culture. I certainly do not see it amoung veterans, peace officers, competitive shooters or hunters.

I do recall a bit of discussion of what to do in defensive situations, usually pretty sober minded. Real attention grabbers were stories by those who had "seen the elephant". Everyone paid careful attention to those, and tried to derive real life lessons from them. If others have had different experiences, please let us know.

In my experience, "What if" sessions are very valuable, as they let you game situations before they occur. If you have thought about a situation, and a similar one actually happens, you are more likely to act in a positive way. Most "what if" situations that I have talked about are "what if someone is trying to break into your house?", "what if someone approaches you in the grocery store parking lot?", or "what if someone trys to carjack your?" In other words, possible scenarios and reasonable responses.

I disagree with the author, because he and I are very different people. I to was shot (not shot at, .... shot) during a hunting accident when I was in my early 20's. My reaction was far from "deer in the headlights", without thinking, I drew my 12 ga on the 'hunting buddy' and flipped off the safety. My mind was absolutely furious, I truly 'saw red' - the pellets penetrated my light jacket, and my right arm had some pellets just under the skin, and they burned. It was through my will alone, that I didn't shoot him, intentionally.

What had happened was that we were hunting pheasants, and he split from the rest of the group on his own, went down into a tree and saw a squirrel - and fired through the tree - and I walked into peripheral of the shot. He hadn't bothered to see what was behind his target, and it almost cost him dearly.

So, to assume that people will go into a "deer in the headlights" type of shock, is a very false assumption. Not everyone will, some will react quite aggressively. But, it goes beyond this.

I had a Minature Pincher that was my best buddy for almost 13 yrs. He was getting slower, older - and then he stopped eating and lost a lot of weight. I took him to the vet, where I learned that my best friend had Diabets, Liver and Kidney failure - and if I gave him shots 2x a day, I might keep him a year. I knew that would be selfish, and that being a dog - he wouldn't understand why I was hurting him 2x a day, while he felt miserable. So, I did my best to keep from crying, and held him close, petted him and talked to him as the Vet gave him the shots that ended his precious live. I kept backt he tears, so he wouldn't be afraid, and held him until the Vet couldn't hear a pulse any longer. I kept my composure while I laid him in a little white coffin-shaped carboard box, and took him to the truck. I made it almost a mile before I pulled over to the side of the road and wept like a child. I'm teary-eyed as I write this now.

But, believe me when I say this .... if I'm in my house, and I hear someone coming into the house, unexpected, uninvited and unknown to me - there will be no warning, no verbal threat - I will be sitting in the shadows waiting; and as soon as I identify that the target is not a family member - there will be 3 carefully placed shots (1 to the head, 2 to center mass); then I'll reposition to investigate whether there are other targets that need to be eliminated. You see, I could kill my best friend out of mercy; and I LOVED him. I don't like thieves at all.

I have been actively stalked as a witness to an armed robbery by an accomplice. I have been walked out of a store as a hostage in a robbery. I have waited at my door, gun in hand, as someone pounded on it, trying to get in with the police a half-hour away. As a result, I have developed my skills and practiced my responses so that I will react not as a victim but as an armed citizen. The same with my wife, as she had to repel an intruder trying to break in our home when she was alone and pregnant with our first child.

You responded properly, under fire at a distance you could not respond, by a nutcase. I hope he was prosecuted but he probably was not. Sometimes taking cover is the best solution. The active response and possible taking of a life should be the last option....but it should remain an option.

“Deer in the head lights” comes from not training. It is one of the things that as a Infantry sergeant I had to train OUT of my troops. It is also one of the reasons I tell people to go to the range and train train train.

Train how to draw the weapon properly from its holster
Train how to draw the weapon while in different positions
Train how to shoot accurately
Train how to shoot under stressful conditions
Train how to make shoot / no shoot decisions
Train how to shoot from different positions
Train how to shoot with your off hand
Train how to shoot at nighttime
Train how to reload
Train how to clear jams
Train how to react after the shooting
Train in giving first aid

Train train train train!
I tell my students that it takes 100 rounds just to get a feel for the trigger. It takes a 1,000 rounds to get a feel for the gun and it takes another 1,000 rounds in each of the above shooting categories to become accurate, competent and controlled in that scenario. In short, I tell my students to expect to go through 10,000 rounds to get to the point where they are good. And then, they will need to go through about 1,000 rounds per year to keep up their skills.

Good Post Sir:

I have always felt the best gunfight is the one that does not happen. If someone breaks into my house at night that means they have disabled my alarm system and killed my dog. On that basis they are a deadly threat. As such my obligation is to get my wife and I out of harms way. We can exit our bedroom directly to the outside. Only if unable to exit would I fire my weapon in the house. Once I am outside I would be in the dark holding a Draco 7.62-39 Draco “pistol with a green laser sight zeroed for only 50 yards and two 30 round clips. They may break into my house but they must get out of it also. I win.

Things to remember:

1. Have a plan, when someone breaks in the fear factor makes clear thinking and planning difficult.
2. Your prime motive should be safety not a gun fight.
3. Know the laws of your county and state. What is legal in Texas can get prosecuted for murder in New York.
4. Taking a mans life is serious and will affect you for years and years,
5. If you decide you must shoot, do everything in your ability to kill the threat. Keep firing until the bad guy drops. Once he hits the ground stop firing unless he still has the weapon in his hand and can utilize it.
6. Make sure there is not another threat in the area.
7. Dial 911 and tell them there has been a shooting and an individual has sustained a gun shot wound and there is not a current threat to you.
8. If the perp is still alive “attempt” to save him. You are under no obligation to do so but it looks good in court.
9. Call your lawyer.
10. When the police arrive, tell them 2 things and this is important important important.
A. I was in fear for my life.
B. I will cooperate fully once my lawyer is present
to give me advice
Shut up and tell you family to also shut up. Do
not let the police interrogate anyone until your lawyer is present. Do what your lawyer tell you to do.

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