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Oldgringo wrote:

The Annoyed Man wrote:

Oldgringo said, "no plan, we play the hand we're dealt." That's fine, but we try to have a couple of hole cards up our sleeves.

It's true, while we don't have a playbook or any plays written on our wrists. We plan not to put ourselves in harm's way by avoiding nightime varmint ridden parts of town or after dark shopping/eating, etc. We establish eye contact with suspicious bipeds and look about us in parking lots and filling stations, etc.

Should a BG get the jump on us after all that, Mrs. Oldgringo will waddle off in one direction screaming while I waddle off in the other direction cussing and shooting over my shoulder with the full knowledge that the police will be along sooner or later.

Well OK then! That sounds like our plan, except that my wife will be shooting too, and telling me to watch my mouth.

wrinkles wrote:Here's what I've discussed with her.

Given that statistics show the majority of shots fired are misses I don't want you anywhere close to me when it happens. I will draw and move away from you. You need to run away from the threat and find cover. Keep using cover and moving away. If while firing at the threat I happen to go down I want you as far away from me and the other shooter as possible.

Exactly one of the reasons why my wife and I agree to separate if it's time to go to guns.....with the following caveat.....

My wife has her CHL. She carries a 9mm, and she knows how to shoot it. She carries a gun for all of the reasons that I carry a gun. While, as the husband, I feel a certain responsibility for the protection of my family, she is a 50mumble year old adult, and she feels much the same way. Who am I to argue with her about that? So, she is as much of a warrior as I am....to the extent that two out-of-shape folks approaching senior citizenship can be considered warriors. If I am shooting, she'll be shooting too. If she is shot, I will fight my way to her side. If I am shot, she will fight her way to my side. Both of us know to seek cover, so it will be the natural impulse for either of us to seek cover in the direction in which we are moving—away from one another—which will increase the odds of survival for both of us......rather than letting some scumbag kill us both in one place.

Oldgringo said, "no plan, we play the hand we're dealt." That's fine, but we try to have a couple of hole cards up our sleeves. The fact that we plan to spread out is one. The fact that she is armed (which may be unexpected to the BG) and willing to use it is the other. Those two hole cards are almost universally applicable. Other than that, there is no real plan, just the idea of a place from which a plan can develop. It may be axiomatic that no plan survives first contact with the enemy, but it is also axiomatic that plans can develop on the fly. My dad use to say that one of the things he learned in Marine Corps OCS was that any decision is better than no decision when you are under fire. We make lots of decisions long before the dreaded possibility of contact with an enemy—the first of which is the decision to be armed in the first place. THAT is a plan. Doesn't mean you're going to use it on any given day, but if planning = preparation, then the decision to carry a gun is a plan. Ditto the tactical decision we've arrived at, described above.

We both have our CHLs, and we both carry 24/7. Our plan, generally speaking if we are in a public place, is to both draw our guns (assuming that it is time to go to guns) and then separate by a few feet so that the BG now has to consider a threat from two different directions, and he can't take both of us out with a double tap. And even if he wings one of us, the other can return fire, winging him. Then, assuming that we are able to either put him down by gunshot, or force his compliance to get down, one of us can cover him while the other calls the police.

Our plan at home is kinda similar, kinda not.....depending on what room we're in, and what time of day or night it is.