TexasCHLforum.com

I agree with most f it. Not so sure about shooting at a guy with innocent people behind him. I wouldn't. I also don't carry a back up weapon anymore.

Originally Posted by Descreet38 View Post
While I wish I could have been the one to write the below I will not take any credit for the writing BUT I will take credit for this is a portion I drill into every student I have taught in the past 20 years during Close Quarter combat drills - for civilians.

Dez

Fighting within arms reach is close quarters combat. Such fighting may involve wrestling, boxing, knife work, or striking with an object. The following suggestions are for the person who has a pistol, and who may be engaged in up-close combat. These suggestions are particularly for "civilians," not law officers, who operate with a different set of duties and obligations. Also, I make no claims to any expertise, but there are some common sense considerations.

1. Think ahead, and simply avoid combat situations if at all possible. Don't frequent places where fighting occurs regularly. Just don't go there!

2. Stay alert wherever you are. Don't walk around in "condition white." If you have a legal permit to carry a firearm then you are duty bound to focus on your environment and the people around you, wherever you may be. Don't day dream. Don't forget you have a weapon. Don't be stupid.

3. Remember the Five Rules of Concealed Carry. You are not allowed to draw and use your weapon unless your life or the lives of innocent people around you are in deadly danger.


Five Rules for CONCEALED Carry

Your concealed handgun is for protection of life only.


Draw it solely in preparation to protect yourself or an innocent third party from the wrongful and life-threatening criminal actions of another.

Know exactly when you can use your gun.


A criminal adversary must have, or reasonably appear to have:

the ability to inflict serious bodily injury (he is armed or reasonably appears to be armed with a deadly weapon),
the opportunity to inflict serious bodily harm (he is physically positioned to harm you with his weapon), and
his intent (hostile actions or words) indicates that he means to place you in jeopardy -- to do you serious or fatal physical harm.

When all three of these "attack potential" elements are in place simultaneously, then you are facing a reasonably perceived deadly threat that can justify an emergency deadly force response.

If you can run away -- RUN!


Just because you’re armed doesn’t necessarily mean you must confront a bad guy at gunpoint. Develop your "situation awareness" skills so you can be alert to detect and avoid trouble altogether. Keep in mind that if you successfully evade a potential confrontation, the single negative consequence involved might be your bruised ego, which should heal with mature rationalization. But if you force a confrontation you risk the possibility of you or a family member being killed or suffering lifelong crippling/disfiguring physical injury, criminal liability and/or financial ruin from civil lawsuit. Flee if you can, fight only as a last resort.

Display your gun, go to jail.


You should

expect to be arrested by police at gunpoint, and be charged with a crime anytime your concealed handgun is seen by another citizen in public, regardless of how unintentional or innocent or justified the situation might seem. Choose a method of carry that keeps your gun reliably hidden from public view at all times.


You have no control over how a stranger will react to seeing (or learning about) your concealed handgun. He or she might become alarmed and report you to police as a "man or woman with a gun." Depending on his or her feelings about firearms, this person might be willing to maliciously embellish his or her story in attempt to have your gun seized by police or to get you arrested. An alarmed citizen who reports a "man with a gun" is going to be more credible to police than you when you're stopped because you match the suspects description, and you're found to have a concealed handgun in your possession.
Before you deliberately expose your gun in public, ask yourself: "Is this worth going to jail for?" The only time this question should warrant a "yes" response is when an adversary has at least, both ability and intent, and is actively seeking the opportunity to do you great harm.

Don't let your emotions get the best of you.


If, despite your best efforts to the contrary, you do get into some kind of heated dispute with another person while you’re armed, never mention, imply or exhibit your gun for the purpose of intimidation or one-oneupmanship. You’ll simply make a bad situation worse -- for yourself (see rule #4).

4. If a combat situation is materializing under your nose MOVE. If someone has drawn a weapon on you, MOVE. If someone is ABOUT to draw on you, MOVE. If someone is already firing at you or others, MOVE. Move to cover. If there is no cover, move to the "strong side" of the person firing the weapon. Moving sideways is probably better than moving toward or away from your opponent. Draw your own weapon and shoot to stop the danger. If you spend your precious time shouting "stop," or "drop your weapon," etc., the shooter then has more time to shoot again. If the deadly danger is in front of you, don't talk, SHOOT.

5. If the "bad guy" is standing in front of innocent bystanders, drop to a kneeling position to shoot at him, angling your shots upward and thereby missing people behind him. (This is assuming you have TIME and SPACE to drop to one knee. Don't risk your life to assume some sort of range position. Split seconds count.)

6. If you are extremely close to your opponent don't actually touch him with your semi-auto pistol as you are shooting, as that may interfere with the proper operation of your weapon.

7. Take care to retain your firearm. You don't want the bad guy to hold on to it, or snatch it from you. A revolver that is firmly grasped around the cylinder will not fire. Keep your firearm close to your own body, not held out at arms length. You are not at the shooting range. This is close quarters combat.

8. If the bad guy has the drop on you, try to distract him. Throw your wallet or money to the ground at his feet. Throw your coffee in his face. Drop your car keys. Pretend you are sick. Do anything you can to give yourself time and opportunity to draw your own weapon. Then move fast. If you are really up close, grab his gun and use leverage to take his gun away from him.

9. Carry a secret very small back up gun, in case your primary gun mal-functions, or is taken away from you. Carry a secret knife (careful - not legal everywhere). Don't be without resources.

10. Don't under-estimate the deadliness of non-firearm weapons in the hands of your opponent. Up close and personal a knife or a lead pipe is just as deadly as any firearm.
11. Give it your ALL. If your life is in danger, then get serious! Be violent! Put your heart into it! Don't be considerate of the bad guy. He is trying to kill you, so fight back! This is real life, not some TV show where the hero always bends over backward to give the bad guy one more chance to kill him. Don't quit shooting until you are sure that he's not going to get up and come after you again.

powerful stuff....

This pretty well sums it up. Really good!

Great advice.

interesting points.

i do have a question regarding the 'distract the criminal if they've got the jump on you...'

if being robbed at gun point, do i, as the victim, have the right to open fire on an individual who has taken my wallet and it retreating? i know 'robbery at night' might apply in the dark, but what about daylight hours?

schufflerbot wrote:interesting points.

i do have a question regarding the 'distract the criminal if they've got the jump on you...'

if being robbed at gun point, do i, as the victim, have the right to open fire on an individual who has taken my wallet and it retreating? i know 'robbery at night' might apply in the dark, but what about daylight hours?

"burglary, robbery, aggravated robbery, or theft during the nighttime"

IANAL but I think the nighttime restriction only applies to theft. The others don't have time restrictions but read all of 9.42 before you think it's open season on muggers. That would be nice, though.

The nighttime restriction only applies to theft and criminal mischief, iirc.

The one questionable piece of advice I see, is to run away from an attack. I'm assuming he intends this advice for people who are physically capable of running, and are by themselves, so with that:

1. How do you know the person you're running from isn't faster than you? Now you've turned your back and are at a tactical disadvantage.
2. If you've allowed yourself to get into a situation where a confrontation or attack is likely, how do you know he doesn't have accomplices behind you in the direction you're going to run?
3. Especially at night, and of course, depending on where you are, running risks tripping or falling, another tactical disadvantage.
4. Seems like, depending on how secure your carry is, running also risks losing your weapon. I'm pretty confident my Serpa holster will retain my weapon while running, but I don't have that kind of retention for every gun I carry.

VMI77 wrote:The one questionable piece of advice I see, is to run away from an attack.

I'm no expert, but I interpret this thread to be good guidelines rather than hard rules. Get away if at all possible - that's what I took out of the advice to run. There will be appropriate times to escape, and appropriate times to fight.

Another thing I have tried to incorporate is the use of a tactical light. I keep a small one that fits in my pocket. It can blind a person (800 lumens), illuminate a threat (or possible threat) for me or someone else, and serve as a weapon (sharpened, scalloped bezel). There are plenty of threads on here that discuss illumination.

...A criminal adversary must have, or reasonably appear to have:

the ability to inflict serious bodily injury (he is armed or reasonably appears to be armed with a deadly weapon),...

Disparity of force comes into play as well. A woman confronted with a larger man. A victim confronted by a group of attackers. An elderly or disabled person facing a younger/stronger person, etc. The attacker(s) does not have to have a weapon to have the ability to do serious bodily injury. But a jury must believe it was reasonable. Zimmerman is sweating this right now in his trial. Good article.

To the OP...... It would make it a lot easier to tell which are your own words, and which are the worlds of someone else if you use the quote tags enclosed by square brackets ("[" and "]"). If you place your cursor and click at the point where you want the quoted text to appear, and then click the "Quote" button in the toolbar above where you're typing, the quote tags will magically appear at your desired insertion point. Or you can simply type the tags out yourself.

Example: That will look like:

• Your own words blah blah blah.....

  The quoted words yada yada yada.....

  More of your own words.....

Just a helpful hint....