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So all the worries about what works at 25 yds are just bs, plain and simple. I've been attacked many times, and know of many others. It's always been at 5 yds and less, usually much less. I've read the Armed Citizen column every month for nearly 40 years now. Go to the dept of Justice's website, look up the Annual Crime survey. over 65% of all attacks are not made with a gun and if you defend yourself with a gun, you are MANY times more likely to escape injury than if you use anything else. that means that you dare not fire at more than 10 feet of distance, or run a very serious risk of going to prison for having done so. At that same DOJ website, look up the FBI'S UCR uniform crime report. See that over 90% of GUN fights occur at less than 7 yds, most occur at less than 10 FEET, in fact.
Read Jim Cirillo's book on Gunfighting, and notice that fully 6 out of 7 armed robbers, CORNERED by stakeout teams in the act of robbing liquor stores, surrendered rather than fight. Leave the attacker an out and the odds are 10 to 1 he will take it, rather than make you shoot. So the odds are VERY high that you will never have to shoot at all, never have to hit anyone if you do fire, and way, way high that you won't need more accuracy than the abilty to hit a 10" chest circle at 10 ft. What you need is the abilty to get the gun out and noticed by the creep, ready to fire, swiftly and surely. So very cheap AirSoft or pellet gun practice will cover most of your training needs, and a lot of your live firing can be done with the .22lr, too.
If you do shoot somebody, be ready to spend 50k on staying out of prison, and fighting the years long civil suit that likely wil be part of the scenario. This is a lot of reasons to be so swift and sure in your getting "the drop" on the attacker, so that you will not have to shoot him. Forget about the pistol shooting beyond 10 yds, and forget about engaging more than 2 guys in the same scenario. It doesnt happen, and if it did, you couldn't handle it, no matter who you are or how good you are. Shoot 1-2 attackers, and the rest will FLEE, dude. this will save you a TON of money otherwise wasted on pointless practice at too long ranges. Sure, it's fun, but make sure that you understand that the expense is not NECESSARY.
I won't go into too many details about each incident but I will tell you about the last one. Over the years I have had to draw my weapon on three separate occasions. Thankfully I never had to fire.
The last time was at my home. I was working on a car in the driveway and noticed 4 guys walking down the street. They were clearly out of place for my neighborhood and making themselves noticed so they had my attention without me being too obvious. They walked past my driveway but I never saw them appear on the other side of the bushes. A minute or so later two of the guys appeared at the end of the driveway and began talking to me and asking questions about the car while slowly walking up the driveway. The other two guys appeared behind them back about 25 ft. Their tone changed and they started acting like thugs. when the closest guy said something along the lines of "Nice car, I think i'll take it for a ride, gimme the keys @$%&@!!" while putting his hand in his jacket pocket I immediately drew my gun and ordered them to stop where they were and put their hands where I could see them. There was some yelling back and forth that got the neighbors attention and he called the cops. I was also very loud with my instructions to get on the ground and repeated myself several times just in case I had to fire there would be witnesses. My actions caused three of my neighbors to come outside and were standing by me when the cops arrived. One neighbor called back into the police and gave them an update and told them specifically that the home owner (me) has the men held at gun point and gave them a description of what I was wearing. Thankfully all four men complied to my instructions and I had them laying face down with their hands behind their heads on my driveway.
The cops arrived appox 10 mins after the first call. When they arrived two officers exited the car. One trained his weapon on the men while the other had his gun in hand pointed at the ground and instructed me to put my weapon away.
Additional units arrived and the cops detained the four guys then approached me. They asked me to turn over my weapon which I did. They searched the guys and found that the first guy that was reaching into his pocket had a gun that was stolen. It was reported stolen from a home invasion a few blocks away a month earlier. They also found various small weapons and drugs on the others guys. The men where arrested and the officers took my statement. I then had to talk to an incident commander/officer. At the end of the conversation my gun was handed back to me and I shook hands with all the guys on scene and they thanked me for my help.
My point in this is that some encounters do happen at much greater distances then you stated. I was able to stop the situation from escalating and none of the guys got with 50 ft of me. Had this guy pulled his weapon I would have been within my rights to fire on him at any distance. If he simply rushed me then that is were the 7 yard rule comes into play. My driveway is 82 ft long and from where I was standing to were the first two guys stopped was 51 ft. The other two men were at appox 65 ft. When I practise at the range I'm sure to run the target out to at least the 100ft mark. I'm not claiming to be the best with a hand gun but at 100ft in minimal light I can put all 15 rounds of 9mm into a 10in round target so I'm comfortable I could have handled that situation that night if need be...
One other thing. Bad guys almost always travel in packs so multiple targets is almost always a given.
From the description of this one incident it may be the case that the OP lives in a rough place. More power to him if he hangs in there and doesn't surrender his home and neighborhood to the thugs. He is a good citizen.
Me? I would have moved on a long time ago if as I am not so attached to any geographic place that I would want to risk life and liberty to stay there. May not be an admirable position but there it is.
I won't go into too many details about each incident but I will tell you about the last one. Over the years I have had to draw my weapon on three separate occasions. Thankfully I never had to fire.
The last time was at my home. I was working on a car in the driveway and noticed 4 guys walking down the street. They were clearly out of place for my neighborhood and making themselves noticed so they had my attention without me being too obvious. They walked past my driveway but I never saw them appear on the other side of the bushes. A minute or so later two of the guys appeared at the end of the driveway and began talking to me and asking questions about the car while slowly walking up the driveway. The other two guys appeared behind them back about 25 ft. Their tone changed and they started acting like thugs. when the closest guy said something along the lines of "Nice car, I think i'll take it for a ride, gimme the keys @$%&@!!" while putting his hand in his jacket pocket I immediately drew my gun and ordered them to stop where they were and put their hands where I could see them. There was some yelling back and forth that got the neighbors attention and he called the cops. I was also very loud with my instructions to get on the ground and repeated myself several times just in case I had to fire there would be witnesses. My actions caused three of my neighbors to come outside and were standing by me when the cops arrived. One neighbor called back into the police and gave them an update and told them specifically that the home owner (me) has the men held at gun point and gave them a description of what I was wearing. Thankfully all four men complied to my instructions and I had them laying face down with their hands behind their heads on my driveway.
The cops arrived appox 10 mins after the first call. When they arrived two officers exited the car. One trained his weapon on the men while the other had his gun in hand pointed at the ground and instructed me to put my weapon away.
Additional units arrived and the cops detained the four guys then approached me. They asked me to turn over my weapon which I did. They searched the guys and found that the first guy that was reaching into his pocket had a gun that was stolen. It was reported stolen from a home invasion a few blocks away a month earlier. They also found various small weapons and drugs on the others guys. The men where arrested and the officers took my statement. I then had to talk to an incident commander/officer. At the end of the conversation my gun was handed back to me and I shook hands with all the guys on scene and they thanked me for my help.
My point in this is that some encounters do happen at much greater distances then you stated. I was able to stop the situation from escalating and none of the guys got with 50 ft of me. Had this guy pulled his weapon I would have been within my rights to fire on him at any distance. If he simply rushed me then that is were the 7 yard rule comes into play. My driveway is 82 ft long and from where I was standing to were the first two guys stopped was 51 ft. The other two men were at appox 65 ft. When I practise at the range I'm sure to run the target out to at least the 100ft mark. I'm not claiming to be the best with a hand gun but at 100ft in minimal light I can put all 15 rounds of 9mm into a 10in round target so I'm comfortable I could have handled that situation that night if need be...
One other thing. Bad guys almost always travel in packs so multiple targets is almost always a given.
Sounds like a daydream/fantasy, calling BS because.
1. If 4 thugs in your close prximity wanted your car, you would have been bum rushed, knocked to the ground or knocked out. Chances of you getting to your weapon, slim to none.
2. If you pulled a gun on 4 people barking orders, chances of all 4 complying instead of running for their lives, 0%.
Sounds like a daydream/fantasy, calling BS because.
1. If 4 thugs in your close prximity wanted your car, you would have been bum rushed, knocked to the ground or knocked out. Chances of you getting to your weapon, slim to none.
2. If you pulled a gun on 4 people barking orders, chances of all 4 complying instead of running for their lives, 0%.
I understand your reservations and I would think the same thing. I've had friends of mine call BS on this one as well so no offense taken. The only way I had a chance in this situation is I noticed them walk by the driveway and behind the bushes. When they didn't appear on the other side of the bushes I felt something was not right and put my hand near the gun. Again these guys were completely out of place in my neighborhood so they attracted attention. As I stated my driveway is 82 ft long so there is a fair distance to work with. If I had not noticed them when I did the outcome could have been much worse. Had they come up behind me things would have been different and as you said I wouldn't have had time to react.
Why they all complied I don't know but I'm glad they did. If they would have turned and run I would have just let them go and called the cops. Truthfully I wish they had ran because the next few minutes where nerve racking waiting for the cops to arrive. The last thing I want to do is pull that trigger but I won't risk myself or my family which was home that night. So I did what I felt was right and got lucky. It was the scariest 10 mins of my life and I hope to never repeat it.
I understand your doubt but I have a police report to prove it. Funniest thing about the story is they couldn't have taken the car if they wanted to. The distributor was out of it and all the wires off as I was doing an ignition upgrade at the time.
Last edited by johna01374; 08-19-2011 at 01:39 PM..
Read Jim Cirillo's book on Gunfighting, and notice that fully 6 out of 7 armed robbers, CORNERED by stakeout teams in the act of robbing liquor stores, surrendered rather than fight. Leave the attacker an out and the odds are 10 to 1 he will take it,
I do not claim to be an expert on anything. However, I have a dear friend who is an ex-LEO and he told me that you NEVER, NEVER, NEVER give a criminal time to ACT. If you do then the only option you have is to REACT. Your life hangs in the balance by milliseconds.
You do not, EVER give someone a chance to "leave the attacker an out". Otherwise, you will, most probably be dead. Yes, perhaps 9 out of 10 or even 99 out of 100 attackers will flee, but what about the one that WON'T and kills you. Is it really worth it? Nope. I'm sorry. I shoot first and ask questions later because I don't want to meet the guy that is the exception to the rule.
Sounds like a daydream/fantasy, calling BS because.
1. If 4 thugs in your close prximity wanted your car, you would have been bum rushed, knocked to the ground or knocked out. Chances of you getting to your weapon, slim to none.
2. If you pulled a gun on 4 people barking orders, chances of all 4 complying instead of running for their lives, 0%.
Quote:
Originally Posted by johna01374
I understand your reservations and I would think the same thing. I've had friends of mine call BS on this one as well so no offense taken. The only way I had a chance in this situation is I noticed them walk by the driveway and behind the bushes. When they didn't appear on the other side of the bushes I felt something was not right and put my hand near the gun. Again these guys were completely out of place in my neighborhood so they attracted attention. As I stated my driveway is 82 ft long so there is a fair distance to work with. If I had not noticed them when I did the outcome could have been much worse. Had they come up behind me things would have been different and as you said I wouldn't have had time to react.
Why they all complied I don't know but I'm glad they did. If they would have turned and run I would have just let them go and called the cops. Truthfully I wish they had ran because the next few minutes where nerve racking waiting for the cops to arrive. The last thing I want to do is pull that trigger but I won't risk myself or my family which was home that night. So I did what I felt was right and got lucky. It was the scariest 10 mins of my life and I hope to never repeat it.
I understand your doubt but I have a police report to prove it. Funniest thing about the story is they couldn't have taken the car if they wanted to. The distributor was out of it and all the wires off as I was doing an ignition upgrade at the time.
I'm not going to call it BS because I wasn't there and I have no reason to call anyone a liar unless I have proof.
What I will say is that whether there is one man or four men or six men standing at the business end of a firearm muzzle, generally none of them want to be the first to die. I don't think their logic would be "there are six of us and he could only pop two of us off before we took him out." I think the thought process would be more like "I don't want to die today." Remember, we're not discussing a trained group of militants under an officer--we're talking four pieces of trash that want to cause trouble. But even being trash, they probably are in no hurry to get shot and die.
As far as not running... well maybe they were not even smart enough to do that.
I do not claim to be an expert on anything. However, I have a dear friend who is an ex-LEO and he told me that you NEVER, NEVER, NEVER give a criminal time to ACT. If you do then the only option you have is to REACT. Your life hangs in the balance by milliseconds.
You do not, EVER give someone a chance to "leave the attacker an out". Otherwise, you will, most probably be dead. Yes, perhaps 9 out of 10 or even 99 out of 100 attackers will flee, but what about the one that WON'T and kills you. Is it really worth it? Nope. I'm sorry. I shoot first and ask questions later because I don't want to meet the guy that is the exception to the rule.
20yrsinBranson
There are different "rules of engagment" if you will.
A soldier can shoot an enemy soldier in the back no questions asked (assuming they had not surrendered)
A LEO can shoot a suspect in the back under very restricted circumstances - gunfight, threatening bystanders, etc.
A private citizen cannot shoot anyone in the back - you may find a sympathetic jury, but you will be facing prosecution. Some exceptions may be made in "castle" states if you are within your home.
You should not apply advice of a LEO to your circumstances as a private citizen unless you believe it is necessary to preserve your life because the consequences of shooting a kid with a comb or killing a bystander are very high - jail time and restitution.
I won't go into too many details about each incident but I will tell you about the last one. Over the years I have had to draw my weapon on three separate occasions. Thankfully I never had to fire.
The last time was at my home. I was working on a car in the driveway and noticed 4 guys walking down the street. They were clearly out of place for my neighborhood and making themselves noticed so they had my attention without me being too obvious. They walked past my driveway but I never saw them appear on the other side of the bushes. A minute or so later two of the guys appeared at the end of the driveway and began talking to me and asking questions about the car while slowly walking up the driveway. The other two guys appeared behind them back about 25 ft. Their tone changed and they started acting like thugs. when the closest guy said something along the lines of "Nice car, I think i'll take it for a ride, gimme the keys @$%&@!!" while putting his hand in his jacket pocket I immediately drew my gun and ordered them to stop where they were and put their hands where I could see them. There was some yelling back and forth that got the neighbors attention and he called the cops. I was also very loud with my instructions to get on the ground and repeated myself several times just in case I had to fire there would be witnesses. My actions caused three of my neighbors to come outside and were standing by me when the cops arrived. One neighbor called back into the police and gave them an update and told them specifically that the home owner (me) has the men held at gun point and gave them a description of what I was wearing. Thankfully all four men complied to my instructions and I had them laying face down with their hands behind their heads on my driveway.
The cops arrived appox 10 mins after the first call. When they arrived two officers exited the car. One trained his weapon on the men while the other had his gun in hand pointed at the ground and instructed me to put my weapon away.
Additional units arrived and the cops detained the four guys then approached me. They asked me to turn over my weapon which I did. They searched the guys and found that the first guy that was reaching into his pocket had a gun that was stolen. It was reported stolen from a home invasion a few blocks away a month earlier. They also found various small weapons and drugs on the others guys. The men where arrested and the officers took my statement. I then had to talk to an incident commander/officer. At the end of the conversation my gun was handed back to me and I shook hands with all the guys on scene and they thanked me for my help.
My point in this is that some encounters do happen at much greater distances then you stated. I was able to stop the situation from escalating and none of the guys got with 50 ft of me. Had this guy pulled his weapon I would have been within my rights to fire on him at any distance. If he simply rushed me then that is were the 7 yard rule comes into play. My driveway is 82 ft long and from where I was standing to were the first two guys stopped was 51 ft. The other two men were at appox 65 ft. When I practise at the range I'm sure to run the target out to at least the 100ft mark. I'm not claiming to be the best with a hand gun but at 100ft in minimal light I can put all 15 rounds of 9mm into a 10in round target so I'm comfortable I could have handled that situation that night if need be...
One other thing. Bad guys almost always travel in packs so multiple targets is almost always a given.
The other side of the coin. Been there. Sound reasonable to me.
Once I came out of the woods from hunting deer with a single shot Hawken 50 cal. 4 guys in my car, looking for things.
I walked up as if I was going to walk by and stated "nice eveing huh?"
Then "Ok Boys, time to walk to see the chief of police."
"This is a 50 Caliber Hawken and it shoots a great big bullet, that will tear off any limbs a man has and will go thru more than 4 men at once. So if you like wastin air on thisn' side of the grass get in a nice line and start walking down the road, and you will be delivered to the Chief's house."
Other wise you will all be coyotte bait one by one. If one of you runs, I will shoot the other 3, and then you last, and you will just die tired.
Me: I was shakin in my boots, but they didn't know it.
It didn't hurt any that I looked something like this.
Black powder season at the time required no orange.
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