Posted on 04/17/2009 4:40:17 AM PDT by marktwain
“Time is our worst adversary in dealing with active killers. We’re racing what I call ‘the Stopwatch of Death.’ Victims are often added to the toll every several seconds.”
-- Ron Borsch, a 30-year law enforcement veteran who manages the South East Area Law Enforcement Regional Training Academy in Bedford, Ohio.
Photo: Oleg Volk, www.olegvolk.net“If I only had a gun,” ABC’s recent segment of “20/20,” treated viewers to a biased and deeply flawed “study” promoting the opinion that armed citizens are incapable of stopping active killers in mass homicides.
On Monday, “Myths of Armed Self-Defense” exposed “20/20’s” fallacy of the omnipotent killer, noting that personality characteristics of such killers actually make them more, not less, vulnerable to armed defense. Today, we discuss the advice “20/20” gave viewers unfortunate enough to find themselves in active killer scenarios.
This is what “20/20’s” “experts” advise you to do if confronted by an active killer:
Try to run: Maybe he won’t shoot you, advises JJ Bittenbinder, ABC’s professed expert: “Only 12½ times out of a hundred” would you be killed.
(I would include the link for this “security expert’s” website … if Google hadn’t flagged it for “malicious software.”)
Play dead: “Remember that receptionist who played dead after being shot crawling under a desk and dialing 9-1-1-for help,” admonishes host Diane Sawyer. This, of course, required being shot first.
Dial 9-1-1: This is liberalism’s best hope for self-defense; have someone else do it for you, albeit 10 or so minutes later, when people are already dead.
Clearly, absent other options one should try any or all of the above. But as a first line of defense, I for one am not entirely satisfied taking a 1 in 8 chance that an active shooter won’t hit me when he fires; and playing dead while he circles back around, looks down and says “You don’t look so bad: Here, have another” is not a strategy.
THE ‘STOPWATCH OF DEATH’
Read it again:
“Time is our worst adversary in dealing with active killers. We’re racing what I call ‘the Stopwatch of Death.’ Victims are often added to the toll every several seconds.”
This is spoken by a 30-year law enforcement veteran and 17-year SWAT veteran who advises police departments not to wait for SWAT in active shooter scenarios, but instead for single law enforcement officers to go in and confront the gunman. Why?
“Where times have been reliably documented, the average post-Columbine ‘rapid mass murder episode’ lasts just 8 minutes, according to Borsch’s calculations.”
And how long does SWAT take to arrive?
“Since the Columbine massacre 9 years ago, few if any trainers any longer advocate delaying for a formal SWAT call-out, which can take 30 minutes or more in some areas.”
So let’s make this perfectly clear: Law enforcement experts tell us seconds count; they tell us that active killers:
“…choose unarmed, defenseless innocents for a reason: They have no wish to encounter someone who can hurt them. They are personally risk- and pain-avoidant… If pressed, they are more likely to kill themselves”; “…typically fold quickly upon armed confrontation” and last but not least;
“…the typical active killer would be a no-contest against anyone reasonably capable of defending themselves.”
And ABC’s best advice for you is to get shot, hide under a desk, play dead, and hope for the best?
ARMED CITIZENS ALREADY STOP CRIMINALS
In truth, armed defense by citizens is commonplace: The classic tome on defensive gun use, “Armed Resistance to Crime:
"The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with a Gun,” by Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz, affirms approximately 2.1 to 2.5 million civilian defensive gun uses in the U.S. each year.
As for the effectiveness of concealed handgun permit-holders in shooting perpetrators, recent police survival research conducted by the Force Science Research Center found even inexperienced shooters had high hit probabilities at the 5-7 yard ranges typical of gun fights. The study concluded:
“--even ‘naïve shooters,’ untrained and unpracticed with handguns, are amazingly accurate in making head shots at close range, and tend to shoot for the head instinctively;
“--the speed with which an officer can be put behind the reactionary curve, even by assailants who have no expertise with firearms, is startling.”
ARMED CITIZENS HAVE ALREADY STOPPED MASS MURDERS
In Pearl, Mississippi, assistant principal Joel Myrick stopped triple murderer Luke Woodham using a handgun retrieved from his car;
In Edinboro, Pennsylvania, the 14-year-old who killed a teacher at an off-campus dance was captured by shotgun-wielding James Strand;
At Virginia’s own Appalachian School of Law, student Tracy Bridges used his pistol to detain murderer Peter Odighizuwa; and
In Colorado Springs, Colorado, concealed handgun permit-holder Jeanne Assam, who volunteered to provide security for her church (she was later wrongly described by the media as a “security guard”) shot Matthew Murray when he invaded the New Life Church firing a weapon.
THE VALUE OF DETERRENCE
And none of this even considers that the high probability of encountering armed victims deters active shooters. Notes author and scholar John R. Lott in a Wall Street Journal article entitled, “The Real Lesson of the School Shootings”:
“In a controlled study covering 19 years, the number of multiple-victim public shootings in states which adopted concealed handgun laws declined by 84%. Deaths from these shootings plummeted on average by 90%, injuries by 82%. Higher arrest rates and increased use of the death penalty slightly reduced the incidence of these events, but the effects were never statistically significant.”
THE CHOICE IS OURS
I have seen plenty of logical-sounding criticisms of arming citizens against active killers: ABC says you wouldn’t be effective; readers worry that two concealed handgun permit-holders might incorrectly identify the active shooter and engage each other; and of course, the most ridiculous of all: That prohibiting firearms on campuses, in malls and in churches might actually influence the decision-making of someone so sociopathic that he has decided to kill people.
But lest you still consider flaws in the idea of armed citizen defense against active killers, consider too the reality that the choice is … nothing.
Cops can’t protect your every activity; and when seconds count, help is only minutes away. So take Diane Sawyer’s advice, if you like, and play dead under a desk, hoping the madman who wants you dead will just go away.
I prefer the philosophy of Clint Smith, founder of Thunder Ranch and one of the world’s foremost authorities on armed self-defense:
"I may get killed with my own gun, but he's gonna have to beat me to death with it, 'cause it's going to be empty."
I thought you would enjoy this article.
The economic motivations and rewards of any bureaucracy, is to make the problem worse. Worse problem, more money, more staff, more higher administration staff.
As the union guys say, “Don’t kill the job”.
Not ridiculous at all -- I'm sure the bans play into the shooters' selection of location quite significantly. That is, they go where they know the population is unarmed.
As the union guys say, “Don’t kill the job”...
“...like we did in Detroit”.
There are no mass shootings at gun shows and police stations for a reason.
1. If there are other armed citizens in the area being first and paying the price to give them time to react is a price I will pay if necessary. It is not unlike being on point during patrol in the Military.
2. Diane Sawyer (and most other Americans)have never practiced confronting someone with a gun. Move and cover while you evaluate the situation are key. As far as I can tell none of the recent mass murderers used a sawed off shotgun so their experiment is even more flawed.
3. If someone wants to get YOU they are going to get you. Your weapon may be the difference between life and death.
$hit happens in gunfights. I have a friend who was in the 82nd Airborne in VN. He was on his THIRD tour and had been in many guns fights. On patrol he was walking point and 30 feet away a NVA soldier stood up from taking care of nature. They looked at each other and BOTH emptied their guns at each other - no one hit. My friend is alive because he was faster on the reload.
The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral was a gunfight that happened at about 3 P.M. on Wednesday, October 26, 1881, in Tombstone, Arizona Territory, United States. The famous gunfight did not actually occur at the O.K. Corral. It occurred in a 15-20 foot space between Fly's Lodging House and photographic studio, and the MacDonald assay house west of it. The end of the gunfight took place in Fremont Street. Some of the fighting was in Fremont Street in front of the vacant lot. About 30 shots were fired in 30 seconds. Although only three men were killed during the gunfight, it is generally regarded as the most famous gunfight in the history of the Old West. Many other gunfights of the period resulted in more people killed, such as the Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight, the Going Snake Massacre, the Hot Springs Gunfight, and the Gunfight at Hide Park.
Some of the best gunmen that ever lived and only three dead in a very small space. Just think how it would of been if one side was not armed.
I couldn't agree more that “let someone else do it” is exactly what liberals want.
Hillary said, once, that healthcare was the most important thing to her. Yet, she was never an aid, a nurse, a doctor or any of the people that actually do the work.
Just like Jimma Carter was never a carpenter, a mason, or even a developer.
Libs talk others do the long dusty walk.
Armed or not, self-defense requires training and regular practice. There is no substitute for muscle memory conditioning and conflict simulation. If one is mentally unprepared, a firearm will not be a magic amulet of protection.
I have a good friend who was attacked in his office by an armed intruder, took a grazing shot to the head, and still disarmed the guy end held him until the police showed up. I have little doubt that what saved him was years of martial arts training.
“I have a good friend who was attacked in his office by an armed intruder, took a grazing shot to the head, and still disarmed the guy end held him until the police showed up. I have little doubt that what saved him was years of martial arts training.”
No, actually it doesn't. Training and regular practice will make a person BETTER (probably a LOT better) at it if it happens, but there are WAY too many recorded instances of little old grannies who never practiced blowing away intruders. To say it is "required" is simply wrong.
Is it good to practice---definitely, but it is NOT "necessary". Armed and unpracticed is still a lot better than UN-armed and unpracticed.
Fascinating article — thanks!
Recently in New Zealand we had a situation where a South Auckland grocer (a hard-working Sikh Indian new immigrant) was shot by crim packing a sawn-off .22 (typical NZ weapon). Shooters fled. Then the police and ambulance arrived and WAITED FOR REINFORCEMENTS, preventing anybody from giving this poor guy any first aid.
Naturally, by the time reinforcements arrived, the grocer victim bled out and died!
Bloody shocking.
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