See, the thing is, while I agree that the sentiment is appealing, I would NOT have intervened in that situation unless the weapon was pointed at me. Too chaotic, too little visibility, too many chances that I’d hit the wrong target. To me it would be a nightmare scenario of damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
I agree it would have been a tricky situation in a darkened theater, but you knew where the shots were coming from and everyone except the shooter had dropped to the floor. If you were skilled enough you might have been able to disable the attacker without getting yourself shot. I’m not saying it wouldn’t have been easy, but I’ve seen people in competitions running in one direction while accurately shooting a moving target going in the opposite direction. I didn’t say I could do it, but perhaps someone with enough skill could if they happened to be there and they happened to be armed.
I’m a gun owner, and hate the stigma attached to it.
I also live remote. Cops are maybe 1/2 hour away.
I fired a weapon this summer because both of our cars got broken into by Black Bears. I went on the deck to look, but could not see in the windows from ~ 20 feet away. The car doors where open. I didn’t want to go knock on the windows to see if a bear had made a car into a hotel room for the night.
Uhhhh…
I needed to be sure no bear was in the car before I approached the car. I always want a safe place to retreat to also, so I stayed on the deck, fired a .357 into the ground behind the cars (many don’t realize JUST how much noise that makes) while looking for any kind of movement in the car.
No movement, so I cautiously approached. All was good. While the revolver may not have done much good for a charging bear (I don’t kid myself, a moving target with a handgun is a task few are good at), it may have given me a chance.
I found the following article pretty informative:
There are actually two parts to the ABC ‘good guy with a gun’ video that they highlight. Here are parts one and two:
Nobody is claiming that this experiment is proof of anything, but it does seem to be interesting evidence that the Wannabe Rambos are probably woefully unprepared.
The idea of ‘use it or lose it’ kicking in – wrt tactical firearms training – within a month or two is also pretty telling.
As I frequently say, when you see how the average person drives, it makes it hard to support the notion of average people walking around carrying firearms.
[hopefully that was still on topic]
If they are fantasising about it, then a little reflection on the fates of both Rittenhouse and Zimmerman should convince them that this is not the easy path. Massad Ayoob makes the point somewhere in his writings that one should not expect to be Popularity Jack, even after a shooting which turns out to end in no criminal trial, as civil litigation will likely follow, and even a verdict in your favor will likely consume all of your savings in legal fees. It can also change forever, and in a most unpleasant way, the light in which your nearest-and-not-very-dearest view you. Many relationships break up in the aftermath.
I see. Part of this, I guess, was that I had seen a video on YouTube where a gun owner was lamenting the fact that, despite his gun collection, nobody ever broke into his house for him to put them to legit use.
But see, that’s where the OPs thought about fantasizing comes in. Being accurate, especially under stress, much less in such a dark, crowded environment is the domain of the best trained individuals. A thing that even most LEO, who often just practice enough to qualify, would be unlikely to manage. That’s why (well, other than bloodymindedness) you see so many police reports where they empty the magazine into their targets, but with relatively few actual hits.
Personal anecdote: back when I could afford to target shoot for fun (ammo prices being what they are), I made a point to practice with my pistol for 100 rounds every 3 months. That kept me reasonably accurate, but only for target shooting. The guys I talked to at the range who were there with pistols were often private security, and they normally there at least monthly to shoot that many rounds.
Most private citizens are just NOT going to have the time or money to practice enough to use an inherently inaccurate weapon at anything like range. And to paraphrase my CCW instructor “If you can’t hit a piece of paper consistently at 20 feet, you aren’t going to hit a person. But hey, that means they are unlikely to hit you, so time to motor.”
I would have expected someone who really wanted to get into firefights and blow shit up to join the U.S. Army or Foreign Legion as Step 1, not buy a gun.
ETA Once upon a time, I met a kid who wanted to be a SEAL. Unfortunately, he fucked up his knee playing football.
Not just knew how to use it, but could actually bring themselves to do it. There’s plenty of people out there who, even if they had a gun, knew how to use and were in that theater, they still may not be able to bring themselves to actually do it.
When my store was held up, as the robbers were leaving, I was on the phone with 911 and directed one of my employees to do something. He just stood there like his feet were glued to the floor. Afterwards, I mentioned it to one of the responding officers who said that’s really common. You can talk all you want, but until you’re in that situation, you really don’t know what you are or aren’t capable of.
I suspect you’re right. Here’s one example:
Not in Texas. Our Legislature passed a bill this year allowing anyone age 21 or older to carry, open or concealed, without a permit. It allows individuals to carry handguns in public without a license, background check, legal and safety training, or a shooting proficiency test.
I knew a few people like this.
One guy I worked with used to go out of what where essentially patrols. He would travel in areas where he felt crimes were likely to happen in hopes he would a reason to use his gun. When he discussed it with others, he talked about having the opportunity to make citizen’s arrests. But I feel in his mind he may have been imagined justified shootings.
Another guy I worked with had essentially turned his home into a fortress. He had guns all over his house so he would always have one in reach (he told me he built a special high shelf in his shower so he could have a gun available when he was showering). He also had traps and guard dogs. He told me it was not just passive defense; he was hoping somebody would try to break in so he could use this stuff.
These were two extreme cases but I heard a few “I wish somebody would try something” comments in passing over the years.
Here’s an anecdote:
A guy came to my office looking for representation on a traffic ticket for running a stop sign. He was in his 70’s, stocky, and in apparent good health. As he explained it, two kids were riding their bikes. One stopped, but the other “ran into” his car. It wasn’t serious, and there was no injuries or damage, but that’s why he got the citation.
In his telling, the kids’ family members are showed up and started getting in his face, but the cops made them back off. Later, one cop said to the guy that he didn’t seem too concerned.
This old man readily agreed. As he told me, he has a concealed carry and if this guy took a swing at him he was going to put a bullet in his head.
This guy seemed to be relishing a fight.
(Later, after we resolved the ticket with a fine, I got another call from him for another ticket. I looked it up, and he had again been ticketed for running a sign and hitting a bike. I’m not entirely sure this guy wasn’t targeting the neighborhood kids!)
I’ve done some form of martial arts, mostly with weapons, for several decades now. The one time I actually faced a guy armed with a knife, I didn’t actually fall apart, but I wasn’t as collected as I would have been training in the dojo.
Real life is a completely different level. You go from knocking on your neighbor’s door to thinking you might die in a matter of seconds, and it messes with your head.
I was actually heavily into martial arts when I was a kid (you couldn’t tell looking at me today, though perhaps I was really going for the short, fat sumo look all along!), and something I think a lot of folks are missing in this discussion is…people talk about stuff all the time. I remember martial artists, especially those who weren’t really deep into the art but just wanted to kick ass or whatever, talking about what they would do if they were in this or that situation or how they would react in another, etc etc, blah blah blah. But that’s the thing…it was just talking. Most people don’t really want to be in any sort of situation, but they love to talk like they would be all tough.
So…if the OP is asking if there are gun owners who talk out of their asses about wanting to be in a situation and use their gun, it would be like martial artists who talk about that shit too. It’s all talk. The numbers bear this out on the gun side for sure…and my own anecdotes bear out that most people, even those with martial arts training, really don’t want to fight or get into a confrontation. In the end, it’s really the stats that tell the tale wrt whether gun owners and CCW or open carriers REALLY want to be in these situations wrt if they really do use their weapons in a confrontation.
It’s also a common phase people go through. I read a book many years ago in which the author talked about what he called “Brown Belt Syndrome”, which was basically a point in their training or their life when a lot of people (usually young, strong and male) started to wonder if they could “do it for real”.
I imagine it’s the same for gun people. I’d be surprised if the middle aged gun carriers were sitting around dreaming about scenarios in which they get to shoot someone, but I’d also be surprised if most of the 18-25 year olds weren’t thinking about it at some point.
I just wanted a CCW permit to transport my guns legally. And in the rare occasion that I might be going into a less safe location to carry it with me.
Someone who has not been through this training may be of the idea that the class teaches you how to safely operate and handle your weapon. That is not the case at all, in my experience.
The class was more than 90% about your legal liabilities and when you were and were not allowed to pull your gun without getting in trouble, which is almost never. Safe gun handling had almost nothing to do with the class.
Don’t use your gun. If you do these can be the consequences, so never use it, never pull it out, and absolutely never point it at anyone. Here is your permit.
Yeah, that was my experience as well. I was shocked when a poster up thread said his instructor only spent a couple of minutes on this…we got, literally, hours and hours on the legality angles and all the Bad Things™ that could and would happen to anyone stupid enough to draw and fire their gun in anything but extreme circumstances…and even then, you still wouldn’t like the results. We did that and then basically how to properly conceal the weapon legally, where you could legally carry a weapon and that sort of thing.
The practical tests did go into handling, safety, and of course, shooting skills as well as close-quarters shooting tests, and they were all fail if you did anything wrong (still costs a ton even with a fail). I think the assumption was you wouldn’t be taking the class to get your license if you didn’t already know most of the basics, and if you were stupid enough to sign up despite that you would fail out. About half of the class I was in failed at some point. To me, it was too much of a PITA to maintain, and eventually, I got rid of the last gun over a decade ago, so no point.
I had a concealed carry license many years ago. One of my hobbies was night time photography, back when we still used film, and I would go out to some sketchy areas of the Dallas/Ft. Worth area all by my lonesome with a few thousand dollars of equipment on my person. But I was never hassled and carrying a pistol just wasn’t worth the trouble so I stopped and let my license expire.
I never wanted to be in a situation where I might have to use a firearm on another person. Just from my own self-interest, any situation where I am morally/legally permitted to use deadly force against another human being is a situation where I am at risk of grave harm or death myself (or at least I reasonably believe myself to be at risk). In other words, people get hurt in fights and a firearm doesn’t make me immune to bullets. The second reason I don’t want to be in such a situation is that I don’t like hurting people. I have no desire to injure, maim, or kill another human being even if necessary to preserve my own life.
I expect that it’s probably a fairly small minority. But there are a few such people, and they have a tendency to make the national news. Since everyone’s talking about those few, it makes it seem more common than it actually is.