Convenience Store Shootout
What can be learned from this shootout?
First, distance and movement are your friends, and it's hard to get either when lying on your back with an attacker shooting down at you.
Second, the defender probably lived because he had a gun and did not hesitate to pull and use it.
Third, even after the thugs ran away, the defender fires blindly through the door and into the parking lot. He is responsible for each of those bullets. Did he need to take that kind of legal risk?
Finally, with a deflated lung filling with blood, the defender kept himself alive until help arrived. He did not succumb to the notion that being shot equates with death.
I do not like to second guess those who have seen the elephant, but much can be learned by analyzing shootouts after the fact. God bless the defender with the gun, and may God damn his attackers.
Labels: Self Defense
posted by Xavier at 7:26 PM
15 Comments:
I may be wrong, but it appears that he's diving for his fire-arm which he grabs from under the counter a split second before he has to fire it. If this is true, than we can also learn (ponder):
1) Where is the location of your defensive weapon versus the likely path of an attacker? In this case, the store owner had to move towards the bad guy's likely path (the cash register) in order to get his weapon. Had he moved back and away, he'd be getting chased around the store isles unarmed and getting shot at. He overcame a common instinct of running backward and dived towards his only (realistic) self defense tool.
2) Look at the blinding speed in which this entire shooting took place! Holy Crap! I hope I could react that quickly. If his first reach for the weapon fumbled... Ugh, I don't even want to think about it.
Very useful stuff to think about. Thanks Xavier!
I admire your objective point of view.
Yes. Laying down was a mistake. He could very well have MAYBE avoided a blowhole in his lung had he stayed on his feet and just ducked/bobbed & weaved/kept moving.
While I can only imagine the unholy amounts of adrenaline were pumping at that point, those few rounds that went out the window did just that: went out the window. I'm pretty sure the defender did NOT check for kids in minivans in the parking lot before he pulled the trigger.
Aside from a potentially huge mistake there at the end, I'm pleased that this turned out the way that it did. It seems to me that the assailant intended to kill the clerk and take the store.
The clerk decided in advance that he would not be a minor detail in criminal activity.
tweaker
Note to self: He waited "5 agonizing minutes" for the police to get there. 5 minutes. The fight was over in a couple of SECONDS. Sheesh. He made plenty of mistakes, but he shot first (if I got that right) and lived. Good on him.
I'm glad to see that he didn't hesitate at all to go for his gun. Too many times people will freeze while thinking, "This can't be happening to me." That instant reaction probably saved his life.
Two things I pray, 1) that I am never in that kind of a situation and 2) that if I ever am in a situation like that, that I would act immediately.
That's amazing. I don't have much to say that hasn't already been said, but I do think that those last five shots were unnecessarily risky. His target was not visible, and he was firing without knowing what might be in his field of fire besides the badguys.
Can I blame him? Hell no. But it would have been extremely unfortunate, not to mention sadly ironic, if he had survived the gunshot wound only to spend the rest of his life mourning the life lost by an unintended victim of his return fire.
As a recipient of buckshot during a violent confrontation, I can say that you are not actually thinking at all, just reacting. It happens too fast.
Oh, no doubt. The fact remains though, if he had hit someone outside the store who had nothing to do with the incident, and killed them - his life would be very, very much different had he simply survived the confrontation with the robbers. I can appreciate how shocking and split-second the reactions are, and as I said I don't blame him a bit. Still something to think about.
One thing that I'm wondering is what kind/make of gun the clerk is using. I can't make out if it's a revolver or an auto.
As someone else has pointed out, it takes place in a couple of seconds, so I'm asking myself about taking off safeties and the like.
The pistol (definitely a pistol) appears to be a 1911 or a Glock. The crooks had a revolver.
Watching the second goblin who enters the store shows that these BG's had practiced for this robbery. The clerk did not react as expected and they split. Good on him even though he did not do it the "Gunsite" way. He did have an angel sitting on his shoulder throughout the encounter, especially when he was shooting into the night. This video goes to show that any reaction, even a poorly planed and executed one, is better than no reaction.
Convenience store video surveillance is a great training aid for the rest of us.
We all know that it’s hard to think and you mostly just react in situations such as that but if I were in the same situation and had some presence of mind I naturally would shoot at the head looking over the counter and firing at me. The next three or four shots would be through the counter to where the assailant's body would be and perhaps a couple through the front of the counter because you don’t know if he’s just waiting for you to pop your head up. Don’t forget he can’t see the SCUMBAG now that he backed away from hanging over the counter.
He’s lucky to have his life and was able to act quick enough keep it. It’s too bad his shot didn’t take off the top of the SCUMBAG’S head.
If the perpetrators had only though about it beforehand no one needed to be shot. One guy goes in and gets a six-pack up to the counter and gets the drop on the clerk just as he’s ringing it up. The clerks busy with the sale and the gun is produced at that point he can’t do all that much and the register is open. Ahh who knows, the gunmen just thought they’d march in and take over, not expecting a fight.
Ronaldo
Unless he's some kind of delta force dude or SEAL, the safety was off to begin with. He picked it up *BLAM* (so fast I didn't have time to write 'and').
Good for him. My scumbag got away :(
The major problem the clerk is dealing with is his gun is kept "off body". Bet that changes! It seems the gun laws typically require employees to either carry openly, or not carry, but allow a gun to be 'accessible'. Only owners are allowed to carry concealed, in some cases. If I was a clerk, I'd have more than one on me, and the hell with the law or company rules!
Wow. Just wow. If he had not pulled and used his weapon those thugs would no doubt have killed him and not left until they cleaned the place out. He kept his cool and acted well IMO. Those POS's never thought he'd fight back and in the end they left with nothing and were apprehended. Good for him!
~Monica
I'm not certain he didn't pull the gun from his waist...?
Dang that WAS fast.
I try my darndest to stay out of convenience stores!
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