Nearly used my weapon tonight.

[03Lightningrocks]

There is no doubt the BG will act again. His death would be win/win for society. He will at some point kill someone, if he hasn't already. I am not saying one should act as judge jury and executioner. far from it. I am saying we would better off as a society with this guy in the ground. One less mugger/gang banger is a great thing!!!!

Just to be clear, my post was a hats off to the OP for his extreme control. Personally, I have never been in combat and don't have nerves of steal. The instant that guy ran at me, I would have fired..... multiple times. Shooting this criminal might not be quite as expensive as Excaliber infers. He was charging the victim with a tire iron in his hand. If there was ever a case of self defense, this would be it.

Here are some real world numbers for you fellers. My attorney fees for a double charge of AM and AA were 2500 bucks. The expensive part was meeting the ten percent of the 150K bail that I never got back. My situation was not nearly as clear as this one was. I also could have set in jail for three days while my attorney got my bail reduced to a more reasonable amount. he figured he should be able to reduce it to 25K per case. Turns out, the DA told them the case was a horrible miscarriage of justice and there was no way he would try me for defending my life. Yes.... self defense can be real expensive. Even with this personal knowledge and experience, some guy charges at me with a tire iron, I am going to shoot him. Excaliber and those that have faced combat or police duty have the edge on the rest of us. They are in the minority.

As far as the question of who would be better off ? Society would be better off. The BG's future victims would be better off. Tax payers would be better off because we will eventually pay for his housing and food. The OP would have faced expenses no doubt, so he would not have been better off.


I agree, it turned out as good as it could have for the OP and no doubt his experiences in life contributed to that.

[sjfcontrol]

I presume "AA and AM" are aggravated assault and aggravated manslaughter?
Also, I presume you didn't get your $15k back because you used a bail-bondsman and he keeps your 10% as his fee? That's some fee for a couple of days!

[03Lightningrocks]

I presume "AA and AM" are aggravated assault and aggravated manslaughter?
Also, I presume you didn't get your $15k back because you used a bail-bondsman and he keeps your 10% as his fee? That's some fee for a couple of days!

Attempted Murder. Yep....10% to the man.


Edit
I thought I would add this. the longer you sit at Lew sterrat(sp?) the deeper in the jail you go. Eventually, you get to live with real world bad guys. Being charged with Aggravated Assault and Attempted murder would have gotten me some premium housing with the worst of the worst. I wanted out.... NOW.... and at the time did not care what it cost. Figure it this way, i could hang out for a week and maybe experience a form of marriage to some guy named Tyrone, or spend the money and remane a virgin. Day one was in the holding tank... which is unreal, but far to many people and cops around to have any problems..... day two is step one of processing while they wait to see if your gonna bail out. I got a nice roomy cell with a guy who cried for his momma all night long and tried his best to convince me it was not his weed. By day three, they figure you are staying awhile and decide who to put you with based on the level of crime you are charged with. Heck... LOL... that was in 1996 and I still don't regret spending the extra money to get out in two days instead of a week.

[boba]

After running down the chain of events another sheriff who pulled up while we were talking tells me "it's too bad you didn't fire your weapon." I am not knocking any LEO by saying this, it just made it all sink in.

It almost sounds like he wished you had a Batman License instead of a CHL.


Original here. Warning PG-13

[The Annoyed Man]

Just reading 03Lightningrocks's post above, and let me clarify something I said previously. I said, "If I were in xdfanatic's shoes, I pray that I would handle it exactly as he did. No more, and no less.

What I would actually do under such circumstances, I don't really know. But I suspect that I might actually react as 03Lightningrock when he said: "Personally, I have never been in combat and don't have nerves of steal. The instant that guy ran at me, I would have fired..... multiple times." I am older than xdfanatic, I'm guessing on the order of maybe 30-35 years older, and I've never been in combat, or fired a weapon in anger, or had any tactical training. I would probably run a 10 round magazine dry on the guy. But it wouldn't be because I made a shoot/no shoot decision. It would be because my reaction would most likely be to instinctively shoot - in that particular situation.

That's why I don't really think there's a right or a wrong here. But there is a better or a poorer reaction, and xdfanatic's reaction was the better one. That I might make the poorer one is because of my relative lack of training and my physical limitations.

But I still maintain that even if I did shoot - and possibly kill - the assailant, it would be strictly an act of self-defense, not one of self-appointed retribution or some justification like "for the public good."

[03Lightningrocks]

Just reading 03Lightningrocks's post above, and let me clarify something I said previously. I said, "If I were in xdfanatic's shoes, I pray that I would handle it exactly as he did. No more, and no less.

What I would actually do under such circumstances, I don't really know. But I suspect that I might actually react as 03Lightningrock when he said: "Personally, I have never been in combat and don't have nerves of steal. The instant that guy ran at me, I would have fired..... multiple times." I am older than xdfanatic, I'm guessing on the order of maybe 30-35 years older, and I've never been in combat, or fired a weapon in anger, or had any tactical training. I would probably run a 10 round magazine dry on the guy. But it wouldn't be because I made a shoot/no shoot decision. It would be because my reaction would most likely be to instinctively shoot - in that particular situation.

That's why I don't really think there's a right or a wrong here. But there is a better or a poorer reaction, and xdfanatic's reaction was the better one. That I might make the poorer one is because of my relative lack of training and my physical limitations.

But I still maintain that even if I did shoot - and possibly kill - the assailant, it would be strictly an act of self-defense, not one of self-appointed retribution or some justification like "for the public good."

Aman to that. Same here.... I never meant to imply I would shoot the guy to "save society" . That would have just been a beneficial side effect of my attempt to defend myself. I would shoot him to defend myself and am not young enough or tough enough to wait it out when a guy is charging me with a tire iron. I still stand by my statement that society would be better off without scum like that in our lives.

[The Annoyed Man]

Aman to that. Same here.... I never meant to imply I would shoot the guy to "save society" . That would have just been a beneficial side effect of my attempt to defend myself. I would shoot him to defend myself and am not young enough or tough enough to wait it out when a guy is charging me with a tire iron. I still stand by my statement that society would be better off without scum like that in our lives.

Dude, would you make up your mind on your avatar? You're making my head spin!

[03Lightningrocks]

That was one of my good pics. I am going for the sympathy angle with the mods. If I say something stupid it might save me from being banned.

No way a person would ban a guy in a neck brace.

[92f-fan]

That was one of my good pics. I am going for the sympathy angle with the mods. If I say something stupid it might save me from being banned.

No way a person would ban a guy in a neck brace.

lol
You sound like a person with some experience

[terryg]

Hi lightning.

I searched your past postings to see if I could find any additional info on the 'incident' you refer to. But I came up dry. Can you give some more details or point me to a post where you have covered it??

[03Lightningrocks]

Hi lightning.

I searched your past postings to see if I could find any additional info on the 'incident' you refer to. But I came up dry. Can you give some more details or point me to a post where you have covered it??

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=36405" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

By the by... it might be better not to get into a conversation over it on this thread. We are already semi high jacking the thread. It was just how things went in my case. it doesn't mean any of it would go the same for anyone else here. IOW.... IANAL.

[rdcrags]

The immediate threat to the OP's life ended when the BG turned and ran.

To me that's the key to this particular incident. I just hope I am not too scared to hold my fire and let him go.

[glbedd53]

Yeah, yall are probably right. The guy with the tire iron is probably just misunderstood. I bet he did go straight to the nearest church. That cop made an unacceptable comment.

[xdfanatic]

Well some might say I was too scared to fire my weapon but in reality if you read the whole story you would see that I have fired a weapon before in actual combat/scenarios much worse. There was no fear of firing in me, just the idea that the threat might end before doing so; because in the civilian world you try not to kill someone by firing your weapon despite what you may have been told "if you shoot, shoot to kill." The idea is simply to use your weapon to stop the threat. PERIOD. If the attacker happens to die well so be it but, many people think that taking another mans life is no big deal but if you read into it many people when faced with a scenario like this who actually fire often loose their "lunch" or mess their trousers. Besides all that your facing all kinds of legal troubles to climb your way out of, and also the outcasted effect that Excalibur describes in previous posts. So to sum all of this up I am extremely glad that I had an alternative choice.

I know some people feel that carrying a CHL puts them in the executioners chair because they are the same people that would have shot the man as soon as they saw the weapon no questions asked. I am not saying that in this case you might not have been justified but you should remember I had a choice because I was situation-ally aware and used an assertive/defensive posture to defend myself in hopes not to fire my weapon. I also however understand that there are others that might not have seen the man coming in time to have that choice and would have had no other choice but to fire, I get that and that in my opinion would have been justified because that's really the meaning of self defense. I just don't get where some people think that it's their job to rid the world of bad guys.

I am not a LEO and in the business of catching criminals although I have a tremendous amount of respect for those individuals who are, because they make the choice to do the things that I don't such as chasing down a fleeing armed perpetrator.

[Excaliber]

Well some might say I was too scared to fire my weapon but in reality if you read the whole story you would see that I have fired a weapon before in actual combat/scenarios much worse. There was no fear of firing in me, just the idea that the threat might end before doing so; because in the civilian world you try not to kill someone by firing your weapon despite what you may have been told "if you shoot, shoot to kill." The idea is simply to use your weapon to stop the threat. PERIOD. If the attacker happens to die well so be it but, many people think that taking another mans life is no big deal but if you read into it many people when faced with a scenario like this who actually fire often loose their "lunch" or mess their trousers. Besides all that your facing all kinds of legal troubles to climb your way out of, and also the outcasted effect that Excalibur describes in previous posts. So to sum all of this up I am extremely glad that I had an alternative choice.

I know some people feel that carrying a CHL puts them in the executioners chair because they are the same people that would have shot the man as soon as they saw the weapon no questions asked. I am not saying that in this case you might not have been justified but you should remember I had a choice because I was situation-ally aware and used an assertive/defensive posture to defend myself in hopes not to fire my weapon. I also however understand that there are others that might not have seen the man coming in time to have that choice and would have had no other choice but to fire, I get that and that in my opinion would have been justified because that's really the meaning of self defense. I just don't get where some people think that it's their job to rid the world of bad guys.

I am not a LEO and in the business of catching criminals although I have a tremendous amount of respect for those individuals who are, because they make the choice to do the things that I don't such as chasing down a fleeing armed perpetrator.

Xdfanatic,

I understand what you're talking about here. Your instant recognition of the point in the encounter where the subject disappeared from your sight picture as an end to the threat and therefore an end to the need to fire is not what an observer would see - it's how it's experienced from behind the gun. I know because I've had that experience from that viewpoint, and stopped a trigger press in mid stroke when a threat stopped at the last possible millisecond. For a lot of folks (including me) who've been there multiple times, this is a moment of intensely focused awareness and calculation, matching planned and practiced responses to what's happening around you. Internally it feels emotionless as deeply ingrained decisions are made and actions taken. The experience of the emotional impact of what almost happened hits after the action is over.

You are right about those who are itching to shoot a bad guy and become fantasy heroes in their own minds don't have any clue of what such an act is like. Taking a life sounds and feels much better on a diet of action movies, beer, and potato chips consumed on the couch in front of the flat screen than it does on a diet of doing it for real in filthy abandoned buildings or the deserts of foreign countries. My observation over the years is that eagerness to have this experience is the unmistakable mark of someone who never has.

I don't say this to disparage our good Forum members who have expressed this viewpoint, but I feel obligated to say it clearly in the hope that they will think more deeply about some of the things they say and where their thoughts would take them if they turned those fantasies into reality. There's something to be learned from recognizing that the more experience one has on the battlefield, behind the badge and inside the crime scene tape, and in the ALS ambulance and the trauma room, the greater one's reluctance to use deadly force and the more intense the focus on a high level of competence with alternatives until all other options are exhausted.

That approach comes not from a lack of courage because these folks are the indisputedly proven bravest of the brave, but from the reality of what deadly combat and watching someone whose life you've ended going through the dying process (which is not nearly as quiet, clean, or neat as it is in the movies) is like. Folks who have done those things will do everything in their power to avoid having to do it again unless there's absolutely no other way to protect innocent life. I strongly recommend reading Col Dave Grossman's best selling and very readable "On Killing" for a deeper understanding of this issue.

You are absolutely correct that you had multiple options because you recognized the threat as early as you did, even though it was already very close at that point. The later a threat is recognized, the fewer the options remaining. You're also right that someone who saw it a couple of seconds later than you did might well not have any viable choices other than firing to stop it, and there would have been nothing wrong with that. If the attacker had been wounded or died as a result, it would have been a direct consequence of his decision to attack an innocent person with deadly force. Although he might not see it this way, he was extremely fortunate that he attacked you because your situational awareness, training, and tactical decision making literally saved his life.