One of the things that constantly amazes me is how examples of bad defensive gun use somehow get bronzed and polished into examples of excellence. One of those is found here on Brietbart. While I get the general idea that this is an example of someone standing up for themselves, the entire sequence demonstrates how completely stupid it is to have a firearm and not be willing or able to use it properly.
Several weeks ago I wrote here about I took a course from Central Alabama Firearms Training LLC (www.caftllc.com) and how it was a tremendous help to me. I detected errors in my approach that could get me killed, and got some excellent coaching. I took that training (even though I have my CCW and didn’t need it for that purpose) because I believe you need training every two years to stay on top of perishable skills. I noted that because they use Go-Pro cameras, I incorporated them into my own training, and how that has helped me improve.
Watching the surveillance video from the beginning, it’s clear that the woman behind the register is in condition white. Otherwise, when a shotgun-weilding robber entered the store she would have grabbed the gun, aimed and fired. Instead she is calmly eating something and then HOLY SHIT HE HAS A SHOTGUN!
Okay, genius, maybe this is why you need to be in condition yellow at all times, particularly in a place that is like a robber-magnet. Holding up a liquor store is, after all, nearly a cliche. She quickly goes for her gun but then is stopped by the gun-toting, hoodie-wearing thug. Let me also note that this is why its called “conceal and CARRY.” If it isn’t on your person, you can’t get to it to use it!
Twice more she goes for it, twice more she backs off, and the ignorant thug manages not to find and take the pistols. Let me say that again, he knows or suspects there are guns, and he doesn’t take them. My bet: he has had lots of time in the hospital to regret this course of action, and as soon as he gets out of prison he is going to kill the next store owner he robs.
Yeah, it’s not until around the 40 second mark that both mom and daughter grab their weapons and do the first smart thing they’ll do today: they hide. I am good with hiding. I am good with not chasing the bad guy who has a scatter-gun. That’s smart. What is NOT smart is thinking that a gun has magical powers and will protect you.
But the certifiable genius who decided to rob the store comes back around the counter one last time and takes at least one round center mass, then she fires another couple with doubtful effect. I am not sure what the round count is here, but I think by the time she finishes with Mr. Hoodie, her gun is empty. File that under “thank God.”
Let me editorialize for the benefit of smarter criminals. This would be the time to run like hell, not stay around and see if you can outgun a superior force of women who, despite being ineffective marksmen to this point, have at least managed to alter your anatomy and affect your physiology.
Let me editorialize for the benefit of smarter store-owners. It is a full 1 minute 12 seconds before the genius daughter calls 911. Survival would have dictated an earlier call. One might even have considered – I don’t know – a burglar alarm?
Now, back to the action. After chasing the robber outside the cage, she gets shot at, and has to go back behind the cage. Instead of just leaving, Mr. Hoodie pursues. And, at 1:22 in the video we see him take two more in the guts from the wheelgun Big Mama has. But he isn’t done yet. Shot, wounded, probably seriously pissed at this point, he decides to wrestle Big Mama for the gun. If you’re counting rounds, like I was, Mama is either out or has 1 round left. So he’s grappling for the empty gun! Is this guy a Mensa candidate or what?
At this point the daughter enters the fray, seeing that Big Mama is perilously close to getting a .38 sandwich. She manages to violate the third and fourth rule of gun safety. After watching the kabuki dance between Mr. Hoodie and Big Mama, while her mother is directly behind the bad guy, she fires into his back. The daughter is not exactly going to pass the Mensa entrance exam either!
Now seriously pissed, he wrestled the gun away from Big Mama and hears the Dead Man’s Click when he fires on an empty chamber at the daughter. Then he manages to stumble around and nearly destroy the place as he recognizes, finally, that he is about to bleed out and die. He left a nice blood trail and the cops found him fairly quickly it looks like, working on his Darwin Award application.
Okay, now, I have pointed out a number of screw ups here, but let’s look at the biggest mistake of all: not being willing to do what it takes to survive a gunfight. My guess: neither mama nor daughter had firearms training, nor ever done any preparatory work to establish their will to win that kind of confrontation. They trusted that a gun alone made them safe. This is one point where I agree with the gunsense idiots. A gun does not make you safe. Using a gun quickly and with deadly effect makes you safe. Simply put, in defensive firearms instruction, you learn to stop the threat. If the bad guy falls and drops his weapon, fine. But if he doesn’t, you keep shooting until he is not a threat any longer. If someone is pursuing, armed or not, he isn’t after first aid, as this thug demonstrated. Big Mama’s second mistake was letting him get his hands on the gun. She should never have let him get that close.
Defensive shooting doesn’t mean you execute the attacker. It means you have to stop him. At 0:54 Big Mama should have kept shooting until the fight was out of him. And if she chooses to pursue him, as she did, she needs to shoot to make sure he doesn’t have any more fight left in him. At this point, with him having access to a shotgun, it’s “kill or be killed.”
In essence, this video demonstrates a situation peculiar to many women, and God bless them for it. They do not want to be the instrument of someone’s death. Certainly that’s not all women. Women can be psychopaths too. But criminals sense that peculiar female weakness and that is exactly why Mr. Hoodie pursued Big Mama here. He knew she didn’t have the stomach to kill him, and he knew he had the stomach, and the will, to fight her for the gun and kill her. But here’s the rub: the idiot couldn’t count.
If there is anything that absolutely must be drilled into women when teaching a firearms course it is that predators smell prey and thrive on displayed weakness. They either cue on pheromones, or on facial expression, or on language, and they see someone who has a gun, not because she wants to defend her life, but because she wants to scare off someone. And predators are risk takers. They seize the moment. They are unmerciful. Once in possession of the gun, he would have killed her. There is no question in my mind.
I have talked at length with my wife about what it takes to actually shoot a human being, about how huge that decision is, and how difficult it is to make, but how necessary it is to do it if the situation requires it. Would I hesitate to pull the trigger if I confronted a man with a shotgun? Hell no. But, yeah, I worry about my wife, God bless her.
The Well Armed Attorney 