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Use and threat of lethal force
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By now, you should be familiar with Wisconsin’s laws of open carry and the judicious use of lethal force for self defense. If not, you familiarize yourself by reading my last two posts on these laws.
What this post is not
This article is not meant to be a discussion about what gun is or is not a good carry gun. Guns are like shoes, what fits me and is comfortable for me to shoot may not be a good fit for you. That does not make your gun a bad one or make mine somehow better. What gun we carry is a personal choice based upon our physical size, personal likes and dislikes, the amount of money we have to spend and shooting experience.
I also do not intend to discuss how your shooting an attacker could have been avoided, only if (insert excuse’s here). The fact is we are living in a society today much different than only a few years ago with very brazen wolves who will kill anyone just for sport. It is your responsibility and no one else’s, to protect your life. The Brady Bunch claim to want to keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of dangerous people, well shooting them when they threaten your life will do that. Adding more laws that criminals will just break isn’t the answer - breaking laws is a criminal’s job.
And this really isn’t about how much fun it would be to shoot someone who broke into your home in the middle of the night to rape and murder your child.
This is not intended to cover everything that you need to know.
Take this seriously
This is a sneak peek into the use and threat of lethal force section of my MN permit to carry course. I believe it is important for people to know what they may expect to happen if they ever need to use a gun to stop a threat against their life, before it happens. This is unfamiliar territory for most people and the events may turn out much differently than is imagined. The attacker will not stand calmly in front of you like your target does on a well lighted range, and give you all the time you need to take careful shots at his head.
We know from national defensive gun uses (DGU) data that once the attacker sees your gun, 92% of the time they run without you needing to pull the trigger. Of the remaining 8% of DGU’s, 7% of the time the attacker is shot and wounded, 1% of the time he dies.
The average shot taken in self defense is seven feet. The more distance that you have between yourself and the attacker, the more “less than lethal” choices you have available to consider. In the absence of your having a gun, think what would you be doing – then do that.
Never fire a warning shot and never “shoot to wound” your attacker. Either of these actions would tell me as a member of the jury that the threat against your life was not present to justify your use of lethal force. If you truly are in imminent fear of death or great bodily harm, there is no time to be shooting at clouds or body parts that will not incapacitate the attacker as quickly as possible.
Never carry a gun if you are not capable and willing to use it. If you ever draw a gun, you better be able to point it at your attacker and pull the trigger.
Wounding factors
Don’t expect wounding someone with a handgun to go anything like it did in the old John Wayne westerns. The bad guy won’t go flying backwards like in the movies. The impact of the bullet can be no more than the recoil of the firearm if you are shooting a revolver. An autoloader absorbs some of the energy when it cycles so you won’t feel the entire force. Generally speaking, if a bullet could knock a person down, the shooter would be knocked down too (Isaac Newton – for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction). So if you are still standing after you shoot, the attacker could still be standing too.
If it is necessary for you to shoot except for the location of the wound and the amount of tissue destroyed, most of the factors that control when an attacker finally quits trying to attack you are out of your control. The ammunition you use is very important. The most important wounding factor is that the bullet must be able to penetrate far enough to reach vital organs or the central nervous system. The second most important wounding factor is the creation of a large permanent cavity which is a function of the frontal area of the projectile. Given that you can be reasonably expected to make only a few torso shots under adverse conditions, the ammunition you use must be able to effectively stop the threat.
No matter what caliber your gun, hollow points are preferred for these reasons and to prevent over penetrating the target. Heavier bullets and +p or increased velocity ammunition will increase penetration until the bullet begins to open or deform. Law enforcement requires a minimum penetration of twelve inches through soft body tissue for either hollow points or full metal jacket. Frankly, the issue of over penetrating is much less important then if any of your shots miss your target entirely.
The only way you can stop a determined attacker immediately and predictably is with a shot that disrupts the brain or upper spinal cord. If your shots are to the attacker’s torso, the attacker may be stopped eventually if there is sufficient damage to cause enough bleeding that results in circulatory collapse, but this will take some time. Even if I were to shoot an attacker with my .357 magnum in the chest and totally blow out his heart, there is still enough oxygen in his brain to allow him to have full voluntary function and he can continue the attack for 10 – 15 seconds once I destroy his heart. The threat to me is not over until his brain is finally deprived of oxygen.
The body engages survival patterns after intense stress or a serious trauma such as a gunshot wound and the brain blocks out all information that is not needed for survival. You may experience some of these same physiological changes as well.
- Strength will increase
- Hearing will drop
- Dexterity will drop
- Tunnel vision
- Perception of time will change
- Rational thought is difficult
- Pain will be suppressed
- May experience an “out of body” sensation
An attacker may continue to fight even with major, unsurvivable wounds until their blood pressure drops and the brain is deprived of oxygen. Emotions like anger can keep a fatally wounded attacker a threat to you until they experience circulatory collapse. Drugs can cause the attacker to be unaware of his injuries and he will continue to fight. Adrenaline can keep a determined attacker fighting you.
Your target is the center of whatever part of the attacker that you are presented (the center of mass). You must know your target and what is beyond it before you start shooting. You own every bullet from the time your gun goes bang until the bullet stops moving. The more shots you fire, the more likely it becomes that you will miss and maybe shoot another person or someone’s property.
You will probably be in poor lighting, there may other people in the area; you will be moving and so will the attacker, there could be obstacles in your way, you may be injured, there could be one or more attackers, someone else (spouse, child, friend) could be with you. You will have to make some very serious decisions in just fractions of a second. You will be experiencing the stress that comes with close personal violence and rational thought will be difficult. Are you sure that you will only shoot your attacker until the threat against your life is no longer present or will you just shoot until you are out of ammunition and probably not remember the shooting later? This is when you will find out how many other people you shot.
Under this amount of stress, you will resort to your basic instincts and training. Many law enforcement officers are trained to shoot three times and evaluate. They will shoot two shots to the chest and one to the head or two shots to the chest and one shot to the pelvis. I believe if I shoot someone in the chest, they will probably get shorter instead of taller, so I tell my students to take the third shot down to the pelvis. You may shoot the attacker in the pelvis or perhaps his head if he has dropped. If you raise your gun up to take the third shot to his head and it is not there, your shot will miss and you risk shooting another person. Head shots are also risky because of the difficulty in hitting a small target under stress and very adverse conditions. Stay aimed center of mass to lower the likelihood of missing your target. Train to shoot three times and evaluate. The third shot is important because you may not know if the attacker is wearing body armor or not. Two shots into body armor will hurt, but they will not stop anyone. A shot to the pelvis will go a long way to incapacitate the attacker. Then take a moment to evaluate the situation.
Your goal at the end of the day is to have every member of the jury think “I would have done exactly the same thing, the same way” and let you go home.
You will instinctively point shoot
You need to learn and practice how to point shoot using two hands – arms straight ahead, which is to shoot while not using your iron sights on the gun. When attacked, your attention will be on the attacker and not on your gun. It is not uncommon for a victim to shoot the attackers gun, because that is where they are looking. So, keep your focus of the center of the attacker and practice shooting the center of mass without using your sights.
To point shoot well, your gun must fit you well. When holding the gun with one hand, your knuckles must bisect the plane of the gun (they should be directly below the trigger guard). For you right hander’s (just reverse everything for lefties) if your knuckles are to the right of the trigger guard, the gun is too big for you. If they go past the trigger guard, the gun is too small. If the gun does not fit you well, it is nearly impossible to shoot it accurately using your sights and much less by point shooting. Unless you can change the grips so that it will fit your hand correctly, sell it and buy a gun that fits you. In the middle of the night your iron sights will not help you and I find that lasers are very distracting.
You also need to learn how to point shoot one handed, with either hand (strong hand / weak hand). If you are right handed and your right arm is broken for example, you need to be capable of using your gun with your left hand (weak hand).
Got money?
Before you carry a gun in public, you should have a lot of money available or be properly insured for a DGU with adequate liability limits to pay for your defense and damages for which you may be liable (if you shoot the wrong person for example). Most people find out after they use their gun that they could not afford to do what they just did. That is avoidable. Call your insurance agent to be sure that you are properly insured. My agent could not properly insure me so I had to fire my old agent and find a new agent that could. It is that important. I don’t care if he is your brother-in-law.
Aftermath of a DGU
People react differently to shooting someone. Suzanna Hupp who survived the massacre at Luby’s Café in Killeen, TX in 1991 thinks of wolves as a rabid animal who needs to be put down. Massad Ayoob who is one of the world’s leading authorities on police weaponry, a former sworn law enforcement officer and the founder of Lethal Force Institute says in his book In The Gravest Extreme ‘the dead attacker waived his own right to live when he threatened to wrongfully deprive a victim of his” . That sums it up for me.
I can not say how you will deal with defending your life by shooting someone, but it often changes a person’s outlook on life for the rest of their life.
Resources
I strongly recommend that you read these books; In The Gravest Extreme by Massad F. Ayoob and Tactical Pistol Shooting by Erik Lawrence
An excellent FBI report written in 1989 is Handgun Wounding Factors and Effectiveness by Urey Patrick available at www.firearmstactical.com As a matter of fact you will find a wealth of really great information on this website.
Gene German
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