Group Attacks on Armed Citizens

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.455_Hunter

.455_Hunter

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I am looking for examples of when a group (let’s say three or more) of perpetrators accosted an armed citizen, the citizen drew and fired- hitting one or more of the attackers, and the remaining attackers CONTINUED to press the engagement versus quickly finding another place to occupy. Off-duty or non-uniformed LEO could be included in the data, but lets not include uniformed LEO incidents, as that is another set of circumstances.

Thank you for your input.
 
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Try Clayton Cramer's
Civilian Gun Self-Defense Blog, He has been compiling self defense stories since 2005 with links. Peak numbers are between 2004-2009.
https://gunselfdefense.blogspot.com/

Given your criteria, here is one such example,
"Channelview, TX

12/23/19 ABC News:
Texas resident grabbed his shotgun and shot and killed three men when they allegedly broke into his home, authorities said.Early Monday morning, one of the two residents of a trailer home in Channelview -- about 20 miles east of Houston -- heard a "commotion" outside, according to Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez. He then saw several men in dark clothing -- possibly one armed -- force their way inside, the sheriff said at a news conference.That resident ran to hide, while his roommate, armed with a shotgun, exchanged gunfire with the suspects, Gonzalez said."

Another item under the home invasion topic,

"Houston, TX

1/20/19 ABC channel 13:
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) --Authorities are investigating after dozens of shots were fired in east Houston.

Authorities say the homeowner defended himself when the suspects entered the home. Following the shooting, the suspects fled from the scene....

Authorities say that out of five people shot, three of them died.According to a detective, the incident began as a home invasion at the 7000 block of Sherman.Apparently, the invaders asked for money. The resident went under couch for money, pulled out an AK-47 and started firing. The picture of the crime scene has little yellow flags for every cartridge, I think. Not a low capacity magazine!"
 
There may not be enough detail in some accounts to determine precisely when, or whether on or more assailants continued to press attacks after another had been hit.

On might expect a perp to turn and run and to try "finding another place to occupy".

One can readily conceive of at least two kinds of situations in which that might not occur:
  1. The second attacker was not immediately aware of the other's having been hit. He would almost certainly be concentrating on other things, and not admiring his partner's attack as things unfolded. Things will undoubtedly happen very quickly indeed. And it may not be clear at all who has fired how many shots, not to mention whether or where any of them have landed.
  2. There may be nothing else for him to do but to continue the attack and hope for the best. A person who has just participated in a crime of violence would likely consider his goose as good as cooked if he were to try to escape on foot to get behind a nearby dumpster in a strange neighborhood. The victim's car may represent his only chance at freedom.
Indoors? Trying to escape may not seem at all to be a low risk gambit.

By the way, in one of Tom Givens' "Lessons from the Street" incidents, one perp walked from another room to be shot after his accomplice had been shot. He may have thought that the shots had been fired by his partner in crime.
 
.455_Hunter said:
Thanks boom boom!

I was thinking more along the lines of an "on the street" encounter, where CCW would come into play, but home defense is also very valid.
Click to expand...

He has several thousand stories on his website and I figure that at least some of them may be what you want. Tom Givens also has debriefed his graduates over time but I don't know whether he has ever mentioned them in this format. Probably find most of it in his Rangemaster newsletters.
 
.455_Hunter said:
OK. I will take a look.
Click to expand...

Try using his sidebar as it has a specific topic of home invasions with related stories already sorted, some of his links might be old as he has been doing this a very long time. You might also try shooting him an email.
 
My reasoning for this inquiry is to add some meat to discussions concerning "Is a revolver sufficient for concealed carry?", "Do I need to carry a high-capacity autoloader?", and similar topics.

An fictional example would be...

"Mr. and Mrs. Smith decided on dinner and a late movie in downtown Metropolis on a summer Saturday night. After leaving the theater at 12:30 am and starting to walk the five blocks back to their car, the couple were confronted by a group of four men who produced knives and demanded that they handover their wallet and purse, plus insinuating that Mrs. Smith would be sexually assaulted. Mr. Smith, fearing for the safety of his wife and himself, drew a concealed 5-shot revolver and fired three shots at the closest and apparently lead perpetrator, hitting him two times."

Now we could get multiple potential outcomes...

The preferred "As the lead attacker fell, his co-patriots immediately scattered, allowing Mr. and Mrs. Smith to run and reach a 7-11 two blocks away, where they called 911."

Versus the negative "Mr. Smith then fired at the second perpetrator two times, but connected with only shot. As Mr. Smith reacted to his now empty weapon and started to back away, the third perpetrator closed the distance and stabbed Mr. Smith multiple times in the abdomen, resulting in quickly incapacitating and subsequently fatal wounds. Attempting to flee, Mrs. Smith was tackled by the forth perpetrator, stabbed in the neck, and left for dead until responding LEO saw her nearly lifeless body in the nearby alley."

Would an 8+1, 13+1 or 15+1 autoloader have made a difference?

That's why we need real life examples to analyze.
 
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.455_Hunter said:
That's why we need real life examples to analyze.
Click to expand...
That wouldn't really tell us anything except the results of those examples, and not the key underlying facts.

The precise location of each entry wound, the angle of entry of each bullet, the timing of each shot, and the posture of the attacker at the time of each shot, would all materially influence the wounding mechanics. The range of each shot and the speed of the attacker would influence the effectiveness of the shooting from the defensive stand point. And then there are the intangibles. Far too many variables to analyze.

To put things in perspective, I remember Massad Ayoob's explaining how the effectiveness (the timing for the stop) of a shot to a particular ventricle of the heart could depend upon just when during a heartbeat the bullet strikes.

In other words,

bdickens said:
Pointless speculation that serves no real purpose.
Click to expand...
 
I would look at it another way. GunnyUSMC had a thread going for quite awhile that listed what firearms they were taking from criminals. From my recollection, a large majority of them were semi-autos and many augmented their magazines with oversized monstrosities.

Your average mugger in the park probably won't have that but criminals planning stuff like a home invasion might not exactly worry about concealment issues.
 
The actual results of armed encounters on the street are so random and unpredictable that attempts to study them aren’t likely to provide meaningful answers in my experience...

In my years on the street the only conclusion I came up with is that they were to be avoided at all costs- if that’s possible. If you have no other choice you’ll be learning first hand all about what I’m saying...
 
.455_Hunter said:
Mr. Smith, fearing for the safety of his wife and himself, drew a concealed 5-shot revolver and fired three shots at the closest and apparently lead perpetrator, hitting him two times."
Click to expand...

Ok your logic is flawed. Mr. Smith only needed 4 of his 5 shots because there were 4 bad guys. One bullet each and the bad guys will stop right there. (Sarcasm aimed at some in the revolver thread:D)
 
lemaymiami said:
The actual results of armed encounters on the street are so random and unpredictable that attempts to study them aren’t likely to provide meaningful answers in my experience
Click to expand...
...one reason being that there are insufficient data and too many variables.
 
OK. Bringing the thread back away from the rocky shoals...

- This is NOT a discussion on handgun wounding dynamics. We aren't discussing the actions of wounded perps.
- This is NOT a discussion on perp weapon magazine capacity.

It is simply looking for examples of when the remaining UNWOUNDED perps continued to attack when one or more their group were hit by the fire of an armed citizen in a street encounter.
 
I don't remember the details but I recall seeing a news story with CCTV video of a woman who ran a gang of 3 to 5 home invaders off with her Hi-Point Carbine! They kicked in her door and came in with guns out and she sent 'em packing in a hail of lead. One of the punks regrouped and came back for another bite at the apple but quickly fled for his life. I don't think any of them died (she may not have hit any). IIRC it was in Detroit. It was well covered in the news a few years back.
 
.455_Hunter said:
It is simply looking for examples of when the remaining UNWOUNDED perps continued to attack when one or more their group were hit by the fire of an armed citizen in a street encounter.
Click to expand...
Toward what end?

Let's assume that two key underlying variables are (1) whether attackers who were not shot first realized immediately that their accomplices had in fact been shot, and (2) whether the ones not yet shot had reasonably that they could safely by turning around rather than continuing their attacks.

If the answers to both questions are no, one would have little reason to expect anyone to break off an attack. Right?

If the answer to the first is no , same thing.

If the answer to the first is yes and the second is no--well, maybe.

In most incidents, we can reasonably expect the answer to the first question to be no, due to the nature of rabidly unfolding violent attacks, None of the participants will be watch the others from the sidelines

But realistically speaking, none of that can be known in the majority of cases.

Could we draw any meaningful conclusions from only what behavior has been observed in a number of cases, without knowing anything at all about the underlying variables?

I think not.

Even if we did want to base some judgment on how many ran and how many did not, we would want to look at the distribution of the data around a few other variables--and there are few such data to be compiled. I think it extremely doubtful that one could draw any reliable conclusions.
 
Here's the deal. If you have a very specific scenario playing in your head, trying to find one that matches it closely may be difficult. For one thing, there aren't a lot of repositories of civilian self-defense shootings that provide all the details that would be required to insure a close match. Then, even if you find such a repository, the odds are you will have to go through the thing line by line because it's probably not indexed with items like "unwounded attacker fights on", etc.

I think, that if you spend several months on careful research you could put together some pretty interesting information. Information that I, for one, would be interested in reading. But that kind of work is not fun, and most people aren't willing to grind through it. Which is why you are going to have a hard time getting a lot of information that fits your specific parameters.

That said, the Lance Thomas shootings provide some examples that are very generally similar to what you're looking for. Not CCW incidents, but incidents with multiple attackers where they didn't cut and run after one was shot.

https://forum.opencarry.org/index.php?threads/urban-gunfighter-the-lance-thomas-story.45333/

In Thomas' first shooting, 2 men tried to rob his store. He engaged (and killed) the first one, the other fled. Thomas upgraded his weapon after this shooting given that it had taken him 3 rounds of the 5 in the gun to stop only one of the attackers. He realized that the math wouldn't have worked out for two determined attackers. It was a good decision, his round count in his next shooting ran into double digits.

The next shooting also involved several men. He killed one, fired on another who fled, and killed the third who stood and fought. Thomas was shot multiple times, but survived. He fired 19 rounds in this encounter.

His fourth gunfight involved 2 attackers, both of whom fought it out. Thomas again prevailed, killing both of them.

We like to think that criminals are looking for an easy score and will give up when faced with resistance. That is certainly true of some criminals. However, some criminals expect resistance but believe they will win. Criminals with that mindset are willing to stand and fight.
 
the bottom line is 5 rounds are better then nothing and 10+ rounds will cover a lot more situations that may arise.:eek:
 
as per the johnksa example, this boils down to risk vs. reward and a persons tolerance of risk. a bank robbery is a good example of bad guys taking a lot of risk (continuing to fight when engaged by good guy) for a large reward. not much reward to attack a random individual on the street unless that individual is known to possess something of great value.

crackheads don't count here. to them, a small amount of money is a great reward. drugs always change the equation.

luck,

murf
 
murf said:
not much reward to attack a random individual on the street unless that individual is known to possess something of great value.
Click to expand...
Yet, until the stay at home order went into effect, we were seeing over one car jacking per day in our metropolitan area.
 
.455_Hunter said:
My reasoning for this inquiry is to add some meat to discussions concerning "Is a revolver sufficient for concealed carry?", "Do I need to carry a high-capacity autoloader?", and similar topics.
Click to expand...

Do not take this offensively, because I take the role of learning and sharing on this site seriously. But the questions you cite, and many similar ones, are really nonsense questions in the world at large.

Why do I say "nonsense"? Not because I think your questions are stupid, but because the logical answer to these are strongly rooted in the circumstances behind any given encounter. OBVIOUSLY, for example, "more is better" when it comes to being armed. Within limits, of course...trying to carry 8 firearms and 37 pounds of ammunition would be somewhat debilitating with respect to both the weight and the ability to effectively fight carrying all that at one time.

Another reason I say it's a nonsense question is because it's so open that anybody can easily put up circumstances in which a revolver is sufficient...and in which a revolver is sadly insufficient. Same for high capacity pistols.

The plain fact of the matter is that there's more to carrying any given firearm than "revolver or pistol", "6, 8, 15, or 20 rounds", "no reloads vs three reloads", etc. The reasoning behind what you carry and how much you carry must encompass a holistic logic.

For example, some people may choose to carry a revolver because they're comfortable with it, they don't have the hand/arm strength to reliably work the action of a pistol, they're far more reliable mechanically, or simply because "that's all they've got".

Some people may choose a low capacity, single stack 9mm because it's slim and easier to conceal than a full sized, double stack 9mm. Some may choose a 1911 design with a 7 round magazine, because by God they can really shoot/operate that pistol! Or this make/model fits well in their hand, or having 15 round reloads is important to them, or whatever.

THE IMPORTANT THING about choosing a carry weapon is that you CARRY the weapon, first of all. And, of course, be able to operate it with reasonable facility.

And don't forget the training. You train with what you have, not what you would dream of having, and it's the training which will prepare you for whatever scenarios you can envision more than anything else.
 
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