A couple of scenarios to discuss...

Here are a couple of potential defensive firearms scenarios for the THR continuum to ponder:

Scenario #1

A father and his adult son head-up to the hills for a Saturday night camping trip on public land. To access the camp site, they crossed a creek in a full-size pick-up and went about 300 yards to the dead end camp site. The area is in an open valley with broken forest on each side and zero cell phone coverage. They set-up the dome tent (room for 2 adults) and enjoy the evening, hitting the sack at 11 pm.

At 1 am, they are awoken by the sound multiple dirt bikes reeving and roaring on the roads back across the creek. Soon, multiple and sustained fusillades of gunfire echo through the valley as the bikers discharge weapons in apparently random directions. The father and son quickly put on shoes and move into the trees less than 50 yards away.

The father is armed with a handgun and the son is armed with a rifle and handgun. They each take cover behind a large tree, putting the bulk of the tree between their bodies and the bikers. It’s not even clear if the miscreants even know that the father and son are in the area, and the bikers have not crossed the creek to approach the campsite.

Should the father and son:

- Shine a bright flashlight towards the bikers to let them know somebody is there?

- Discharge a warning shot(s) to let them know somebody is there and armed?

- Wait it out until the bikers leave, throw the tent in the back of the truck, and get out of Dodge?

Scenario #2

A father and his adult son head-up to the high desert boonies for camping trip on public land in the middle of nowhere, again with zero mobile coverage. They arrive late, and pick a camp site in a grove of pinon pine and cedars. This time, their truck carries a slide-in hard side camper, but the healthy desert trees still obscure the full vehicle. They weather is cold, so they light the camper’s propane heater and start dinner at about 11 pm.

While eating, they hear a series of pops coming from outside. The son, thinking the heater is acting-up, goes outside to check. As he rounds the side of the camper, he is met with “zip, zip, zip, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM” followed by debris falling from the branches above as the bullets passed through the trees. The gunfire is coming from several hundred yards away and being directed into the grove of trees. The father hits the deck in the camper, and the son hits the deck on the ground.

The son is armed with a handgun, but the other guns on the trip were moved up to the truck cab temporarily to allow for dinner preparation and consumption in the relatively small camper. The gunfire continues, about on a cadence for a 30 round mag to be changed and then dumped.

Should the father and son:

- Shine a bright flashlight around the grove to let the shooter know somebody is there?

- Have the son low crawl to the truck cab, retrieve a rifle for himself and shotgun for the father, conduct a rapid combat loading exercise, and discharge a warning shot(s) to let them know somebody is there and armed?

- Remain on the deck until the shooter(s) get tired and leave (or run out of ammo), hoping nobody or nothing important gets hit?

Your thoughts on these scenarios and the best courses of action…

As some of you may have guessed, I fibbed a bit in the OP with the term “potential”...

Both Scenario #1 and Scenario #2 are real-life occurrences experienced by myself and my Dad.

In Scenario #1, it the summer of 1994, I was 18, and couple of months passed my high school graduation. The location was north of the old Caribou town site in Boulder County, Colorado, on National Forest property. My father was armed with a .22 Mag Ruger Single-Six and I had my Enfield No.4, Mk. II I had purchased just 4 months earlier on my first 4473, and my CZ-52 pistol I received from my Dad for my 18th B-day. This event pre-dates ownership of cell phones in my family, and the area is still a “hole” in the coverage map, being a high mountain valley at 10,000 feet. The truck in both event was my Dad’s 1977 F-250, so panic buttons on the key fob was not a thing.

When we took-up the covered positions in the trees, my Dad admonished me to not fire, even if they crossed the creek and were still shooting randomly. Fortunately, they never did cross the creek, and we stayed hunkered down until long after the bikers fell silent. We never knew if they were camped nearby, or just drove off.

We took the third option, putting the tent in the truck bed by starlight, do a quick scan of the ground with a flashlight for stray equipment and moved out- as fast as possible in 4WD on a 4WD mountain road. We had the guns ready to go in the cab, and once we crossed the creek and drove through the area where they had been swarming, the ground was littered with red 12 ga hulls not present when we earlier came into the location. We kept moving at accelerated rate for about three miles, stopping when we determined there was no activity following us and fully collapsed the tent for the drive back home at 4:00 am. As a side note, while messing with the tent in the truck bed, a huge piece of space junk re-entered the atmosphere right above us, going almost from horizon to horizon in slow moving light show with flamings chucks breaking-off. The two events are permanently intertwined in my mind- sorry.

In Scenario #2, it was late hunting season in 1997 (?), and we were going to hunt elk in the expansive BLM holdings near Piceance Creek southwest of Meeker, Colorado. When I went out to check why the heater was popping in the cold and clear night, I was armed only with my .38 Enfield DAO revolver. Once again, no cell phone and no panic button other that doing it manually in the truck cab with a flurry of hand motions.

We executed the second option- By that time, I had several years of Army training, so doing a low crawl to the cab was second nature. Sometimes, we brought extra guns along when hunting for fun, and the first thing I pulled out was my Norinco SKS, and used a 10 round charger for the first time under duress- it worked fine. I also grabbed my NEF 20 ga single shot and gave it to my Dad.

Then the horrors of all horrors in defensive shooting pontification occurred- THE WARNING SHOT!!!!!!

My Dad slipped a 20 ga birdshot round into the NEF, and during a longer pause in the shooting (mag change?), discharged it at a 45 degree angle into the air perpendicular to where the shots were being fired, essentially just being a noise maker.

The shooting did NOT resume, and within about 30 seconds, we heard a vehicle absolutely peel-out and burn rubber getting out of the area. The next morning, we saw the tire tracks and a boatload of expended 7.62x39mm steel case on the ground. I doubt they even knew we were in the trees until hearing the 20 ga bark in the distance.

This is one example where the warning shot worked perfectly to end a highly dangerous situation. While it was NOT a “typical” urban defensive scenario, it shows why absolute statements about armed defensive response are problematic.