In Light of the Recent Shootings....

Elkins45 said:

When people refer to themselves as sheepdogs that’s not their intent. What they mean is “ mall hero.”

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That's an extreme viewpoint. Much like the thought that people that carry pistols without manual safeties are "madmen".

Definitions of sheep, shepherds, and sheepdogs not withstanding, I am the leader and protector of my family. None other in my household even thinks bad things will happen to them. Whether physical, mental, financial, or other. So, they come to me with these issues if I don't see it coming first. My shoulders carry the load one way or another.

chicharrones said:

That's an extreme viewpoint. Much like the thought that people that carry pistols without manual safeties are "madmen".

Definitions of sheep, shepherds, and sheepdogs not withstanding, I am the leader and protector of my family. None other in my household even thinks bad things will happen to them. Whether physical, mental, financial, or other. So, they come to me with these issues if I don't see it coming first. My shoulders carry the load one way or another.

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Mlst people who use the term never say it about their families. They always refer to the “sheeple” in some way.

“Good thing for the sheeple there's a sheepdog among ‘em.”

I protect my family. That doesn’t make me a sheepdog. The whole sheeple/sheepdog thing is just a way for people who carry guns to feel superior. Search most forums for the use of the term and you will see plenty of people looking down their noses.

FWIW none of my carry guns have a manual safety. Guess I’m way far out there on a whole number of fronts.

Elkins45 said:

When people refer to themselves as sheepdogs that’s not their intent. What they mean is “ mall hero.”

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I try not to judge intent from catch phrases - I don't know their hearts or minds until they provide a lot more information. As an NRA instructor, I've heard lot of folks refer to themselves as sheepdogs. Given other commentary and demeanor, a minority may have something in mind close to what you mean by "mall hero" but as they spend more time under my training and instruction, the size of that minority becomes smaller, they better understand their limitations in a sheepdog role.

But the majority of folks who I've heard use the sheepdog language gave no evidence of a "mall hero" fantasy but rather understood it in terms of protecting friends and family (often including extended family), people in their church, employees at their place or work, guests in their home, etc. Most had some variations in exactly where their boundaries were, but (other than police and military) very few envisioned the scope of their sheepdog role extending to the general public at large in the actual use of a firearm. (Many understood that the presence of concealed carry holders tends to reduce crime without them being explicitly identified, much less drawing.) But even police and military tended to understand their sheepdog roles in terms of their explicit work-related duties. The off-duty policeman at a mall outside his jurisdiction or soldier on leave at the mall are really not in a place to intervene in random acts of violence where they may not be capable of quickly discerning who the good and bad guys are.

But when one realizes that purpose of the 2nd Amendment is for armed citizens in general to be capable of resisting the evils that threaten "the security of a free state", one should acknowledge that only those willing to rise up and behave as sheepdogs are capable of rendering the benefits envisioned by the founders. Most armed citizens have a much higher threshold for this action than those harboring fantasies of "mall hero" but many refer to themselves as sheep dogs.

I really told myself I wasn't gonna revisit this thread (particularly after Sam1911 termed one of my posts "pathetic" and later implied I made a cowardly statement ...

But you know, if one was going to let statistical probabilities or improbabilities dictate one's daily actions, I submit most of us would rarely willingly get on our local arterial roadways and certainly would never get on our local interstate highways in our motor vehicles. And even Sam noted in one post that one of his favorite sayings reflected that it's not the odds, but the stakes ... yet he continued to spout his beloved statistics.

I just feel that continually hammering on the concept that statistics render carrying a high-capacity handgun on person or a rifle in the trunk "useless" or statistically unsupportable goes a long way in supported the arguments that the anti-gun faction continues to put forth. Didn't think I'd ever see guys making these arguments in a "pro-gun" internet forum ...

Now you guys are worried about the folks that want to consider themselves "sheepdogs" and characterize them as "mall heroes?"

Old Dog said:

I really told myself I wasn't gonna revisit this thread (particularly after Sam1911 termed one of my posts "pathetic" and later implied I made a cowardly statement ...

But you know, if one was going to let statistical probabilities or improbabilities dictate one's daily actions, I submit most of us would rarely willingly get on our local arterial roadways and certainly would never get on our local interstate highways in our motor vehicles. And even Sam noted in one post that one of his favorite sayings reflected that it's not the odds, but the stakes ... yet he continued to spout his beloved statistics.

I just feel that continually hammering on the concept that statistics render carrying a high-capacity handgun on person or a rifle in the trunk "useless" or statistically unsupportable goes a long way in supported the arguments that the anti-gun faction continues to put forth. Didn't think I'd ever see guys making these arguments in a "pro-gun" internet forum ...

Now you guys are worried about the folks that want to consider themselves "sheepdogs" and characterize them as "mall heroes?"

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A handgun on the person and a rifle in the trunk are two entirely different things. They shouldn’t be discussed together. A personal handgun might well save your life one day. A rifle in the trunk is, well, in the trunk...

The purpose of a car is to drive away, not store your secondary Arsenal.

Elkins45 said:

A handgun on the person and a rifle in the trunk are two entirely different things. They shouldn’t be discussed together. A personal handgun might well save your life one day. A rifle in the trunk is, well, in the trunk...

The purpose of a car is to drive away, not store your secondary Arsenal.

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I feel like this post sums up the whole argument perfectly.

But you know, if one was going to let statistical probabilities or improbabilities dictate one's daily actions, I submit most of us would rarely willingly get on our local arterial roadways and certainly would never get on our local interstate highways in our motor vehicles.

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And this seems to be the fundamental disconnect.

We DO go out on our roadways. We DO run chainsaws, climb ladders, go swimming, ride horseback or motorcycles, we eat cheeseburgers, some of us even still smoke or dip. We do these things. We don't even give them, generally speaking, the worry that is rightfully due them -- don't take on the much heavier levels of precaution they almost certainly warrant -- because we innately believe that these problems won't happen to us, or that we'll probably survive if we do have a problem so wearing that driving helmet, or using fall-arrest gear, or whatever else we could do to better our odds of survival just aren't worth the hassle.

And yet, when we're faced with a risk with odds that are thousands, or tens of thousands LESS likely than any of those things, we decide we really need to do something, like putting a rifle and ammo in our cars and telling ourselves that this could be useful to stand against the (incredibly over-hyped) risk of mass shooters or terrorists.

It's NOT a proportionate reaction. We claim to be the logical ones. Claim to have the lock on rationality. Claim that the suburbanites who wander through their days unarmed and unaware are the idiots. But we're reacting in a way that makes less statistical sense.

Why? Because we WANT to. We enjoy guns, love rifles, love being near them. We love the thought of each of us as a rifleman. We rather openly enjoy the thrill of being the defender, always at the ready, always facing the danger that's ever present. It's a huge part of our self-identity. Without an enemy at the gates that we can stand up and defend against, we aren't quite so humbly heroic. Fortunately, that's just fine. No harm in it. Carry a rifle in your truck if you WANT to and especially if it's occasionally useful for keeping coyotes out of the pasture. But we should be careful not to breathe in our own fumes to the extent that we believe things that aren't actually true.

And even Sam noted in one post that one of his favorite sayings reflected that it's not the odds, but the stakes ... yet he continued to spout his beloved statistics.

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"My" beloved statistics? Laff. They aren't "MY" statistics. They're YOURS, too. They're just the record of history. You can pretend they don't exist, but all they are is a tally of what happened. You can decide to think about what happened and how it is proportionately represented in our society, or you can decide not to look and to make decisions about your life from a position of ignorance.

And you're misquoting me -- and several others in this thread. It's the odds AND the stakes that determine risk and response. Understanding the stakes alone aren't worth anything. Otherwise, you'd have to live in a bunker because, if a passing jetliner was to crash into your house, the stakes would be catastrophic. But you don't -- because the odds say those stakes aren't really realistically on the table. Possible, not zero chance, but very, very low odds.

Ha ha -- though I guess if I went on a fallout bunker enthusiasts forum and said that I'd probably be hounded for daring to say that being squashed by a falling airliner is not a serious risk, and reviled for not being true to the cause! LOL!

I really told myself I wasn't gonna revisit this thread (particularly after Sam1911 termed one of my posts "pathetic" and later implied I made a cowardly statement ...
I just feel that continually hammering on the concept that statistics render carrying a high-capacity handgun on person or a rifle in the trunk "useless" or statistically unsupportable goes a long way in supported the arguments that the anti-gun faction continues to put forth. Didn't think I'd ever see guys making these arguments in a "pro-gun" internet forum ...

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One more time: We can be honest or we can lie. We can be informed, or we can choose to remain ignorant. We can understand the mathematics of what has happened in our society or we can decide to believe unfounded things and tell ourselves tales that (now we know) really aren't true.

Your statement here is, bluntly put, LIE. Don't tell the truth. Don't say factual things out loud because (you think) they are politically inconvenient. Keep telling ourselves we NEED a rifle in the trunk. Keep telling people that we're under serious threat of attack and we must be heavily armed and ready to run to our cars to grab our rifles and engage the forces of evil in battle. Because (apparently) the 2nd Amendment needs lots of us to be dying in the streets in order to be valid and defensible. If we admit we're really living in a pretty peaceful time and place in the world, the 2nd Amendment will dry up and blow away.

That's just not in my nature to do. And I don't see it as necessary. The 2nd Amendment does not require us to be murdered in large numbers in order to prove its worth. It doesn't depend on high death or crime rates to be valid. It doesn't require us to obscure facts or mislead ourselves or each other.

I knew when I heard that sheepdog line, sitting in the movie theatre, we'd be hearing mall ninjas regurgitating it for years to come.

Fun fact about "sheepdogs" from a guy who grew up in a family who raises actual sheepdogs. The "herding drive" in shepherd breeds is a manipulated manifestation of prey instinct. Sheepdogs have high predatory drive, they want to kill the sheep, but humans have TRAINED them to simply chase, rather than kill. Herding is an attack. So whenever I hear guys talk about sheep and sheepdogs, inside I feel compelled to either laugh, or cry, because it's one of either a poor representation of their intent, or worse, it might really be representative of their core intent - a deep rooted, albeit concealed or even subconscious desire to kill someone.

I carry to protect myself and my family, and in the heat of the moment, I may aid someone else just as I might pull over to change a tire or plow my neighbors driveway of snow. That doesn't make them sheep, nor me a sheepdog. The whole wannabe hero line was played out long before Bradley Cooper played Chris Kyle.

freyasman said:

In this same vein, I came across this on Greg Ellifritz' blog;
http://www.activeresponsetraining.net/new-rapid-mass-murder-research-from-ron-borsch
From the link;
"WHO HAS BEEN STOPPING THE ACTIVE KILLER, AND HOW?

Before investing in any theory or propaganda, enlightened administrators and trainers should exclusively examine only successful aborts. “Stopping the killing” only occurs in slightly over half of “Rapid Mass Murder”© incidents. Significant, documented, verifiable, and repeatable research has identified what strategies and tactics work in stopping the killing. In summary, they are:



1. Citizens, mostly unarmed, perform two thirds of all “Rapid Mass Murder”© aborts.

2. In citizen aborts, initiation by a single citizen stops the killing eight out of ten times.

3. Law enforcement performs one third of all “Rapid Mass Murder”© aborts.

4. In law enforcement aborts, initiation by a single officer stops the killing seven out of 10 times."

Many incidents are not reported as "active shooter" or "rapid mass murder" events because the killer gets stopped almost immediately by people on scene at the time of the attack, before more than 2 or 3 people are killed. Whether the people on site at the time are LE or civilian, armed or unarmed, the most important thing is that they immediately counter-attack the attacker.

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This misses something important, which is failed attempts (or “unsuccessful aborts” to stay consistent with the quoted author’s clunky wording). Specifically number 2 above — In citizen aborts, initiation by a single citizen stops the killing eight out of ten times — we do not and cannot account for all instances where a citizen or citizens tried to stop an active shooter and were killed or wounded doing so. Put another way, any given victim of a shooting does not have an 80% success rate of stopping a shooting as the stat implies, since you may die in the process and become a statistical dog that doesn’t bark.

Not saying anyone should or shouldn’t adopt any given tactic in this post; only that the analysis by Ellefrotz is flawed in a significant way.

^^^^^^

Maybe to sell his training by appealing to ones inner hero?

psyopspec said:

This misses something important, which is failed attempts (or “unsuccessful aborts” to stay consistent with the quoted author’s clunky wording). Specifically number 2 above — In citizen aborts, initiation by a single citizen stops the killing eight out of ten times — we do not and cannot account for all instances where a citizen or citizens tried to stop an active shooter and were killed or wounded doing so. Put another way, any given victim of a shooting does not have an 80% success rate of stopping a shooting as the stat implies, since you may die in the process and become a statistical dog that doesn’t bark.

Not saying anyone should or shouldn’t adopt any given tactic in this post; only that the analysis by Ellefrotz is flawed in a significant way.

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This piece is actually a quote of a study by Ron Borsch, it was just on Greg Ellifritz's blog.

danez71 said:

^^^^^^

Maybe to sell his training by appealing to ones inner hero?

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Maybe, but to me it seems more like he is pointing out that no one is coming to save you..... not fast enough to matter anyway. Better learn how to rescue yourself.

freyasman said:

Maybe, but to me it seems more like he is pointing out that no one is coming to save you..... not fast enough to matter anyway. Better learn how to rescue yourself.

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And that is similar to the FBIs conclusion in the report I posted that basically said, in part, that citizens should discuss and plan.

danez71 said:

And that is similar to the FBIs conclusion in the report I posted that basically said, in part, that citizens should discuss and plan.

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On it...

Sam1911 said:

But the unpopular position that I'm taking here is, don't let our love for our rifles, and our enthusiasm for keeping them handy, lead us to irrational conclusions and statements about real levels of risk, or to make impractical responses to it.

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One thing I have noticed about this discussion and all the previous discussions on this board since it was created is that there has been a huge absence of THR members who have been involved in public mass shootings. We have had a lot of members who have been mugged, robbed, victims of home invasion, present for robberies at stores, etc., but none that I can recall that were at Tacoma Mall, Tyler Square, Trolley Square, Columbine, Las Vegas, etc. with the one exception of a couple of people that may have been present at UT in 1966. Of course, the UT shooting was outdoors and threatened people for many blocks in every direction and so there were literally thousands of people in the immediate area.

This forum has been around for a long time and has a LOT of members, but so few that have ever reported being in one of these public mass shooting events.

It is just really interesting that people are considering changing, or have changed what they carry because of a popularized fear of being involved in one of these events and consider that to be a greater risk to their safety that the more normal criminal risks posed to them and for which we do have quite a few members that have experienced.

We have something like 200,000 registered members but obviously only some small fraction of those are ever active. I know there is one member who posts regularly who actually has faced a mass shooter at his school.

I wasn't there, but a girl I dated in High School was at the Vegas shooting, as I understand from her sister, she drove home that night, something like 18hrs. I used to work on my English teacher's ranch when I was home in school, her daughter was 10-12yrs older than me in a community of 2000 people, so while we weren't so much friends, we knew each other. She was in the South Tower when the North Tower was struck. She got out, uninjured, but it took at least a day before she could communicate out to let family know she was safe. It's not so rare to know folks who have experienced very rare circumstances, as people cast a much broader network than they typically realize. Six degrees of Kevin Bacon, and all of that...

Well in my 10-plus year career as a crime reporter quite a few years back I was present 11 times when shots were fired by/at/both police in a variety of situations that ranged from immediate armed confrontations to hostage and barricaded suspects to pursuits. On two of those occasions police killed the suspects. I was also present many many times during physical fights, chases, etc. and covered about 500 homicides. Never been present at a mass shooting. I don't know if I was ever fired upon individually, although on several occasions rounds did come in my general direction, and on one the headlight was shot out of my car.

Then and now I carry a handgun (don't even own a rifle) primarily for personal protection as one who has seen street crime up close and knows its costs and magnitude. Statistically I know that the odds of me having to ever deploy that handgun run downward from the most likely scenario of street mugging/carjacking (especially now that I am visibly gray and older) to being present during a commercial robbery to the least likely scenario of being present during a mass shooting. In all those potential situations I know that my first responsibility is to protect myself and anyone with me but also that an occasion could present itself where I felt obligated morally to come to the defense of others (the sheepdog analogy.) I don't believe that makes me a "mall ninja." I believe it makes me sensible and realistic.

Yes the odds of my ever having to deploy that weapon are very small, as are the odds of being trapped in a burning building or dying in a plane crash, but in none of those are the odds zero. Which is why I always check the location of fire exits for example.

On balance, the availability of a firearm at home or out and about increases my chances of surviving any potential crime and to a lesser extent adds a smidgen to the public safety should I be able to come to the aid of an unarmed victim. It even adds a very tiny but not zero chance that I or someone like me could intervene and stop a mass homicide or even a terrorist assault. One can argue statistics all night but for more than a decade I saw dead, bleeding or frightened people who at the beginning of that night would almost certainly have laughed, if asked about the chances of their becoming a victim. For them statistical likelihood had suddenly become 100 percent.

We have some rifles locked up at our ranch and, while for the most part, they are for recreational shooting, I can think of lots of realistic situations where we would be thankful of our right to have them.

But the rifles stay at the ranch. For city life personal protection, a compact pistol is what I always carried and will continue to carry.


I'm going to admit I don't really know what I am talking about, but in the event of a mass shooting, I think my main priority is to get the hell out of there. I would not want to take pot shots at a rifleman while there are tons of people running around where I could hit an innocent. I would also not want to scare any other innocents into thinking I am also a danger to them and cause them to run from me in a direction that might get them killed. I also would not want to be confused by law enforcement and make their job harder or be shot by them.

So I'm not looking to engage an active shooter. But, if the unlikely event that I am somehow backed into a corner, and can't run away, and have to take a shot.. the pistol I've always carried for personal defense will have to do. I hope that never happens.

These thoughts are based my current level of skill, if I had the military training I might think otherwise. But I don't.

Old Dog said:

I really told myself I wasn't gonna revisit this thread (particularly after Sam1911 termed one of my posts "pathetic" and later implied I made a cowardly statement ...

But you know, if one was going to let statistical probabilities or improbabilities dictate one's daily actions, I submit most of us would rarely willingly get on our local arterial roadways and certainly would never get on our local interstate highways in our motor vehicles. And even Sam noted in one post that one of his favorite sayings reflected that it's not the odds, but the stakes ... yet he continued to spout his beloved statistics.

I just feel that continually hammering on the concept that statistics render carrying a high-capacity handgun on person or a rifle in the trunk "useless" or statistically unsupportable goes a long way in supported the arguments that the anti-gun faction continues to put forth. Didn't think I'd ever see guys making these arguments in a "pro-gun" internet forum ...

Now you guys are worried about the folks that want to consider themselves "sheepdogs" and characterize them as "mall heroes?"

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A handgun on your person is a universe apart from a supplemental rifle in your trunk, because of the difference in practical accessibility and time taken to implement

Warp said:

A handgun on your person is a universe apart from a supplemental rifle in your trunk, because of the difference in practical accessibility and time taken to implement

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Sometimes. It depends on whether you are caught away from the vehicle with a sudden need to engage or whether you roll up on a situation already in your vehicle. If you roll up to your home or place of business to find the door standing open unexpectedly, would you rather your next move involve your holstered pistol or the rifle quickly retrieved from the trunk?

Suppose you then see an active situation through a glass window. Would you rather enter with the pistol, engage from behind cover through the window with the pistol, or engage through the window with the rifle?

Suppose you roll up to your farm pasture with a pedestrian crossing being threatened by YOUR bull. Would you rather do nothing, engage with a pistol from 100 yards, attempt to close the distance and then engage with a pistol, or have the option to quickly retrieve the rifle and engage with the rifle to protect the pedestrian?

(Lots of dog, livestock, and wildlife defense situations require the accuracy and allow the time to fetch the rifle. People in rural settings probably have a higher probability of encountering these.) I try and spend most of my time in counties where hospitalizations from interactions with dogs, livestock, and wildlife greatly exceed those caused from two legged predators. Still, in the oil-refining country of SE TX and SW LA, one cannot rule out interactions with two legged predators ranging from meth heads, smugglers, ragheads, and church shooter looney tunes.

Berger.Fan222 said:

Sometimes. It depends on whether you are caught away from the vehicle with a sudden need to engage or whether you roll up on a situation already in your vehicle. If you roll up to your home or place of business to find the door standing open unexpectedly, would you rather your next move involve your holstered pistol or the rifle quickly retrieved from the trunk?

Suppose you then see an active situation through a glass window. Would you rather enter with the pistol, engage from behind cover through the window with the pistol, or engage through the window with the rifle?

Suppose you roll up to your farm pasture with a pedestrian crossing being threatened by YOUR bull. Would you rather do nothing, engage with a pistol from 100 yards, attempt to close the distance and then engage with a pistol, or have the option to quickly retrieve the rifle and engage with the rifle to protect the pedestrian?

(Lots of dog, livestock, and wildlife defense situations require the accuracy and allow the time to fetch the rifle. People in rural settings probably have a higher probability of encountering these.) I try and spend most of my time in counties where hospitalizations from interactions with dogs, livestock, and wildlife greatly exceed those caused from two legged predators. Still, in the oil-refining country of SE TX and SW LA, one cannot rule out interactions with two legged predators ranging from meth heads, smugglers, ragheads, and church shooter looney tunes.

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Given the security measures in place it is rather unlikely I would ever roll up to my home and find the door unexpectedly open. If I did, I'd probably fall back and have the professionals who are fully equipped and working together clear the house.

How many people have rolled up to their home to see an 'active situation' through a glass window that called for shooting through their window into their home, and with time to get a rifle out of the car? This seems rather, extremely, rare and unlikely. What if I am walking back to my car and am confronted by a guy wielding the rifle I left in the car? That seems at least as likely if not more so.

I don't have a farm pasture, or a bull, can't really speak to that. If I was worried about having to shoot and immediately stop my bull on my farm from 100 yards away, well, I guess that would be a rather different scenario than most, doesn't relate to 'in light of recent terror attacks' though

Berger.Fan222 said:

If you roll up to your home or place of business to find the door standing open unexpectedly...

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I'd counter - what logic is there in leaving a position of safety to enter either location when it houses potential danger, with the advantage of surprise over you? Easy enough to contact law enforcement.

Berger.Fan222 said:

Suppose you roll up to your farm pasture with a pedestrian crossing being threatened by YOUR bull.

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I do own pasture, and do own bulls/beefalo which are a threat to trespassers. No bone in my body would be compelled to shoot my livestock to rescue a trespasser. As a landowner, I'd be more compelled to shoot the trespasser. My bull would be doing what he was supposed to, the trespasser would not be.

Berger.Fan222 said:

Suppose you then see an active situation through a glass window. Would you rather enter with the pistol, engage from behind cover through the window with the pistol, or engage through the window with the rifle?

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Is either of your proposals the best option? Entering with a pistol will likely draw fire, and adding yourself as a threatening element, armed or not, may escalate the situation. Unless you're trained in hostage negotiation and so deputized to perform this duty, then you're just another civilian trying to play hero, removing themselves from safety, and inserting themselves into a dangerous situation. What are your odds of successfully "engaging" through the window without causing collateral damage? If the first shot, the element of surprise, fails to neutralize the threat because it's deflected by the glass, what do you expect to be the response by the perpetrator? Everyone imagines this scenario where they roll up, grab the rifle, and save the day - but in reality, they're injecting themselves into a dangerous situation, quite likely without full understanding of the situation.

Say you drive up to that window, see a guy holding a gun on a few people on the ground, shouting orders to a waitress and pointing at the register. You take your shot through the window, taking him out. Lo and behold, he's an off duty officer who was in the restaurant when two perps attacked, he had them on the ground and detained at gunpoint, sent the waitress to call for back up... For every imaginary yet plausible situation where the "go to my trunk and get a rifle" response is suggested, there's an imaginary yet plausible situation where the civilian leaving safety and injecting interference caused harm.

Varminterror said:

I'd counter - what logic is there in leaving a position of safety to enter either location when it houses potential danger, with the advantage of surprise over you? Easy enough to contact law enforcement.



I do own pasture, and do own bulls/beefalo which are a threat to trespassers. No bone in my body would be compelled to shoot my livestock to rescue a trespasser. As a landowner, I'd be more compelled to shoot the trespasser. My bull would be doing what he was supposed to, the trespasser would not be.



Is either of your proposals the best option? Entering with a pistol will likely draw fire, and adding yourself as a threatening element, armed or not, may escalate the situation. Unless you're trained in hostage negotiation and so deputized to perform this duty, then you're just another civilian trying to play hero, removing themselves from safety, and inserting themselves into a dangerous situation. What are your odds of successfully "engaging" through the window without causing collateral damage? If the first shot, the element of surprise, fails to neutralize the threat because it's deflected by the glass, what do you expect to be the response by the perpetrator? Everyone imagines this scenario where they roll up, grab the rifle, and save the day - but in reality, they're injecting themselves into a dangerous situation, quite likely without full understanding of the situation.

Say you drive up to that window, see a guy holding a gun on a few people on the ground, shouting orders to a waitress and pointing at the register. You take your shot through the window, taking him out. Lo and behold, he's an off duty officer who was in the restaurant when two perps attacked, he had them on the ground and detained at gunpoint, sent the waitress to call for back up... For every imaginary yet plausible situation where the "go to my trunk and get a rifle" response is suggested, there's an imaginary yet plausible situation where the civilian leaving safety and injecting interference caused harm.

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I agree with your points. Again, in nearly every situation where you are in your car, your best option is to drive away and call the cops.

Sure, if your family is home when you roll up you might be inclined to enter with the rifle and varmints are a good reason to keep a rural truck gun. But those two instances are not germaine to this mass shooter related discussion.

As to rushing into an active situation, the CCWer a couple years back to did that and was shot and killed by an accomplice he didnt see should serve as a warning, rushing in without knowing the details can be just as bad (also with Varminterrors excellent example).

To me the benefits of a truck gun (terribly unlikely chance that it will be more useful than the CCW already on me) do not outweigh the risk (it getting stolen, my son somehow accessing it).

To those who choose different, I support that, just not for me.

Varminterror said:

I'd counter - what logic is there in leaving a position of safety to enter either location when it houses potential danger, with the advantage of surprise over you? Easy enough to contact law enforcement.

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The rifle in the trunk provides the option, it does not force you to enter. I don't think I'd enter to protect property, but what if family or loved ones are inside? Would you really contact law enforcement and wait for 15 minutes for them to get there? I don't think I would, and I'd certainly want the option of a rifle available.

Varminterror said:

I do own pasture, and do own bulls/beefalo which are a threat to trespassers. No bone in my body would be compelled to shoot my livestock to rescue a trespasser. As a landowner, I'd be more compelled to shoot the trespasser. My bull would be doing what he was supposed to, the trespasser would not be.

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Your call, but what if the pedestrian was a family member of loved one? Or someone else who had permission to be on your property who wandered into a bad spot?

Me? I'd shoot my own bull to preserve human life even in a case of trespassing. My course would also likely prevent an expensive lawsuit. Juries in your location may be more trustworthy not to do stupid things than juries in other locations.

Varminterror said:

Is either of your proposals the best option? Entering with a pistol will likely draw fire, and adding yourself as a threatening element, armed or not, may escalate the situation. Unless you're trained in hostage negotiation and so deputized to perform this duty, then you're just another civilian trying to play hero, removing themselves from safety, and inserting themselves into a dangerous situation.

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A man is always acting within the sphere of his duty and authority to protect his own family on his pen property. Is entry the best course? Depends on the details. A rifle makes it possible to do so, and proper training gives a better chance of success if one has the training and skill and the tool is available.

Varminterror said:

What are your odds of successfully "engaging" through the window without causing collateral damage? If the first shot, the element of surprise, fails to neutralize the threat because it's deflected by the glass, what do you expect to be the response by the perpetrator? Everyone imagines this scenario where they roll up, grab the rifle, and save the day - but in reality, they're injecting themselves into a dangerous situation, quite likely without full understanding of the situation.

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One must always weigh the risks and benefits before acting. If there are armed assailants in my home, I'd like the option to engage from outside. If my family is inside, even in the unlikely event of a miss, the perp is likely to focus his attention on the imminent threat (me) and away from my family. How is that bad?

Varminterror said:

Say you drive up to that window, see a guy holding a gun on a few people on the ground, shouting orders to a waitress and pointing at the register. You take your shot through the window, taking him out. Lo and behold, he's an off duty officer who was in the restaurant when two perps attacked, he had them on the ground and detained at gunpoint, sent the waitress to call for back up... For every imaginary yet plausible situation where the "go to my trunk and get a rifle" response is suggested, there's an imaginary yet plausible situation where the civilian leaving safety and injecting interference caused harm.

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You are the one imagining hero situations in strange settings, not me. I limited the possibilities to those where one knows the turf, the most likely good guys, and has a moral duty to lend aid if possible (home or place of business).