Defensive situation – with children

1. Evac the youngins from the area.

2. Get between the threat and your youngins and END the threat.

Of course it would all depend on the situation...but i have decided if I'm out with my wife and son we will hide hide hide as quickly as possible, hopefully inside a small room or bathroom. Put them behind me and cover the door or corner and call police to make them aware of our location, thats it.

But you never know what situation will present itself. I may be forced to shoot 1st thing..

I just hope what ever situation I can remain calm and focused and protect my family from harm.

Hopefuly there will be more posts with good ideas and scenarios..I will be following this thread.

If the wife is with you, it is her job to secure the children while you deal with the threat. Even before the threat gets too hairy, she should be dealing with the kids.

If it's just you, put yourself between you and them. Hopefully, you can deal with the situation verbally, but if you need to respond with deadly force, do so quickly and without delay. You can't risk the badguy firing even one shot in your direction when your kids are present.

More then likely you will have 2 seconds to make that decision & react. I would address the threat at once making sure of the target & knowing where my shoots will travel. If you get a funny felling then I'm sure your instincts will take over to round up the kids & move them in front of you to guide them the direction you want to go.

I have three grandkids - 6, 4, 8mos. The rug rat is still somewhat manageable but the other two are like herding cats. I do my best to keep them in the same proximity and watch what is going on in the immediate area. One of my biggest concerns is other peoples dogs as the kids have no fear of them - I preach and preach about not petting strange dogs to no avail. If an event happened I would try to get them away from the area as the first action; controlling two youngsters and handling a firearm is going to be a high effort proposition if it comes to that.

Straight Shooter,

I'm in a similar situation; 2 kids - 5 and 3. There are really two overarching scenarios to consider:

1) In the Home
2) Out and about

#1 is the easieist because you can rehearse and plan a response as well as create fortifications to enhance your plan. DO plan, DO rehearse and DO fortify (we put a solid door with 2 deadbolts on my daughter's room which becomes the "Alamo" in an emergency.

#2 is much more difficult because there are so many unforeseen variables. The same tenets apply though: Plan, rehearse. fortify.

Plan: For us, when all of us are out together, my wife is in charge of retreating with the children while I engage the threat. They'll go to the car, into a shop, or just run around the corner. Anything to get out of the line of fire and to a place where my wife can safely call LEO. In the menatime, I am to get between my kids/wife and threat and distract and engage the threat.

In extreme scenarios where things develop quickly (assuming our lives are threatened), I will push the kids (as forcefully as necessary) out of the way or to the ground and neutralize the threat. Deal with the crying and scrapes later.

Again, these are the plans. We all know what happens to plans when the fighting starts, but I want to start with something.

Rehearse: Make sure the wife knows the plan, and as your kids get old enough, make sure they know to follow your commands when in a situation. Dry runs aren't a bad idea, at least with the wife.

Fortify: Make sure your gear is appropriate for your family situation. If you are carrying an infant, you may have to leave the .500 Nito Express at home and look for a popcket pistol. When holding hands with your kids, make sure you leave your dominant hand available, if at all possible. "Fortify" isn't exactly the right word, but the idea is to make sure your gear and mindset reflect the reality of your situation when little ones and SO are present.

have you looked at any books on bodyguarding? they may have some useful information you can adapt to help you. it may not give you all the answers but it could be a step in the right direction to help you decide the best s&t for your situation.

first response

A practical advise for you.

Teach your children by a few rehearsals that when mom or dad call out to
Get Down! they must drop on the ground flat as possible.
The oldest ones can be instructed to not run to the youngest, but to enforce the drop with which ever brother or sister they are nearest to.

It will be up to you and your wife to explain to them the urgency of this, strict and immediate obediance, and in a manner that they will remain yet children and innocent.

You and your wife will decide when to implement it and when to take other action that is advised.

Please take my word for it; a simple exercize like this can be the most valuable thing you can teach.

It works.

And perhaps one other parenting discipline for them.
-To hush and pay attention immediately when you need that.

How you react depends on the situation, if you all can safely evacuate that's probably best.

I posted this a while ago:

shadowalker said:

I'm creating this thread because a lot of guys I know have not talked with their wives and children about what to do in the case of a lethal situation.

It is very important that they know how you are going to act and what is expected of them. In the middle of an event is not the time to get in an argument with your wife about whether she should leave without you.

It needs to be defined for at home and when you are at large. My family's response to this problem was the following:

Our emergency keyword is defcon 1. Kind of funny, maybe even lame but my step son liked it and it isn't in general vocabulary. It is also very short, in a bad situation it is likely I'm going to be busy and not have a whole lot of time to talk.

If anyone in the family says that while we are at home everyone knows what they are supposed to react and what to do.

In public defcon 1 will be followed by: Go, Stay, Down or Follow. If I say go they are to go to the nearest exit without protest. When you go to a public place point out emergency and non traditional exits to your family. The majority of people don't look for them and are going to run for the front door putting you at risk of not getting out fast enough or getting trampled.

I may need to buy them time and may not accompany them and they understand it is not the time to protest.

There is a lot more to it but this is already a kind of large post and my intent is to get people to think about it and discuss it with their families.

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Why deal with codes? If the situation requires immediate action, tell them specifically what to do, so there is no question about what is happening.

Even with practice, when you utter the code word "Chihuahua", the response will like be "huh?". Especially from kids.

If you want them to run, turn and tell them "run!", with a shove in the right direction. If you want them to get down, tell them, and push them to the ground (as forcefully as necessary).

An emergency code come in handy when you don't have time to tell them specifically what to do, especially if you are at home and have a standard response.

It also helps to establish mindset so they know it is a serious situation.

I do agree there doesn't need to be a code for stay, another for go, another for follow, etc.

It is also smart to have a duress code arranged with your spouse so either of you can alert the other one that you are under duress and everything is not fine (even though that may be what you are saying).

Meh. I see what you are saying, but I just think if it is a true emergency, there is no reason to say anything other than what you mean. Who are you trying to hide your intent from? Besides, nothing says "serios situation" like yelling "RUN!" to your wife/kids. Again, I feel like there is too much room for error with codes.

The duress code with a spouse is a very good idea.

Code Words

Duress Codes are very useful to spouses so that each immediately understands that something is wrong.

You also need to consider how to call off the emergency. Let's say you said "Run" (at home), what is the best way to let everyone in hiding know that it is safe to come out of hiding?

You could still be under the influence of the bad guys and do not want to bring everyone out of hiding. You need an alternate signal that is not spoken.

I suggest a loud whistle. This way no matter what you are forced to say, no one will come out until they hear the whistle blow. Very few bad guys will know this about your self defense plan, which is why only your family should be told about this.

If your spouse is in a safe room and you want to get in, you could use a code word that is the first and last names of someone who you each know, but is not common knowledge to others. The way it works:

Your spouse will not open the door until you call your spouse's name

Your spouse responds with the first name of the code person and then,

You respond with the code person's last name.

This would be problematic if the bad guy has a gun on you and asks "What does that mean?". Using a whistle allows you to say anything without alerting the bad guy.


Capt. Art

nothign says "serios situation" like yelling "RUN!" to your wife/kids.

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We mostly agree, our emergency keyword is to trigger the proper mindset and give context to the actual command. The commands we use are go, stay, follow or down.

There are times I may want to alert my family without alerting everyone else or attracting the attention of the aggressor. They may not be aware of the threat or it may be a very quiet or calm command and I need them to know I'm serious. I want everyone to escape but I want my loved ones to escape first.

I'm not going to have time to give detailed instructions, I may be busy soaking up bullets to give them the time to escape.

This situation worries me too. My experience is that wives, girlfriends, children are not good at obeying split second commands. I remember one time we were in the car on a freeway and the traffic came to a stop and I saw in my mirror a car behind us that seemed to have not noticed that the road was jammed. I yelled at my family to sit up straight and brace themselves in their seats. The kids paid not the slightest attention while my wife said "How dare you yell at us". Fortunately the car behind swerved onto the shoulder at the last moment.

In the gunfight scenario presented, I would hope that wives, girlfriends, and children would escape while I attracted the BG's attention. Maybe the best option is to agree with the wife or girlfriend in advance that her job in this situiation is to slip off with the children into cover or concealment as soon as an opportunity arises. There certainly won't be time to discuss it on the spot. With preagreement, your job is to deal with the threat as if the family were not there and her job is to slip away with the children and leave the gunfight to you.

duns, good story and exactly why they need to know that if the command is given it is not the time to question or get hurt feelings, it is time to act.

Training is very important, make it a game to practice the commands, reward those that are the fastest. In an emergency upper brain function shuts down and if they've practiced it they will follow the training if they've practiced enough.

Also a lot of people can't dial 911 in an emergency, so disconnect the phone and practice dialing 911.

It's also a good idea to play the exit game, after a few minutes of being in a building ask your family to name all the exits they can (without looking). Then let them look around and identify other exits.

The main entrance / exit is where the BG most likely will enter and he's going to start doing evil pretty quick. Most people only know where the main entrance is so they'll stampede towards it. Even if the BG isn't at the primary exit it would stink to survive the BG and get trampled to death by panicked people.

Hey, shadowalker, thanks for your supportive message. I agree with you 100% about practicing for different scenarios but your suggestion that the main entrance is where and intruder will most likely enter is not necessarily the case. In my house, I can identify two spots that are weaker than the main entrance. Scenarios for practice need to be situation-specific. Also, we need to practice for out-of-the-house scenarios. Another problem is that my family is so anti-gun they don't want to practice any scenarios - but that's a subject for another thread!

Sorry a lot of what I said is meant for public like a store or restaurant.

But even at home the front door or open / unlocked first floor window is often how they get in, also a lot of the time the victims open the door for the BG.

Making it into a game can come a long way towards overcoming resistance. Also rather than focusing on guns just quietly show them instances of police arriving too late and ask them "what would you do in this situation?" and then "what if there were two, or a large male and I wasn't home?" The response may be "that isn't likely to happen" so then wait patiently and point out cases of it happening.

We want them to come to our side willingly, if you get them thinking about individual situations they usually will see the need to be able to defend themselves. It took my wife a while but she went from neutral to VERY pro self defense / pro 2A.

shadowalker said:

Sorry I meant in public like a store or resturant. But even at home the front door or open / unlocked first floor window is often how they get in.

People let intruders in by opening the door, family members should be taught not to open the door for unknown people.

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Sorry for misunderstanding your previous post. I think we are in agreement.

My one experience was a good lesson.

My wife and grandson were off to my left when a belligerent psychopath charged me in objection to my (reasonably) polite request that he prevent his puppy from repeatedly knocking down my grandson at a dog park.

[It should be noted this happens on occasion at the the dog park, and is usually solved by a combination of efforts on the part of a responsible grandpa and a responsible dog owner. But not this time.]

Suddenly he was coming right at me with his fists balled and shouting angrily at me. I can tell you that it developed quickly and I only had time to brace myself with my hand on my pocket revolver and tell him we had nothing more to talk about.

He hesitated a half step and just then - my wife who saw what was about to happen jumped between us and screamed, "I'm sick of this s**t!"

[It should also be noted that in 34 years of marriage, I've never been involved in a fight. So I'm not sure what she was referring to - and neither is she.]

I think he was slowed down my defensive stance - and I KNOW he was stopped short by my wife's exhibition. He declared if it wasn't for my wife and kid, he'd really "...f*** me up!"

My wife and I agreed in retrospect that initially, I should have simply removed our grandson without comment. Further, she realized - once it developed as it did - she should have kept out of it, moved our grandson as far away as possible, and allowed me to attempt to defuse the situation or, failing that, handle it as best I could.

Incidentally, although disapproving at first when I chose to arm myself, she no longer has anything negative to say about it. It was clear from this miscreant's behavior that a beating was his immediate intent.

I'm not taking a beating from anyone. Too many innocent people have lost there lives around here lately as a result of receiving a beating by a thug. I'll avoid it any way I can, including running and hiding - or sweet-talking the aggressor if I think it's working.

This one was awfully close, and I'm convinced nothing was going to stop him short of drawing - and perhaps firing. Or a crazed wife. Even though it worked this time - I don't recommend the crazed wife defense.