Should You Draw ONLY IF your going to fire?

Clearing a house with the safety OFf is simply NOT fine, under ANY circumstances.

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Um, what if your gun doesn't have a safety?

With a blanket statement like you made woe be you if you use deadly force.

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Possibly in some states but not here.

As the Sheriff said a couple years ago when I had a little problem.
When you are finished with them give us a call and we will come out and get what's left.


Or another time when a POS threatened to kill my wife and I told the Sheriff,(a different Sheriff) "I'll find him".
All the Sheriff said was, "I bet you will".

As it turned out, before I found him, the POS killed another person. Shot the unarmed man in the face with a 44 Magnum, in front of the man's wife.


No, it's a fact, break in my place and it won't go well for that person.

Only draw if you are 100% willing to shoot.

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Shouldnt that be "only carry the gun if youre 100% willing to shoot"?

Or are they really just a status symbol/fashion accessory these days after all?

Shouldn't that be "only carry the gun if youre 100% willing to shoot"?

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YES!

I have to side with buck460xvr (#36) (though I believe Zimmerman could have avoided the incident by staying away and observing only).
People breaking in to steal are usually not armed. Just shooting someone because they are in the home like M2carbine suggests opens a host of legal problems for the home owner especially if the shot person is unarmed. The home owner might duck criminal charges but will face legal charges for sure from the perp's family.
Just because someone is in the home does not mean that person is out to do harm. As buck says, assessment of the situation is part of situational awareness and dialing 911 really should be the first act the home owner should initiate.
Furthermore there is a moral and spiritual aspect. Shooting first and asking questions later not only can bring severe legal trouble but also removes the moral and spiritual obligation every human being has towards another human being. That's why I'm against the stand your ground principle-it has caused bad behavior to escalate i.e Zimmerman, who knew better and should have avoided confrontation, and the "loud music" incident and trial going on now in Florida, another stupid act by someone who should have driven off and opted for avoiding confrontation that ALL CPL HOLDERS should abide to.
Deploying a firearm is serious business. I agree with buck that just because someone is discovered in a home does not give the homeowner a license to kill. Yes, be armed, have it ready with the finger off the trigger, call 911, confront, assess, if the person bolts and leaves the home let the person go. Let the police deal with it. Not killing, even if the person is a perp, is to me taking the high road morally and spiritually. If attacked defend yourself of course. But to me, just blasting away because someone entered your home is just not the path I would take.

M2 Carbine said:

If I draw I am "prepared" to fire.

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This.

My two cents if it matters: the act of drawing the gun, may itself end the situation. Second, if you wait to draw until you have decided you're going to fire, it may be too late to draw.

We sleep with a sound machine. It is a roaring sound like an old window air conditioner. If a home security system is not yet installed, or malfunctions, do people expect an intruder to make a loud noise?
Where my folks live in a very popular town in "LA" (Alabama), lots of people don't even use their security system, and this also happens in our neighborhood near Memphis.

It's wonderful news that intruders can always be detected when they open a window in a distant room.
Our front door (eight years old) doesn't always remain closed. The short bolts don't engage the holes very well.

When they ball their fist and come at me, the party is over. My head is held on by 2 screws and a metal plate ain a titanium cage, One good lick and I am dead, so that lick aint gona fall.

Ignition Override said:

We sleep with a sound machine. It is a roaring sound like an old window air conditioner.

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We sleep upstairs in a two story house. Generally there is a T.V. going at night as a poor man's wind machine. Intruder could walk in on us before we even had a clue......except for the 70 lb Bird-dog that sleeps at the foot of the bed. She jumps and barks at every little sound at night and runs down the stairs growling and acting like she's twice her size. She wouldn't bite anything but a dog biscuit, but she scares the 'ell outta people. If there's nuttin' wrong she runs back up and sits on the bed till things settle down. If she don't come back right away, I know it's time to go and check.

....and yes, the safety's off the 1911.

BSA1 said:

M2 Carbine,

With a blanket statement like you made woe be you if you use deadly force.

Me? I'm a coward. I have a yellow streak down my back a mile wide. I am going to do everything possible to back out of trouble. Break into my home? Heck that is what homeowners insurance is for (and a good way to get new stuff with replacement value insurance). On the street? Where the heck did I park my car? Lord forbid if I do ever have to use deadly force I want to be able to show to the Police and a Jury that I was the victim trying to retreat from the attack.

The way I see it being a coward is a lot cheaper than a defense attorney. And shooting your mouth off on public forums can cause you all sorts of legal problems.

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BSA,

We here in Texas have the Castle Doctrine. If someone is in the house then they people who live there are considered in danger and can fire at will. The DA cannot question if they were in fear of their life.

Yes to break into a Texas home is to enter a free-flre zone.

Deaf

Deaf Smith said:

BSA,

We here in Texas have the Castle Doctrine. If someone is in the house then they people who live there are considered in danger and can fire at will. The DA cannot question if they were in fear of their life.

Yes to break into a Texas home is to enter a free-flre zone.

Deaf

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Not only that, Texas law provides the crime victim immunity from civil liability from lawsuits brought by the intruder or attacker for personal injury or death that results from the lawful use of force.

I think that is impossible to answer. Unless you are LEO or former combat military. the chances of using your firearm is incredibly low, and I do not think you can difinitively say what you would do. I could imagine a situation where you convince yourself that you are going to shoot before you even draw. But at the same time situations change at the blink of an eye. Also, your willingness to fire and your actual ability to shoot someone are two entirely different things. I have trouble imagining I would pull a gun and hold someone at gun point, say, if I was getting robbed. But I could imagine pulling a gun preparing for the worst and the danger dissipating in some manner. I have been on the wrong end of a gun twice but never been on the good end. But I have also been in incredibly tense situations where I lost my **** so to speak. So I dont know for sure what I would do. But I have a good idea of what I think I would do. And unless you are doing everything in your power to get out of my way as fast as you can, I like to think I would fire without hesitating. I hope I never find out.

Yes.

I would never produce my pistol unless I intended on using it. Period.

Too many problems otherwise. Brandishing charges, may try to bluff you even if their unarmed, and if you shoot them say hello to murder charges, element of surprise gone, etc etc

Kleanbore said:

I am afraid that your understanding is flawed. The law mentions little things like unlawful entry, made with force,and it is not just a matter of someone being "in the house".

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In Illinois the entry has to be "(1) ... made or attempted in a violent, riotous, or tumultuous manner, and he reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent an assault upon, or offer of personal violence to, him or another then in the dwelling, or (2) He reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent the commission of a felony in the dwelling."

Outside the home it has to be in defense of person, or to stop a forcible felony, which carries an entirely different litmus test than in the home.

(We have a two-stage approach; we can use force to repel an intruder - but can only escalate to lethal force under certain conditions; violent entry is one of them, but that "reasonably believes" clause is troublesome; because now it's up to the jury to determine what a reasonable person would think.... a very gray, and murky water to be in.)

My 00.02 cents

I will only 'draw' if there is ANY chance that I feel the NEED to use deadly physical force.

I have done so a few hundred times [ was an LEO ] and I know the need to have it in hand BEFORE needing to acquire and fire.

If there is no NEED for DPF,then I use my other MAIN weapon [ the mind ] to decide what is required = leaving,calling 9/11, less than lethal force,etc.

I've never needed to draw (yet) and hope I don't have to, but if I do reach that point it is because I'm prepared to fire although I may decide not to.

As for clearing my house with safety off, that's a given for me as none of my handguns have safeties.

Every situation is different, and everyone will react differently. What worked for someone else may not work for you, and vice versa. If someone is in my home, my gun is out I have a tac light in the other hand and 2 spare mags in my pocket. If you wait you will get shot. My wife would be on the floor with a weapon and a phone, I would be on my way to the rifles. At that point its's up to the perp, live and leave or stay and take your chances.
The pistol is just to get me to a 12 gauge or an AR.
If I hear a noise that alerts my Dog, my gun is at the ready. Dogs usually know the normal sounds from the unique ones that don't belong. If your in my house, I have no questions for you.

self defense is a little too complicated and full of variables to have absolutes on topics like this

I don't know about anyone else, but I feel that I would assess the situation if there was an intruder in my home. I am not going to just start shooting.

As others have pointed out there are times when you think you loved one is in the bed and yet you end up killing them coming back from the kitchen.

Maybe I am crazy for thinking about this......but I know for sure that I would not want blood, guts, and brains sprayed all over my living space if my life wasn't in immediate danger. If some guy is trying to carry off my tv and isn't being violent then there won't be any shooting going on. My goodness, who would want to live through that and then have to deal with the disgusting aftermath let alone the legal and perhaps civil liability issues.

Basically it comes to escalation of force. You meet force with equal force. threatening you with hand, if you have to fight to get yourself free. If he draws a knife or pistol with intent to maim or kill, he will be fired upon indefinitely. I will not draw on an unarmed man.

I think of this as a problem of reaction time. About a second to see, process and begin to do. If I do not fumble from being scared, with luck a second to draw and point. That means that I am already behind 2 seconds of imminent danger, even if I notice it immediately.
From the bad guy point of view, my 1 second lucky draw gives him no time to do anything other than what he was doing to cause me imminent danger. And even if he did stop, it would take about 3/4 second for me to see, process that, and not pull the trigger.

Either way, not turning out well for someone.