How many people here have used a gun to defuse a situation?

[Certaindeaf]

Back in WWll, yes, we unskinned and were prepared to use the atom bomb, after warning/demanding standing down. We didn't have to drop/deploy it/them but sure did.. because they didn't. What the heck are you talking about? pretty much the same thing.. it ain't done until it's done done.

 

[Grassman]

This guy sure defused the situation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=FwKq9vY6wp8#!

 

[Trent]

Oh my, THAT was an excellent video.

 

[Crash_Test_Dhimmi]

I was in Nangarhar Afghanistan working a checkpoint. Buddy had an M4, and was dismounted, I was mounted with a 240B. A technical of ANA (Afghan National Army), armed with AKs and a PKM was trying to get through. They did not have clearance to get through.

ANA starts getting belligerent, one of them attempts to open the gate himself, as he did so he flagged my buddy with his AK. Buddy says "Oh Hell no", and locks and Loads on the ANA soldier. ANA soldier reciporicates, locks and loads, Mexican Standoff ensues.

As the situation escalates, I SLLLOOWWWLLLLY turn my turret towards the technical, so that the 240B is not pointed at the technical, but I could easily swing it down if I had to. Although the ANA outnumbered us, they were in a Ford Ranger (no armor), I was in an uparmored HMMWV on an elevated position with a 240B, and another buddy in a nearby tower had an 240B, (but he did not have a good line of sight on the ANA. and I was actually behind the ANA from his vantage point, which neutralized that position). Everyone else, watches me, sees the look in my eyes and understands their situation.

The remaining ANA dont lock and load, dude with the PKM puts the weapon down on top of the Ranger. No one else touches their weapons. We call in for some backup, it arrives, and we watch the ANA commander yell at everyone in the technical. No one got shot. Crisis averted. This was one of two Mexican Standoffs I was in with the ANA. Other one was a lot funnier, involved an intoxicated Afghan Commando Commander making direct threats against the Americans.

 

[chrisf8657]

Only time I've had to pull is with a neighbor's new dog that came out of nowhere chasing a cat faster than I've ever seen, then sees me standing outside my door smoking a cigarette, and barrels toward me snarling and barking...luckily, it stopped and snarled, barked, etc. 4 feet from me once I pointed my gun at it. I was ready to shoot it, but luckily was able to back up and get back into my house. Told the neighbor kid how close that dog came, said he was sorry but I didn't really think he cared based on the way he said it.

That was about 3-4 years ago, I heard about 8 months ago the dog actually did bite someone and was put down from a friend of the familys (they moved).

 

[Arp32]

Never have, never tried, and hope to never have to.

Had an ex-girlfriend stumble into a domestic dispute in front of my apartment once. Guy had pushed his girlfriend (and her/their baby) into some bushes and there was a lot of yelling.

My girlfriend, the do-gooder, runs back up to my apartment where I was about to shower. She opens door, yells at me to call police, then she runs back downstairs (towards the danger!).

So there I stand, confused, half undressed, and girlfriend had run back towards whatever situation was outside. I called 911, put on some shorts and thought to myself, "gun or dog, gun or dog..."

Being in a crowded apartment complex near a major university, I chose dog over 1911.

By the time I got downstairs my girlfriend was consoling the other girl and crying baby, still sprawled out in the landscaping. Other dude was pacing around, waving his arms and cursing, telling us "you got no business in this!"

I went towards my girlfriend, dude advanced on me, and he got about 15 feet from me when my Akita turned it on. Haven't seen the dog react like that before or since. She had perfect timing and was ever but as fierce as you could imagine a full grown Akita who was protecting her family.

The guy immediately reconsidered his options, turned tail, got in his truck and drove away. I never said a word to him. I think I was still on the phone with 911, actually.

In retrospect, I lucked out. Afterwards I gave the girlfriend a real talking to about calling 911 and being a good witness from afar. Also, the dog got a nice new bone.

 

[beatledog7]

Certaindeaf,

I'm neither brainless nor a robot. If I draw, I already know what will cause me to shoot. If enough time passes and that "trigger" doesn't happen, I enter into another decision cycle. It might take only seconds for that new cycle to start, but it is a new cycle.

I believe that may be what you refer to. Either that, or you've missed the point entirely.

 

[CSC_Saint]

So a couple years back, my apartment neighbor comes down and tells me and my wife that 15-20 methed out teenagers are en route to our building to stomp her younger sister for telling them something they didn't appreciate. I asked if they had called the cops and she said yes, but as they were not actually there yet causing a disturbance they were not able to respond.

Okay, so now is the time to stage a few weapons in key places, i.e. home defense in depth.

A little background on the family about to be threatened, teenage girl lives with 20 yr old sister who has 3 yr old daughter and they live with 50 something yr old mother. Lotsa women, no defense plan on their part. They came to me cuz I'm an army scout, my other neighbor, commo guy in army with wife and 2 yr old daughter, and my family: wife and 1 yr old daughter.

So lo and behold, yes close to 20 very loud and very worked up males with a couple girls most certainly do show up at my apartment building. The neighbors head inside, thus working the group up even more (they believe the teenage girl is to scared to take a beating, I'd agree with that as well as call it smart). As soon as this group has arrived my wife is on the phone with 911, she is armed, but not drawn. My army neighbor comes home at just this time and has no idea what is going on, but he wants to de-escalate and I have to drag him inside to let him know that that's not going to happen.

Now I have a Mossberg 500 back then, and I did have it handy, but I stayed out of it all until the group started threatening my wife and beating on the girls' door and destroying the flower pots they have outside of their door. At this time, I figure things have gone too far and I don't hear sirens in the distance yet. So step outside to where I am visible to all, I have my S&W m&p as backup with my Mossberg as primary, and I rack the shotgun and yell, "this has gone too far, cops are on their way, and you need to go now!" Well... needless to say, situation definitely defused because all the aggressors dispersed back to their respective vehicles.

I went back in my house, cleared my weapons and waited for the cops to arrive and I even waved them down. I told, along with half the neighborhood , the cops what had happened, my actions, and when asked, handed over my weapons to have serial numbers checked. A few minutes of standing by myself and the cops told that I didn't have to worry about any charges, that they and their supervisor believed they would have done the same.

Did I escalate the situation, absolutely. You don't show up at someone' s house with 20ish people and try to break an old woman's door down who has her daughters and 3 yr old child living with her, and you don't threaten a total of 3 families all with children and expect that no escalation is going to occur. Did any real violence occur? No. Did I stop what was turning into a very deadly situation decisively? Yes. And I did make sure to keep my weapon pointed at the low ready, not leveled at some tweaked out high schooler's chest.

Threat of Force, was enough of a deterrent to stop a bad situation, which as taught in the concealed carry course I took, is a method of de-escalation.

 

[Vincent Vash]

So a couple years back, my apartment neighbor comes down and tells me and my wife that 15-20 methed out teenagers are en route to our building to stomp her younger sister for telling them something they didn't appreciate. I asked if they had called the cops and she said yes, but as they were not actually there yet causing a disturbance they were not able to respond.

Okay, so now is the time to stage a few weapons in key places, i.e. home defense in depth.

A little background on the family about to be threatened, teenage girl lives with 20 yr old sister who has 3 yr old daughter and they live with 50 something yr old mother. Lotsa women, no defense plan on their part. They came to me cuz I'm an army scout, my other neighbor, commo guy in army with wife and 2 yr old daughter, and my family: wife and 1 yr old daughter.

So lo and behold, yes close to 20 very loud and very worked up males with a couple girls most certainly do show up at my apartment building. The neighbors head inside, thus working the group up even more (they believe the teenage girl is to scared to take a beating, I'd agree with that as well as call it smart). As soon as this group has arrived my wife is on the phone with 911, she is armed, but not drawn. My army neighbor comes home at just this time and has no idea what is going on, but he wants to de-escalate and I have to drag him inside to let him know that that's not going to happen.

Now I have a Mossberg 500 back then, and I did have it handy, but I stayed out of it all until the group started threatening my wife and beating on the girls' door and destroying the flower pots they have outside of their door. At this time, I figure things have gone too far and I don't hear sirens in the distance yet. So step outside to where I am visible to all, I have my S&W m&p as backup with my Mossberg as primary, and I rack the shotgun and yell, "this has gone too far, cops are on their way, and you need to go now!" Well... needless to say, situation definitely defused because all the aggressors dispersed back to their respective vehicles.

I went back in my house, cleared my weapons and waited for the cops to arrive and I even waved them down. I told, along with half the neighborhood , the cops what had happened, my actions, and when asked, handed over my weapons to have serial numbers checked. A few minutes of standing by myself and the cops told that I didn't have to worry about any charges, that they and their supervisor believed they would have done the same.

Did I escalate the situation, absolutely. You don't show up at someone' s house with 20ish people and try to break an old woman's door down who has her daughters and 3 yr old child living with her, and you don't threaten a total of 3 families all with children and expect that no escalation is going to occur. Did any real violence occur? No. Did I stop what was turning into a very deadly situation decisively? Yes. And I did make sure to keep my weapon pointed at the low ready, not leveled at some tweaked out high schooler's chest.

Threat of Force, was enough of a deterrent to stop a bad situation, which as taught in the concealed carry course I took, is a method of de-escalation.

This was what I was looking for, examples when having/drawing but not shooting ended up with nobody getting hurt in an otherwise potentially much worse scenario.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Faulty logic.

Guns do not de-escalate anything. They intimidate and coerce. If someone is breaking into my home, I produce a gun and he runs off; the situation was not de-escalated, it was in fact escalated to the point of a deadly encounter and the perp fled.

You are looking for bona fide self defense stories, minus the actual gun shot.

That's incorrect. In an overhwelming percentage of cases when a gun is used defensively no shots are fired -- the simple fact that the victim is armed defuses the situation.

In my case, I was mugged and when I produced my .45, the mugger couldn't get away fast enough.

 

[Deanimator]

In '84, on the way back to Ft. Knox from Jefferson Barracks, St. Louis, a guy tried to run a friend and me off of the Interstate in the middle of the night. It was probably a carjacking attempt.

We were coming from an aborted FTX with the Missouri Army National Guard and a Military Explorer post, so we had firearms, both for firing blanks and for protection. I pulled my friend's HK93A3 out of the back of his Dodge Charger and chambered a round.

As our assailant began slowing down in front of us and weaving to prevent us from passing, I told my friend to hit the dome light when the guy was a foot off of our front bumper. When he did, the guy saw in his rear view mirror, two "foreign" soldiers, one of them pointing a semi-automatic rifle at him. He took off going about 110mph. He probably ruined his engine.

Right around this time, serial child molester, serial killer, and carjacker Alton Coleman was doing his midwest tour, on the same highways. There's a non-zero chance it was him. If it was him and he hadn't fled at the sight of the gun, at least one person might still be alive today that he subsequently murdered.

He was executed here in Ohio a few years ago, so I guess we'll never know.

If we hadn't been armed, things probably would have turned out VERY badly for us, regardless of who it was.

 

[Dixiejack]

Every action and/or thought is pure supposition until the trigger is pulled.

 

[Trent]

Tell you what.. I hope I never, EVER am put in a position where my only option is to pull the trigger on a human being.

You can't hit "UNDO" on that.

There's no reset button.

 

[AJumbo]

I have drawn a pistol or revolver to defend myself three times. I hated every one.

In the first incident, two drunk/high/maybe both youngsters wanted to drag me out of my vehicle and administer a beating; they were angry because they had just blindly wandered in front of said vehicle and almost ended up under my tires, which was OF COURSE my fault. I produced a revolver and told them to clear off or be shot. They cleared off. I drove a few blocks down the street and puked; I did not sleep that night, either.

In the second, a would-be carjacker tried to enter my vehicle through my passenger-side door. I shoved a revolver in his face and cocked it, telling him to "clear off or get shot." (That worked last time, so I went ahead and used it again.) He cleared off. I did not puke this time, or stay up all night, but I dreamed of the incident for weeks.

In the third case, a smelly, crazy, drugged-out bum hid in a jobsite where I was working and tried to ambush me after I had already run him off once. I could still smell him, and that alerted me to his presence. I found him and ran him off again, using the tried-and-true "clear off or get shot" line. He cleared off and I called the cops, hoping they'd arrest him and get him off the streets for the night. They didn't find him by the time I left the site. More nausea and bad dreams ensued.

I think the reason I didn't toss my waffle after the second instance was that I was angry at the carjacker. The other three guys didn't make me angry, they just scared me and put me into a position where I might have to kill someone for being stupid. Either way, I hope to never have to "repel boarders" ever again, but I will not hesitate if it becomes necessary.

 

[Trent]

Just a word of wisdom regarding the nausea thing. That also happens to me when I'm under high stress. We had a serious outage at work at a datacenter on August 2nd. The kind that called for me working 40 hours between August 2nd and 3rd. The first 6 hours of the incident I spent with a bucket by my desk, yakking the whole time I'm calling out orders to employees and working my ass off to get everything back up and running.

The whole time I had a clear head, was making good decisions, and relying on the techniques and strategies we'd worked up previously for dealing with this EXACT scenario.

While training will not make the yakking go away - it will allow you to ACT and REACT properly with a clear head and good judgement.

As it was, we pulled off a full switchover of all services in that center in 12 hours - remarkably fast for the amount of work to do; with the other 28 hours spent cleaning up brush fires and getting things "situated", prioritized by importance.

It was an eye opening experience, but I survived and learned that I can handle the "worst" my particular line of work could throw at me. While maintaining a level head.

So don't feel bad about yakking, man, it's part and parcel to high levels of stress and adrenaline.

 

[RalphS]

In the state of Florida, if you point a gun at someone, or even show a gun, and don't pull the trigger, you will be charged with Aggravated Assault with a Firearm.

It's a third degree felony with a minimum sentence of three years.

 

[Warp]

I have not. Not even close. Haven't even considered maybe considering it. I've been carrying full time for 7 years.

 

[Warp]

In the state of Florida, if you point a gun at someone, or even show a gun, and don't pull the trigger, you will be charged with Aggravated Assault with a Firearm.

It's a third degree felony with a minimum sentence of three years.

This statement is patently false.

 

[RalphS]

This statement is patently false.

No it's not. I've lived in Florida for 20 years. It's one of the most gun friendly states but you cannot legally point a gun at someone here or wave one around.

Do some googling of "florida aggravated assault with a firearm". If you hire a good criminal defense lawyer, like Gutmacher, you might get it plea bargained down to something without a mandatory prison sentence.

 

[Big_E]

I was always told to never draw your firearm unless you are absolutely going to use it.

There was a situation where I was about to draw, but it defused before I had to move my arm to prepare to draw.

My dad has had to do a similar thing. He was driving to lunch and saw a few men beating another man. He got out and made the gesture (arm to the back/side) and told all the men to drop on the ground. His buddy called the cops and the men stayed put until the cops arrived. He didn't have to draw at all, but had they not stopped or came after him I'm sure he would have had to. He was also OC'ing btw, but because of the angle of his body to the attackers I don't think they saw his Glock.

 

[Warp]

No it's not. I've lived in Florida for 20 years. It's one of the most gun friendly states but you cannot legally point a gun at someone here or wave one around.

If you have a reasonable belief that lethal force is necessary under your state laws you can legally point a gun at somebody.

Just because you are justified to use lethal force that doesn't mean you have to pull the trigger. Please don't tell people this. The thought that if you pull your gun you HAVE TO pull the trigger is a terribly incorrect, outright dangerous thing to tell people.

Do some googling of "florida aggravated assault with a firearm". If you hire a good criminal defense lawyer, like Gutmacher, you might get it plea bargained down to something without a mandatory prison sentence.

I am sure plenty of people have committed a crime by "waving a gun around", or by pointing a gun at somebody, without being justified in doing so.

 

[Warp]

I was always told to never draw your firearm unless you are absolutely going to use it.

That isn't quite correct. You should never draw unless you are ready, willing, and able to use it. Just because you draw that does not mean you HAVE TO shoot, and drawing but not shooting does not in and of itself mean you were not justified or that you "will be charged" with a crime.

There was a situation where I was about to draw, but it defused before I had to move my arm to prepare to draw.

It also happens, sometimes, that you draw but it defuses/things change before you get your sites on target and take the shot.

My dad has had to do a similar thing. He was driving to lunch and saw a few men beating another man. He got out and made the gesture (arm to the back/side) and told all the men to drop on the ground. His buddy called the cops and the men stayed put until the cops arrived. He didn't have to draw at all, but had they not stopped or came after him I'm sure he would have had to. He was also OC'ing btw, but because of the angle of his body to the attackers I don't think they saw his Glock.

Let's say they all three (I assume few = three) of the men moved towards your dad, and one pulls out a pocket knife...and your dad's gesture turnes into an actual draw stroke...but as soon he moved to draw the gun they turned and ran. Would he have been unjustified in drawing as the three came at him, or would he have to shoot them in the backs as they fled to avoid being charged?

The answers would seem to be no and no, in which case we have a scenario where one is justified in drawing despite not firing a shot.

 

[phonesysphonesys]

Yes. It is really wierd to see the expressions on someones face and their attitude change when you suddenly refuse to be a victime and point a gun at them. I get the shakes after but I haven't puked.

 

[TAKtical]

Brandishing is not cool. Only draw your weapon if you feel your life or the life of another is in danger.

 

[RalphS]

Warp, you may understand the laws of Georgia but you do not understand Florida law. You are advising people to commit a third degree felony under Florida law. Very dangerous and certainly not High Road.

I'm not going to argue this with you. The most prominent Criminal Defense Lawyer with respect to Firearms law in Florida is Jon Gutmacher. He publishes a book on Florida Firearms Law that is found in every gun shop in Florida and is used by LEOs as well as civilians. On his website, he states that he defends people charged with Aggravated Assault more than any other charge. I suggest you contact him and discuss your opinion of Florida law with him.

Peace, out.