How to deal with store robbery as a 3rd party CCW

[Agostini]

I guess I also see the whole "I'm just going to protect me and mine to hell with everyone else" attitude as part of the reason this country is going to hell in a handbasket.

I carry only to protect my own. I avoid everything else. I'm not a cop.

The idea of 'sheepdogs' guarding the rest of the herd is a ridiculous fantasy.

As to helping other fellow Americas, you've no idea how many lives I've saved.

 

[uspJ]

Lee: The article you linked is an excellent one, and I understand why you would consider it required reading. I've read it several times (including just now), and learn from it every time I do.

i read my required reading to post again, while it was very informative i still feel that it upheld many's belief here that one would be justified in using force preemptively to stop a potentially lethal act at the hands of an armed robber holding a gun on a person.

It is, however, just one man's analysis. As such, I'm not sure I can agree with your demand that we read and understand this man's analysis - or don't post in this thread again. But hey - your the Mod - not me (thank God!).

agreed, it did seem a bit excessive to require someone read the link before posting, but your the mod of this forum so your rules....

Problem is, it isn't the whole head you're shooting at. It's something about the size of a tennis ball, buried inside all that anatomy, that you have to get a bullet into in order to reliably hit the 'off' switch. From the front, the teeth/jaws may be enough to stop or deflect a pistol bullet. Pull high from the side and you get skull. Pull left or right and you get air, or teeth. Not an easy shot to make- not impossible, but not easy.

i would be willing to say that 99 times out of a hundred that a shot placed center mass to the head of a person with a defense suitable round would incapacitate them to the point that the threat was sufficiently ended.

a friend of mine was shot in the head several months ago in a home invasion, the bullet entered by the brow and exited by the ear on the opposited side of his head. he was shot with a small caliber pistol (.22, .25). i would say with confidence had that been a .380 or larger i would have been attending a funeral instead of a hospital.

yes, there are flukes such as the 12 guage slug bouncing off the bill of a hat, but that is the exception rather than the rule. there is a reason people train double taps and failure to stop drills, if your shot doesn't stop a threat you shoot again.

if i were in a position to shoot an armed robber i would not hesitate, he has placed every life in danger the minute he walked into the store with a gun and the intent to commit a crime. i'm not psychic and will not wait for innocent blood to be spilled, because i wanted to wait for the armed criminal to make it perfectly clear that he has no qualms with taking a life.

 

[Mikhail Weiss]

contributor
we are likely to cause the gun to go off, harming the clerk. [et alia, argumenta]

Ah. So it is the perceived likelihood of concatenation that deters, indeed the belief that such is the most likely outcome, not merely that it is a possibility. Okay.

I'm still puzzled by the conditional argument, however, as the outcome remains unresolved during the crime, and it requires decoding unspecified secondary cues while ignoring a specific primary one. But so it goes.

I'm not surprised by this, though:

contributor
Once he has fired...

I suspect that few are inclined to believe the situation is genuinely dire till the clerk is shot, and that gunfire, therefore, is the only acceptable indicator to many. I also expect that the vast majority of normal people are not prepared to shoot another, under any circumstances, if they can escape doing so. Thus I also suspect that the majority of legally armed citizens would rather flee at this moment than shoot. Understandable, too. Shooting the BG after the fact doesn't prevent the fact, though it may prevent him shooting others, namely [insert own name here].

This is beginning to look like it splits individuals into Rotter-like classes, those possessed of an internal locus of control versus external.

Interesting. I probably wouldn't have spent much time considering the matter, nor have reached such a seemingly obvious conclusion, but for the conversation.

 

[Kleanbore]

Posted by Agostini: The idea of 'sheepdogs' guarding the rest of the herd is a ridiculous fantasy.

You can say that again!

Posted by uspj: i read my required reading to post again, while it was very informative i still feel that it upheld many's belief here that one would be justified in using force preemptively to stop a potentially lethal act at the hands of an armed robber holding a gun on a person.

I agree.

That one would be justified does not make that course of action wise, however.

i would be willing to say that 99 times out of a hundred that a shot placed center mass to the head of a person with a defense suitable round would incapacitate them to the point that the threat was sufficiently ended.

OK then. I doubt that conclusion. Something on the order of 10% of head shot victims survive, but the real question is how many would reflexively pull the trigger. However, for the sake of discussion, lets use that number. For me the stakes are far to high to bet on that assumption, or on the assumption that the robber would not move at the last minute.

You wouldn't fly in an airplane of a type that crashed once in each hundred flights, would you? Even Chas. A. Lindbergh had the engine predicted failure rate of his Wright Whirlwind engine figured to an infintessimal fraction of that likelihood.

if i were in a position to shoot an armed robber i would not hesitate, he has placed every life in danger the minute he walked into the store with a gun and the intent to commit a crime. i'm not psychic and will not wait for innocent blood to be spilled, because i wanted to wait for the armed criminal to make it perfectly clear that he has no qualms with taking a life.

So--you would not hesitate to raise the level of danger to the lives of everyone in the store by being the one to start the bullets flying?

Posted by Mikhail Weiss: I suspect that few are inclined to believe the situation is genuinely dire till the clerk is shot, and that gunfire, therefore, is the only acceptable indicator to many.

Perhaps some, but I'm not among them.

If someone comes into an establishment to rob people, points a gun at someone, and demands money, the situation is dire indeed--even if it happens to turns out that that he is working alone.

The question is whether one is likely to make things worse by acting.

I haven't had the opportunity to ask any of my LEO friends what their departments expect them to do in such a situation, but I tend to doubt that they would be expected to shoot unless they saw it as a last resort and had a perfectly safe backstop.

On the other hand, we have discussed on a number of occasions what they would do if they were in another jurisdiction, and what a civilian should do. Without dissent, that is to keep the gun in the holster. That's partly because of the lack of indemnification, but the likelihood of greatly increasing the level of risk weighs heavily also.

 

[ChaoSS]

OK then. I doubt that conclusion. Something on the order of 10% of head shot victims survive, but the real question is how many would reflexively pull the trigger. However, for the sake of discussion, lets use that number. For me the stakes are far to high to bet on that assumption, or on the assumption that the robber would not move at the last minute.

Did I miss somebody's post, or am I still waiting for any anecdotal evidence of that actually happening, where someone put a kill shot through someone's head and it made the person reflexively shoot?

You wouldn't fly in an airplane of a type that crashed once in each hundred flights, would you? Even Chas. A. Lindbergh had the engine predicted failure rate of his Wright Whirlwind engine figured to an infintessimal fraction of that likelihood.

That's a ridiculous analogy. It's more like, if the plane were going down, do you want to stay in the plane and risk the water landing, or jump out of the plane with a risky parachute.

You are already in a risky situation here, one which you have the opportunity to end instantly with a clean kill shot. There's no reason to start a running gun battle.

 

[JDoe]

Did I miss somebody's post, or am I still waiting for any anecdotal evidence of that actually happening, where someone put a kill shot through someone's head and it made the person reflexively shoot?

Excellent point. Someone cite the source for this please.

 

[Fred Fuller]

Reflexively shoot? I don't know. 'Still capable of deliberate action after being shot in the head' might be a different thing, though.

Take a look at the thread at http://www.lmsdefense.com/forum/index.php?topic=5950.0 , and note the comments by Doc (Dr. Ed Draper).

Or blogger Ambulance Driver, a paramedic, at http://ambulancedriverfiles.com/2010/03/on-stopping-power/ . He's a shooter too, BTW.

Or http://www.madogre.com/interviews/Magic_Bullets.htm

fwiw,

lpl

 

[ChaoSS]

LL, perhaps I should withdraw what I said earlier about a single shot.


Nevertheless, I still maintain that for someone who is confident in their ability to put a bullet into someone's brain, and not just that one little spot in the brain, taking the shot brings with it risk that is insignificant enough as to be discounted next to the risk of the guy deciding to start shooting the place up.

For those who are not confident in their ability to shoot someone's head, I can understand the unwillingness to engage, however, emptying a full magazine into someone's back is going to take the fight out of them in a big hurry (or however many shots it takes until they drop) and I doubt that even that would cause an assailant to reflexively shoot the person at gunpoint. If you keep shooting until the threat is down, the repeated shocks to the body are pretty well going to prevent anyone from intentionally shooting back.

Yes, some people might be able to take bullets and keep going, but even a single bullet is going to take the fight out of you for a split second. (long enough to put the next round into the guy.)


All I'm saying is that no one has yet brought up anecdotal evidence of any sort where someone opened fire, and did it properly, and it made it into a worse situation.

 

[Kleanbore]

Posted by ChaoSS: All I'm saying is that no one has yet brought up anecdotal evidence of any sort where someone opened fire, and did it properly, and it made it into a worse situation.

The real question is, who has shown evidence that such an action is not likely to result in such a a situation.

Common sense says that it may well happen; on what would one base a prediction that it would not?

Do you really want to stake everything in the world on the question of whether actions such as that which is considered here, which have occurred very infrequently, have ever resulted in tragedy?

Remember, what is at stake is not only your future and that of your family, but also that of everyone in the store, including that clerk whose life you seem to be so concerned about.

No one I know has ever been responsibly advised to open fire on an armed robber who has the drop on a vicim and who has not yet fired or turned his gun away from the robbery victim or started firing.

If one does not shoot, there is some chance that no one will be hurt, and some chance that someone will. If one does shoot, there is every likelihood that someone will be hurt. Do not expect to be regarded as the hero in the latter case--by anyone, the clerk, others in the store, law enforcement, the community, or your family.

Do you really want to be testifying that you thought you had a shot that you assumed would prevent injury to the clerk, but that it did not, either because it proved ineffective, or because he moved just as you squeezed the trigger? Do you really want to have to explain why you thought such an idea to have been prudent?

 

[GLOOB]

I don't think a headshot is going to be practical very often. You'd practically have to do that unnoticed to have a high chance of a hit. This means catching the robber offguard from close distance - might happen. Or shooting him in the back of the head while unnoticed - where you might be better off just leaving or taking cover. And he'd have to be standing pretty still for that. If he was nervous or excited (do you think he might be?), he might be in constant motion. If you're nervous or excited (do you think you might be?) you could have a hard time aiming at a small, moving target that might shoot back.

If you aren't completely out of his line of view, then he will likely notice. The first thing he'll do when he sees your gun? I'm guessing it's to duck. I believe that's a fairly universal response when looking down the barrel of a gun.

This is all just conjecture. But statistically speaking, headshots in SD shootings seem pretty rare, and I'm supposing there's a reason for that.

 

[rainbowbob]

If one does shoot, there is every likelihood that someone will be hurt.

Well yeah, but if you have a good shot and are confident that you'll make it - the "someone" who is hurt is most likely gong to be the assailant.

 

[Fred Fuller]

ChaoSS,

Apparently nothing I or anyone else says can convince you that pistols are not death rays. I hope you never get it wrong in real life...

lpl
==========================

http://cbs2chicago.com/local/De.La.Salle.2.336431.html?detectflash=false
A De La Salle Institute student is recovering Thursday after being shot in the back. He would have gone to the hospital sooner, but he didn't know he had been shot.

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2007/dec/18/172334/me-god-was-with-me-man-shot-in-polk-arson-says/
Greisman said he didn't know he had been shot until his family reacted.
"I realized I didn't have a nose anymore," he said.

http://www.contactmusic.com/news.ns...en-shot-in-1981-assassination-attempt_1034356
Former U.S. President RONALD REAGAN didn't know he had been shot when a man attempted to assassinate him in 1981 - he only realised when he started coughing up blood.

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=7382298
Initially, Torres said, he didn't know he had been shot.
"My ear was hurting and then I ran inside, and then I took my hand, and then I saw that I was bleeding," Ader said.

http://tech.zicos.com/news.php/n/5519777/DVD-blocks-bullet
McRoy didn't know he had been shot until he was telling a police officer what happened. "I felt something like being hit in the stomach and assumed it was the percussion from the discharged firearm," he said. Then he saw a hole in his jacket. He put his hand into his pocket and pulled out a handful of shattered plastic.

 

[HOWARD J]

Here in s/e michigan you don't want to let yourself get involved in a robbery if at all possible b/cause you will find when you get to court that in most cases you will be made out to be the BG & the poor -out of work-on welfare guy at the other side of the room is the victim. Heaven forbid--you pull your weapon & someone gets shot ( even the bg)--
you will end up wishing you were never born.................

 

[sniper5]

If firearms killed instantly I'd be out of a job. The fact is that I routinely (several times a month) see people of all shapes and sizes shot with all manner of weapons from .22 to .45 to shotguns and they are very much alive. Many conscious and talking. With hits to chest, head, abdomen, etc. The most memorable recently: An individual shot with a .40 handgun round to the head, bullet lodged center of brain between the hemispheres after an attempted execution style shooting to the head, awake, talking, oriented and stable. An individual with a self inflicted .308 wound to the abdomen. Contact wound with a 12" exit hole (probably from gas pressure) on the opposite side of the body, awake talking and oriented with stable vitals. An individual shot in the chest 4 times near center of mass, awake talking oriented that we had to chemically paralyze and rush to surgery and was awake and sitting in bed reading a newspaper the next morning. I have probably a hundred more. Firearms CAN kill and stop. But it's no guarantee. Ask anyone who's been in combat and been shot. Sometimes it's like killing cockroaches (some of them ARE cockroaches).

But I just take care of them and help keep them alive. I'm not an "EXPERT" like many on the internet.

 

[Fred Fuller]

There's more...

http://menmedia.co.uk/news/s/1239405_man_with_bullet_in_brain_has_no_memory_of_being_shot
...he has told detectives he can't remember being shot.
Ballistic experts have studied x-rays and concluded the object entered through Mr Hesford's eye.
A later CT scan suggested it was a bullet.

http://wcbstv.com/national/bullet.brian.chinese.2.244754.html
It's hard to think you wouldn't notice if you happened to get shot in the head, but one Chinese woman went 64 years with a bullet lodged in her skull without her knowledge.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-s...-bush-with-a-bullet-in-her-brain-1132012.html
Her life was thrown into turmoil when anti-government rebels attacked her village in 1996, slaughtering her parents and sending her on a desperate flight, alone, into the bush. She was just five years old.
There she was picked up by another fleeing young couple who assumed her bleeding head wound had been caused by a thrown rock or stick and was not very serious.
After walking 150 miles through rebel-occupied territory, the trio finally arrived in the capital, Freetown, and spent a year battling for survival against the twin terrors of disease and starvation.
It was then that Tenneh's incredible story emerged. Complaining of headaches and suffering deafness and speech impairment, she was taken for a skull X-ray in the city hospital where the unexpected shape of a bullet from a Kalashnikov emerged on the film.

http://www.clickorlando.com/news/5737195/detail.html
A man in Volusia County, Fla., woke up Thursday and found his head bleeding, drove to work and left a note for his boss before going to the hospital and finding out he had a bullet lodged in his brain.

 

[Kleanbore]

Posted by Lee Lapin: There's more...

Wow. You have me more convinced than before.

Clearly, the objective is to avoid having the clerk shot, not to injure the robber. I don't see how any shot I could reasonably take would have a sufficiently high likelihood of doing so, and I think it very likely that I would just make things a lot worse. I have discussed that risk already, but the examples you have cited and those discussed by sniper5 really illustrate just how high the risk is even if you do happen to hit the "ten ring".

Of course, the scenario isn't about bulls eye shooting, is it? You'll likely have to draw and fire instantly, as one is shown in SD training--anything else could well set off the fireworks one way or another. And that "target" is as likely to move as to stay still, isn't it?

Hard to imagine anyone coming out of this as a hero, I think.

The clerk will almost certainly have been told by his management to hand over the money in such a a situation. Yes, the robber just might choose to gun him down in front of witnesses after he gets the money, or he might shoot inadvertently, but there doesn't seem to be a really good way of preventing that with any acceptable level of confidence, does there?

 

[uspJ]

OK then. I doubt that conclusion. Something on the order of 10% of head shot victims survive, but the real question is how many would reflexively pull the trigger.

i never said that the robber wouldn't survive. i said that he would most likely be incapacitated to the point of the threat being ended. i have see several headshot survivors in my time working in prisons. all of them i have see were either bed ridden or wheelchair bound with significant losses in both speeech and motor skills.

yes, as sniper5 pointed out sometimes headshot victims do seem unphased by the shot. my mother and a friend of mine who were both paramedics at one time have told me accounts of massive headwounds were the victims were still fully functioning and responsive to their enviroments.

do people survive severe head trauma? absolutely. is it the exception to the rule? yes. i guess all these defensive firearms trainers have been setting us up for failure all these years teaching failure to stop drills and head shots.

So--you would not hesitate to raise the level of danger to the lives of everyone in the store by being the one to start the bullets flying?

would you raise the level of danger to the lives of everyone in your home if a man with a gun came in and demanded money? other than the setting where the act takes place there would be no difference. i'm sure a reasonable person would hold off and wait to see if their wife, children, siblings or whoever was there was shot before acting...i mean afterall we wouldn't want to escalate things. the robber may reflexively jerk the trigger and hurt someone if we do. it would probably be the most prudent act to follow all demands given by them, they just want our money or possesions right? please don't forget the most important factor in this discussion so far, don't act because nobody wants to get sued.

pistols are not death rays.

absoulutely right they are not death rays, plasma cannons or loaded with magic instant death bullets, neither are shotguns, rifles or handgrenades for that matter. that is why responsible ccw'ers and firearm owners owe it to ourselves to train and become as proficient as possible with their weapon, so they can defeat a threat as safely and quickly as possible.

do things go wrong sometimes? absolutely they do, this is the real world not some hollywood soundstage or video game where we can try repeatedly to get it right. the fact that this is the real world is why one should act, you don't get a second take and there is no reset button if the gunman does decide to escalate things.

another thing to consider is when an armed robber is faced with armed resistance they almost always run away, they rarely stand and fight. even if you only wounded a robber the chances of him turning to you or the rest of the people in the store to attack is slim. he will know that he has been shot and that the situation is now spiralling out of his control and in all likelyhood he will retreat.

could my actions cause others to be harmed? yes there is a possibility, but i like the odds that the gunman will flee if he isn't incapacitated over waiting to see if someone in the store gets shot because i didn't act.

 

[sniper5]

Personally, I would try to let the situation play out as long as possible, and hope the perp will take the money and run. If shots are fired, or the perp turns their gun towards me, then I'd just have to go for broke and try to fire until he was stopped, understanding that it's going to be ugly and messy and there's a good chance of getting shot or sustaining collateral damage (innocent victims) while eliminating the threat. While it would be really nice to have the perp miss his shot and then drop him with one shot, the reality may very well be different, and I think it's naive not to realize that.

 

[uspJ]

Personally, I would try to let the situation play out as long as possible, and hope the perp will take the money and run. If shots are fired, or the perp turns their gun towards me, then I'd just have to go for broke and try to fire until he was stopped, understanding that it's going to be ugly and messy and there's a good chance of getting shot or sustaining collateral damage (innocent victims) while eliminating the threat.

i understand that view, but if it was one of your loved ones behind the counter or in the store would you want someone to wager that bet on their safety?

While it would be really nice to have the perp miss his shot and then drop him with one shot, the reality may very well be different, and I think it's naive not to realize that.

i agree. taking anothers life is a serious, nasty, and traumatic thing. attempting to do so may play into your favor and it may turn on you and put you down for the count. you can do everything right and still die but that is the chance everyone on the planet has to live with, not just those who choose to carry.

 

[Kleanbore]

please don't forget the most important factor in this discussion so far, don't act because nobody wants to get sued.

No one who acts is going to get sued unless (1) he or she shoots someone, or (2) someone believes that the facts indicate some likelihood that the shooter otherwise contributed to someone's having been killed or injured through imprudent conduct, or (3) both of the above.

So--if there is a lawsuit, very bad things have already happened to good people. That's bad enough.

Did your action contribute to harm to innocent persons for which the robber is most likely criminally liable? You may not think so, but the burden of proof for the plaintiff(s) is a lot less stringent than it would be for a criminal prosecution, and even if you prevail, you may be ruined. And would you never doubt whether the harm might not have happened but for your action?

i understand that view [hope the perp will take the money and run], but if it was one of your loved ones behind the counter or in the store would you want someone to wager that bet on their safety?

I wouldn't bet anyone's life or safety on the assumption that I could effectively prevent someone who is holding a gun on them at point blank range from firing by drawing and shooting.

This very scenario was discussed when a friend of mine took his CCW training in Florida last year. The instructor's advice was to not shoot because shooting would likely precipitate death and/or injury that would probably not otherwise occur.

I infer from that that a sworn officer there would not shoot either, but I haven't had that confirmed.

Most attorneys where I live advise against using deadly force to protect a third party, even though it is permitted under the law. There are a lot of reasons for their saying that. My personal rule is that I will only intervene if I know the circumstances, know the third party (policeman's uniform qualifies for that), my intervention is immediately necessary, I am confident that my shooting will not make things worse, and I will not put others at undue risk.

By the way, has it occurred to anyone that, if the robber is not sufficiently aware of what you are doing to defend himself against you, that most probably means that his accomplice is?

 

[ChaoSS]

The real question is, who has shown evidence that such an action is not likely to result in such a a situation.

Common sense says that it may well happen; on what would one base a prediction that it would not?

Hollywood illusions aside, common sense most certainly does not dictate that a target who has just had his brain ventilated will pull the trigger on the person he has been pointing it at. In fact, if the shot somehow triggers involuntary movements, it is likely that by the time the trigger is pulled the arm will have jerked upward.

That being said, I do not believe that it is as "common sense" as you believe that ventilating a brain will cause such movements, which is why I would like to see some sort of anecdotal evidence that it has happened. Ever. I've never heard of it.

But maybe I'm wrong. I'm willing to concede that, I just want some evidence other than "well, duh, it's common sense".

ChaoSS,

Apparently nothing I or anyone else says can convince you that pistols are not death rays. I hope you never get it wrong in real life...

lpl

And apparently nothing I say can convince you that I am not under such a delusion. Still, filling a man with holes makes it awfully hard for him to go on the offensive. Guns are not a death ray, but they are pretty effective. Think about it, if they weren't, police would be much more likely to go into short ranged encounters with armed suspects with tasers rather than pistols. Instead, they use their guns, because they know that if you put enough bullets into a man, it will take the fight out of him.

 

[Fred Fuller]

Let's take a look at some of the reports on the problem.

http://www.popcenter.org/problems/robbery_convenience/
Robbery of Convenience Stores
Guide No. 49 (2007)

http://www.nacsonline.com/NACS/Resources/Research/Pages/ConvenienceStoreSecurity.aspx
Convenience Store Security Report
Posted: July 1, 2007

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/02/24/risky_business?pg=full
Risky business
Low pay and danger for night workers at convenience stores
By Katheleen Conti, Globe Staff | February 24, 2005

http://cjrc.csusb.edu/CPAL/Graham.pdf
Preventing Armed Convenience Store Robbery: A Fusion of Environmental and Social Strategies.

http://www.crimedoctor.com/convenience1.htm
Convenience Store Security
C-Store Robbery Prevention History

http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/updates/cstore.html
RISK FACTORS FOR INJURY IN ROBBERIES OF
CONVENIENCE STORES EXAMINED IN NIOSH STUDY
-------------------------------------------

If you want more, search 'convenience store robbery,' and if you want stories about the bad side of the issue, search 'convenience store shooting.' People with an objective outlook will get information, people who want to confirm and reinforce their current opinion will find material to do that too.

It isn't my job to tell anyone what they should or shouldn't do on the street in a dangerous situation. As Louis Awerbuck told my defensive shotgun class- "I will not be there for your gunfight."

How many reading this thread have had formal, professional pistol training with their daily carry pistol and holster, drawn from concealment?

How many reading this thread have ever spent time as an EMT, worked on people who have been shot and seen first hand the results of gunfire directed at other human beings?

How many people reading this thread are ready and able to clearly elucidate for responding officers and later, if necessary, a judge and jury, precisely why they felt it was absolutely necessary to draw and fire in a given situation, and the specific factors that convinced them of this dire necessity?

How many people reading this thread have ever sat down and talked to a criminal defense attorney about what the law of self defense covers in their jurisdiction, have an attorney on retainer, have some idea how much that attorney bills per hour? Ever sat in a superior (or the eqivalent) courtroom while a major criminal trial was in progress and watched the legal system at work?

No, it's not necessary to do all or even any of the above to get a concealed carry permit and go about in public legally armed. And I'm not saying it should be necessary.

But what I am saying is that anyone who does carry legally should have carefully thought through the circumstances that would drive them to actually use their weapon in defense of themselves or others. It's serious business, and deserves serious consideration.

lpl

 

[sniper5]

Quote:
Personally, I would try to let the situation play out as long as possible, and hope the perp will take the money and run. If shots are fired, or the perp turns their gun towards me, then I'd just have to go for broke and try to fire until he was stopped, understanding that it's going to be ugly and messy and there's a good chance of getting shot or sustaining collateral damage (innocent victims) while eliminating the threat.


I understand that view, but if it was one of your loved ones behind the counter or in the store would you want someone to wager that bet on their safety?

Yes, actually, given the percentages, I would. Please don't start a gunfight with someone when their gun is pointed at me. Now if you want to kill him when it's not pointed at me, by all means do so. And if he fires at me, by all means have at it if you like. I'd like him gone so the scene can be cleared and the medics are OK to come in and get me the hell out of there so I can get under a surgeon's knife ASAP. If he has his gun pointed at a lethal spot on me and you shoot him, in the real world I'm dead. Ask any SWAT or specialty response unit member how many would take a shot at a perp who is holding a gun on a hostage and hasn't fired unless a hostage has been killed during negotiation. It's a last resort, high risk scenario to fire under those conditions and the hostage very well may not survive. How do I know this? The former director of San Jose MERG (their SWAT) and I discussed this very scenario.

 

[Kleanbore]

Please don't start a gunfight with someone when their gun is pointed at me.

A most reasonable request, I think. Goes for me too.

Don't worry, I won't.

 

[Mikhail Weiss]

Those Linked Articles

Lee: thanks for posting those links. The first claims that working in a convenience store is the second most dangerous occupation, behind taxi cab driving. Interesting.

The first also cites multiple conflicting studies, accedes to ambiguity, and relies in at least one case upon a single study to support a curious claim. Somewhat the same story in the other ones.

Nonetheless, they seem generally accurate in their descriptions of how such crimes occur, and who perpetrates them, so I'll reach into my experiential bag to provide a firsthand sample of the problem.

The Landscape

If one considers taking action in such an environment, what may he encounter? I'll start here...

contributor
By the way, has it occurred to anyone that, if the robber is not sufficiently aware of what you are doing to defend himself against you, that most probably means that his accomplice is?

My generalized experience with such fellows is that they are focused on their extremely limited plan, and that they always follow the same ones, whether the criminal is alone or with another. There are two plans. Here's the first one: Get close. Spring surprise. Take money. Leave. Here's the other one: Act immediately. Overwhelm with swift action. Take money. Leave.

My particular experience with such fellows is this: Roughly half of those making threats were alone, roughly the other half showed up in pairs. No one among threat-makers stood more than a dozen feet away. No one making threats moved when they made them. In the majority of cases, their game was first to gauge the clerk's reaction and to then act, depending upon reaction. The accomplice, when there was one, always looked where the primary actor looked when the threat was made. (That means they were looking at the clerk.)

As mentioned above, no one making threats stood more than a dozen feet away. But where were other customers, and what were potential distances involved?

Potential Distances

The store where I worked was of typical square footage and arrangement (at least for early eighties vintage shops), with the longest potential in-store distance at around forty-nine feet (diagonal measurement across interior). N/S distance was about 34 feet, E/W distance about 35 feet. Add another 4 to 6 feet to the N/S distance if you want to include behind-the-counter space.

“Waiting area” put customers in standing-room proximity. In other words, if you were in line after shopping, you would have been no more than a dozen feet away from the theoretical BG, most likely to his left, with something in your hands, less likely behind him. If you were not in line, the greatest likely in-store distance would be right around 42 feet. This is based upon the typical location of threat makers (near the front counter) and the typical greatest distance from it occupied by customers. (In other words, that's how far away the beer was from the front counter, beer being a popular night-time draw.)

Most of the time, however, the greatest typical distance did not apply. Common separations were about twenty feet, and by this I mean the distance between a customer at the register (or theoretical BG) and a customer still shopping.

Most Likely Distance

So what does this mean? In this environment (a pretty typical one, as c-stores go), a shoot-inclined customer could find himself facing a distance somewhere within forty-eight feet, but most likely within the statistical 21 feet or less.

If there were two BGs, how close together were they at time of threat? No more than five feet apart. Most often, in fact, they were closer.*

Could one sneak up on the theoretical BGs in this environment? Maybe. As mentioned, once threats were made, the BG or BGs did not not look elsewhere.

Summation

I point out all of the above only to say this: if you find yourself in such a situation, it's probably going to be at close range (21 feet or less), and it's very likely to be at very close range (right around a dozen feet).

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*NOTE: I'm ignoring instances in which the store was cased first, since the OP's scenario involves the moment of announced robbery.