I hope you have a good day and that you do not take any of my statements to be a personal attack on you or your character.
I don't see it that way at all.
However, you insinuated that he viewed a firearm as magical, and then appeared to mock his lack of training.
The evidence points to that being true. He picked it up, chamber empty, loaded with ammo that was proven to be decades old based on it matching the other ammo in the house that was dated, and went out to try to clear a house alone. That's either a severe lack of training or a belief that the gun (even chamber empty) will carry the day regardless of the tactics used.
Or, I suppose it could also be the result of not really thinking through any of what he was doing before taking action.
The fact that you felt the need to pointedly say you weren’t intending to insult him in your original post...
Pointing out that a person made clear errors that contributed to their death is not complimentary and it's easy to get focused on that and miss the point. I was trying to make it clear that the point of the post wasn't to disparage the person for his actions but rather to focus on how we can make better decisions--and potentially have better outcomes. In order to learn from lessons, one must be willing to point out/admit when errors are made--otherwise how can it make sense to say that something different should have been done?
"Yes, he did everything right, but you shouldn't do it the way he did."
Obviously that doesn't make sense. That kind of thinking is what led the FBI to blame a single round of ammunition for the 1986 Miami Shootout Fiasco. A real analysis takes looking at the whole situation, including the actions of participants. They appeared to be unwilling to do that and that sent them on a multi-decade chase after better ammo as if that would solve problems with tactics.
So the first step is pointing out what was done wrong. Only then can one start looking at how to improve on the decisions/tactics. It's really hard to do that while keeping everything complimentary to the participants, especially if the mistakes were elementary or multiple.
The bolded portions are at best poorly chosen and to me read like mocking.
Those are instructions for people who don't want to learn from what went wrong--who, in spite of having access to a huge amount of information, access to the real world experience of others, and access to inexpensive training, choose to cling to the type of thinking that the homeowner used. Of course, presumably, his decisions and mindset were made without the same benefits that people here have.
Anyway, the whole reason there's frustration evident in the OP is because I wish it had worked out differently. I wish the homeowner hadn't been killed, that he had remained safe. I feel bad for him, for his family, for his friends. I can't do anything about any of that, but I figured that maybe his compelling story could be used to motivate others to make different (better) decisions.
Yeah, that's a lot of words, I agree. I think maybe I could have made it a lot shorter by just saying this:
Analyzing real-world scenarios is going to involve pointing out errors made and one inescapable outcome is that no matter how that is handled, some people are going to feel that it disrespects those who made the errors.
All I can say is that wasn't my intent and I tried to make that clear from the beginining.
