I appreciate the Chief's accolade to Mr. Wilcox, but that is a gesture for his family and has no bearing on how the situation would have resulted from two shooters holed up in a grid of display fixtures.
Locating the shooting lanes shouldn't be choosing who are the goats and having them walk out in the open to discover it. And that is exactly how first responders are taught not to handle the situation. You don't go blindly into a free fire zone.
Implying that many other officers would have gotten shot and killed is either a testament to the inadequate training the Chief is directly responsible for, or admitting there is no better solution, the Chinese in Korea were right, just send waves of humans in, and their defeat will happen eventually.
I don't see young men wanting to become cops with that kind of leadership. It's not happening that way, anyway, which is exactly why the comment is just salve for the wound of losing Mr. Wilcox.
That he responded at all is exactly where our focus remains. It was pointed out that we tend to respond to our initial training. In that regard, most don't keep a good situational awareness any longer than to negotiate the immediate item of concern. And they react in the way they were trained, NOT in the way they should.
Case in point, we have a new roundabout being installed at a major intersection. The rules are simple, yield to traffic on the left, enter the flow and then exit where you need to.
Unfortunately, it's counterintuitive to most driver's experience, and once in the flow, they slow or even stop to yield to traffic on their right, just the same as any other intersection. And that creates an immediate if not dangerous backup in the flow.
What is being forgotten in the tunnel vision of looking out for obstacles forward is the rule Don't Be In The Way. And that is exactly how people are elevating their risk of being hit from behind.
Lots of practices and habits we acquire negatively impact how we should react to a situation Mr Wilcox perceived. One is that when someone starts waving a gun around and shooting the ceiling, shouting that people should flee, that we need to confront. The normal influence testosterone has on males makes it even worse -as the Open Carry confrontation in Georgia attests. Nobody has the right to confront another and question them over their behavior if they are not immediately subject to lethal force.
Another ingrained response is society's demand that "somebody needs to do something," which, at it's extreme, is exactly the anti gunners reasoning. No, you often DON'T have to do something. It's actually not our place to police the forums, or at work, or even a customers purchasing decision. If somebody is doing something wrong, it very well may not be your place to even acknowledge it. No harm, no foul. You are not responsible for the actions of others, you are only responsible for what you do.
That runs counter to the "grain" of American male society, and viewing Mr. Wilcox's sacrifice in that light will reveal a lot of ways that we make bad decisions with even worse results.
If you disagree, well, how bout you start listening to the sage advice of your superiors? Oh, my, it does cut both ways. If you or I can instruct or even command others in our presence, then consider carefully that the other 50% of the time, you need to accept the directive of others, too. You reap what you sow. "Obey my commands!" implies that others can tell YOU to obey THEIRS. And if you don't have their advanced level of training - and how do you even know? - then you are the one making a mistake.
Didn't see that coming? Well, in the case of the shooters, the male understood very well that he had the upper hand and his partner was capable of enforcing his will. Had Mr. Wilcox complied and simply exited, again, no harm no foul. But, no, he stopped and attempted to enforce HIS will, with bad results. In that process he jammed up the exit lanes for other patrons, who then had to reverse direction against the outflow of foot traffic and flee in another direction. Mr. Wilcox did create a "collision" in an exit lane and blocked people from safety.
With people fleeing around them heading for the doors, I can't see it's a safely conducted shooting lane with no one crossing over or behind the male shooter - or Mr. Wilcox. Again, we get tunnel vision and never consider that bullets that miss US may hit others behind us. Reading the first reports, I wondered why the female shooter thought she wouldn't hit her partner. The angle must have been more oblique.
Those are things you don't get just shooting at a square range. Nobody is shooting back, and you have a weapon than cannot deviate from downrange by much or you get called out. You can't pivot, check behind you, or even completely reverse, which can and will be demanded if you detect a tailgunner. Nope, you need a 360 degree range to fully practice tactics.
In other words, plinking at the local range isn't doing you much good. It just tightens up your groups in a fairly relaxed setting, not under pressure or with the actual possibility that you could be shot from behind. If it's not a 360 degree range with two way fire, it's not what you would need to learn when actually on the streets. And if that is the case, then quietly accepting instructions and walking out the exit is the better course of action.
Yes, that chafes. The average red blooded American male will resist that advice, but the reality is that unless you have gone thru the training, got the t-shirt, and understand how easy it is to be killed in that situation, then you might be running blindly into a trap, crossfire, or even volunteering to add to the body count that some crazy may be accumulating.
