Victim takes attacker's shotgun (video)

This is pretty amazing video:

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/man-turns-tables-shotgun-wielding-attacker-141851442.html

and from the original report:

http://www.wwl.com/pages/16209701.php

While this is not the recommended course of action to take unless you know what you are doing, it's fascinating to see and sometimes fighting back makes you king of your fate.

This is a good example of why you never get in too close to someone, especially with a long firearm.  It works both ways.  If you're the good guy, stay away from the bad guy if you've got the advantage.

Still, very interesting video to watch.  We always say fight back.  Sometimes it takes some big stones to put your money where the shotgun barrel is, so to speak.  I'm glad this guy came out on top.  After watching the video, I love reading the part when the bad guys come back and try to negotiate, saying they had the victim's cell phone.  Like a typical thug, this guy beats feet like Flash when the tables turn.  I see he had all the time in the world to pick up a dropped cell phone.  :)

It's not the dog in the fight...

...it's the fight in the dog that counts.  I don't know if I've ever seen anything quite like this.

Apparently, the story is that two thugs get caught after robbing an electronics store and go to jail.  For some reason, they decide to re-visit their last unlucky score.  Their approach is none too bright, but the worker at the store doesn't just fight back a little.  He fights back a whole lot and with some serious gusto.  I don't know if I've ever seen a couple of thugs owned quite like this.  I'm just guessing by the shoes that one might be female, but the faces are covered so it's hard to tell.

Judging from the lettering on the back of the police jackets, I believe this is Poland.  Enjoy the video, I don't know if what this guy did could be improved on.  The other people standing around watching, on the other hand...

Video: Store Owner uses conceal carry to defend store

It happened fast.  Thank goodness it wasn't in the typical "under the counter" situation you hear about so often.  The shots seemed a little errant into the cooler there, but the affect was quite obvious.  The threat was immediately driven away.  I'd like to see this happen more often.

The alternative is something like this.  Seems to be effective in his scenario (though not the best option).  Lotta anger there.  I give props for the fight in the dog on this one.

Update: The video I promised

I posted it in the original post just in case, but here it is as well.

Now, my original comments went something like this:

I don't know that I'd go charging into a situation in that way.  I also know I wouldn't shoot at a fleeing vehicle unless there was a threat to me.  People go to jail for that kind of thing, even in Texas.  It's hard to know what you would do in that situation, but I can understand the frustration of a neighborhood under siege by worthless trash destroying their hard-earned property.  My actions would have been more along the line of taking a stand (oh, and not with a handgun) at the vehicle.  If they want it back, they'll have to take it.  If they want to run off, fine, but it means I have evidence for the police and they'll be a lot easier to catch on foot.  Now, maybe this just happened too fast and there was no time for that but I just can't get behind shooting at a fleeing vehicle.

On a side-note, great statement by the police officer.  You will find that kind of attitude from a lot of the police in this part of Texas, especially from those in the Sheriffs' Departments.

Neighbor stops burglary using a gun - video

Well, I posted the wrong story and I can't find the one I just saw on the news.  I guess I'm a little to quick on the draw with this news since it's not even on tha interwebs, yet.  Will update very soon.

Update - the video with comments are in the post here.

In the meantime, it's crazy what I found while searching for this one.  Check this out:

Huh, well look here.  Another story very similar with different (and better) results.

Or, you could be unprepared and go about it this way and hope.  Not recommended.

I prefer them to end this way.

Or this one.  The "screaming like a little girl" comment made me laugh, but "led off one round into the ground" sounds suspiciously like a warning shot to me and those are generally not good.

Wow, a bunch of stories of defense in recent news.

The Great Equalizer - Granny's Gun

I actually laughed out loud when I saw this video.  I didn't think I would.  It's pretty typical to see thugs scatter like roaches when the rounds actually start flying since they are generally a bunch of D-Bag cowards anyway picking on what they assume are defenseless victims.   Therefore, the flipping and falling didn't catch me off guard.  What made me laugh was the cartoon-esque stack up at the egress.  Now THAT is comedy gold.  Seriously, cue Yakety Sax on this video.  Also, nothing like tearing off and leaving some of your buddies behind.  With friends like these...  So, anyway, what you have here is five (you can count them  easily at the stack-up) young thugs plus a getaway driver bravely taking on an older woman.  Then, out comes the equalizer.  All of a sudden, a seriously outnumbered and overpowered lady is able to make a bunch of jerks scramble and wet their panties.  I say good for her.  I'd like to see a lot more of this and maybe a lot more range time for the citizens so they can start making more shots count.

Concealed handgun owner stops robbery - great video

This is pretty incredible.  I heard about this from my dad a little bit ago and just had to post on it.  I know I haven't been around a while and I'll post on that a little later, but I just had to share.  This is great evidence of someone that has done some training.  I like the stance and the shooting on the move.  He's obviously careful of the bystanders and his field of fire.  He did advance toward the perps, which is kind of a no no, but I'd say it helped to clear his field of fire more and they were moving away, so he did a great job.  This is a perfect example of why to carry.  Who knows what direction this robbery would have taken in there with all of those people.

Doughnut Shop Robbery - Being Prepared

It can happen in a flash.  Sometimes, all of that situational awareness that is preached just isn't what is going to save you.  At times, you will be in a reactionary mode.  A lot of things happen in this video.

You can see there are plenty of customers in the store and the older gentleman just reacted and was pretty severely punished for it.  If you have the time to react by grabbing someone, you have the time to react by stepping off of center, drawing and firing.  The stomp on the neck was bad enough.  The kick to the head as the jerk left is a perfect example of why you use lethal force to defend yourself.  Let's talk about "unarmed" aggressors.  In the video we can see a handgun being used, but that doesn't really matter does it?  I once heard someone say that until they stopped hearing "blunt force trauma" as a cause of death in homicides, then they would continue to consider an unarmed aggressor as extremely dangerous.

Something else to keep in mind:  train to scan on the range when you are practicing.  At the end of the video at the top, I want you to watch that set of feet follow the jerk out of the door.  I'm guessing that is an accomplice by the timing and not just a customer running away.  Move off of center, draw, fire, assess.  Keep your threat covered, but keep your eyes open.

Just give them what they want

Then the bad guy will just go away with a smile, right?

Wrong.

This poor guy died for no reason while trying to support his family.

This one is bad as well.

Mom blames the guns.  Funny, I saw two guys in that store that shot her son and randomly fired into a room full of innocent people.  Silly me, but I think those jerks are to blame.  To analyze this video, you will see that the morons are SHARING A GUN.  So, what opportunity do you have here?  Pretty simple, when the guy passes the gun to his buddy, you pop them both.  If you want to take the earlier option, watch how distracted they are when he first shoots and turns his back.  This is a great example of when to shoot someone in the back.  They usually don't show the beginning of these videos, but there has to be a time when two people walk in with their faces covered and hoodies up.  This is when you go to red and get your weapon clear, not when they are standing in front of you with a gun in your face.  This is an example of why you train for the possibility of being wounded.  It is cases like this that solidify my belief that you don't wait and rely on the mercy of the thug.  You take your first opportunity and turn the tables.

Store owner shoots armed robbers (video)

The video is a little cut-and-paste and somewhat confusing.  From what I have gathered, the first scene you see is the two robbers holding a cashier at gunpoint.   The owner of the establishment sees this happening on surveillance and steps out from a door across the drive-through area (this is where the video cuts to another angle) and he calls out the perps, drawing their attention toward him.  One runs at and shoots toward him as he engages and hits the guy multiple times.  This was a bit crazy.  Training is hugely important for things like this.  Things are fluid and crazy and you have to be able to make good hits.  Notice he is making good hits and the guy still has the ability to run up to and past him and fire shots.  Moving isn't a bad idea, but getting hits is a better idea.  Both is optimum, but you do what you can and this guy did a pretty good job.  When the trainer tells you "shoot until the threat stops," this is what is meant.  This threat never really stopped until the guy was running off.

Here is a clip of just the store video.  It is confusing without a little explanation of the situation from the above story, but it's easier than watching all of the blah, blah, blah in that one.

Have some pepper with your robbery

I LOVE this video.

A pharmacist in Spokane, Washington got a little sick and tired of being robbed.  Twice.  By the same person. So, they got themselves a little can, well a BIG can of bear spray.  The guy came back.  The third time was not a charm.  His buddies ended up calling 911 after he ran out of the store with Wonder Woman on his heels ready to inflict more pain on him.

Kudos for being prepared to fight back.  However, the report said they "got serious" and put in eight cameras.  Great.  Now they will have video of whatever the bad guy decides to do to you before you can respond.  Also, less lethal is a good tool, but it doesn't work every time and if you're real serious about your safety you will have a lethal option available.

All in all a great story with a good ending.  It's one I can sit and laugh about watching some piece of junk get some return on investment.

Knife vs Gun

I know the news is old (December of last year) but I had never seen this video.  I usually search news every once in a while for guns in the news (GITN) and follow other people that link to guns in the news.  I don't know how I missed it and I also don't know why there are only 46 views on this video on YouTube.  This is a GREAT example of why you should have a firearm for self-defense.  Now, while there are lots of things to say like "should have had it on you" and "carry chambered" (notice the slide cycle), the reality is at least the guy had one and got it into play so I'll put that in the +1 for firearm defense category.  Yes, he was lucky that he was even able to since the guy was able to get to him before he got it and he didn't have his fighting mindset rolling yet since you can see the shock in his face even as the guy is attacking him.  There is also hesitation as he begins to reach for the gun and can't decide what to do.  So, we should take another lesson from this; that mental preparedness is just as important as training preparedness.  Don't let the shock of violence take you out of the fight.  Now, as a warning there is some blood in this one due to the knife.  It's probably one of the most graphic attacks with a gun used in self-defense I've seen on video.  I'm not going to go against what I just said by saying "don't watch if you can't take it".  If you can't take this, you're in a world of hurt if you have to deploy your defensive firearm. 



Also, here is the link because Blogger doesn't like you to watch embedded video full-screen.

EDIT:  I found a news article that gives a little more information.  It happened in Turkey.

The new underwear bandit

But not like you think.  If the underwear doesn't make you laugh, surely the flower-print dress will.

So, I have started to put videos up with the idea of running scenarios.  What if you were confronted with this?  Well, in this case if you could pick yourself up off the floor after rolling in laughter you'll see the many times he shifts his attention completely from one person to another.  In other words, plenty of time to act.  Really, I just put this one up because of the goof factor.

It was also a...  brief robbery.

Waa waa waaaaaa

Video Surveillance Tactics

So, I mentioned finding videos and putting them out there for tactical review.  In almost every scenario I find there is opportunity to get your gun into play.  Most low-life criminals don't have much of an inkling of how to handle a gun even though they use one in their "job".  However, in this situation, I'm going to say you're pretty much hosed.  I put myself in the employee's shoes (though I'm not going to say I'd be at an adult store, but that's another issue).

http://www.azfamily.com/news/local/Man-with-shotgun-robs-adult-video-store-126991963.html

Not a great way to start my series of tactical reviews, but a great example of when NOT to try something.  The problem with news is they edit video.  However, from what I can see the guy walks in with shotgun leveled at the employee and never waivers in having the muzzle cover him.  The only time it is taken away is when he turns to leave.  Eh, that's legally iffy in most places.  I guess at that time I would draw and just make sure if the guy turned or came back I would be at the ready.

Other thoughts?  I'm going to say if I'm constantly staring at the muzzle of a shotty, I'm leaving well enough alone unless I see action that makes me think the situation might get worse.  The only other thing I could think would be to look behind him repeatedly to make him think there was something needing to draw his attention from me, then make a go of it.

Analysis of a Bus Shooting

For the last couple of days, I've been mulling over the bus shooting in Philadelphia.  This thing was bone-headed on so many levels that it is almost hard to wrap your head around as a law-abiding, normal individual of the collective hive of society.  This morning, I thought I would attack it from a personal defense angle.  I'm assuming that people that write and follow gun blogs view situations like this in the way that I do.  What would I have done in that situation?  One of the things that I do as a kind of mental exercise is seek out and find surveillance video of robberies and assaults and try to pick apart what could have been done if I was inserted into the situation while carrying concealed.  It is another form of "scenario" that brings some real-life situation to your playbook.  An obvious flaw is that you KNOW something is about to happen, but it's no different than running IDPA where you know you're going to shoot something.  When I find a video, I watch it the first time wanting to be surprised by the events so that I may mentally react.  Boy, was I surprised by these mental buffoons.

The first thing I did was determine my position.  It's important to make that decision ahead of time so you don't have a tendency to put yourself in the best possible scenario.  That's just human and shooter nature.  Here, I put myself on the bus.  I was glad I did since it offered the toughest decision on how to react. 

Second, make your decisions real-time as you watch the video and then review them afterwards.  Were you right?  In this scenario it was tough because there were so many angles that it made it hard to make a decision.  The raw footage helps make a decision from inside the bus, but after you run that scenario it cuts to outside the bus.  I ran this in my head, too.

Things I noticed:

People do stupid things.  Notice the unarmed people either not moving away or moving toward the threat due to their curiosity.  It killed the cat, you know.  It almost cost some people in this situation.  It also complicates your defense scenario if you chose being on the bus.

In my head, I had to move to the threat side of the bus to engage in order to avoid someone standing up in front of me.  If I would have been alone, I would have obviously chosen to move to the off-side of the bus to engage.

I chose to engage very early on when I first saw the weapons.  From inside the bus, you didn't really see the weapons until they were already out.  At least from the camera angle.  Still, they were out of play (pointing at the ground).  I chose to engage the perp with the handgun first.  Why?  The rifle seems like the bigger threat, but there is no stock deployed.  To me it screamed ineffective at best.  That doesn't mean not dangerous, there's a difference.  From the angle I chose I could engage them both together.  When the doors opened, the handgun dude had just run up and was standing next to rifle guy.

Shooting through glass.  It sucks and this is why I was glad I put myself on the bus.  It was the toughest scenario.  It had to be done in this situation unless you wanted to jump right in front of the threat at the doors. 

Time.  For someone paying attention (and the sheep were noticing a problem soon, so you'd better have been on it before them) there was a full 10 seconds from the start of the lethal threat to engage the target.  You would/should have been on high alert and in the Red Zone before that from just the physical activity. 

If you were on the sidewalk at the bus stop, this threat could have been eliminated before cotton-headed ninny muggins rifle dude was able to wiggle it halfway out.  Handgun idiot first, then rifle moron.  This depends on what you notice first.  Rifle soft-head was drawing a whole lot of attention to himself.  You have to be careful.  I can see getting focused on rifle moron and not seeing handgun idiot running along the bus.  That could be a problem.  There also appears to be a third person that keeps putting his hands down to his waist.  This is where your threat scan begins.

Maybe I helped put another tool in your toolbox.  If you already had the tool, how did you handle this?  Even if you don't normally do this, what would your reaction have been?  What might I have gotten wrong?

I may start finding and posting random videos to scenario with a 1, 2, 3, GO!

Heart of a Lion

I'm not a fan of Chihuahuas.  However, this little guy wins the internet for the David and Goliath stand he took.  There is obvious distraction on the part of the bad guy.  Then the little ball of fury takes the fight to them all the way out.  Awesome.