I don’t know if anyone broke down the attendance figures, but it seemed to me that there were more women than ever at the NRA Annual Meeting. Women’s issues were included on the seminar schedule. And there were lots of vendors displaying concealed carry systems (not just purses) designed by and for females.
In the words of one famous lady, “It is A Good Thing.”
Larry Keane comments on the trend here.
In Brazil, an off duty female officer demonstrates a decisive, appropriate, and successful response when a criminal with a gun menaces a group of women and children:
or view video here.
More proof of my long-standing belief that hard estrogen will invariably defeat soft testosterone.
Need lots more Mama Bears like this one. Yes, some technical issues, but she DID THE JOB quickly and efficiently and thoroughly. She protected herself, her own children, everyone else’s, and the entire community by taking good care of this former dirtbag, now taking a nice long dirt nap.
I hope this story gets into the local news sources, so others of his kind can get a bit more ifnormation to assist them in making some “informed decisions” about their activities.
The Active Self Protection video here, with narration by John Correa, is one out of many such videos that are worthy of serious study and discussion. I believe that I have watched everything that John has published. One important detail here is that the lady MP may have prevented the robber from shooting, kidnapping, or committing further such crimes if he got away. The lady MP did use some dubious tactics, but her choice of caliber definitely worked for her in disabling the crook. A great example of “more guns, less crime.” Criminals: please consider more legitimate employment. Saves a lot of pain.
Bravo Zulu to the officer – she “dun good”. And thanks for the post, and thanks to Mr. Correia for the after action review. When we do a “lessons learned”, we’re not playing Monday-morning quarterback, we’re taking instruction from her (shining) example. I might concur with the assessment of the glitches, but what the officer teaches us most of all is that skill is meaningless without the will to use it, and she had the will in spades.
Mama Bear hit it out of the park for sure. Now to get Brazil back and restore every law abiding citizen’s gun rights completely, especially concealed carry.
Reading Larry’s article is refreshing to see the number of women obtaining CCW permits. Personally I don’t think we need Nationwide carry. My point to my statement is this, when was the last time big brother, uncle Sam the government got involved in something like national CVW and screw it up beyond comprehension. A cab of worms I personally would like to see kept closed.
Ok, being the contrary contrarian, I’ll critique the expert critique.
First, consider real time, not freeze frame video. Bad guy presents gun (freeze frame) at between the 1:17 and 1:18 mark. Good guy/woman fires first shot at between 1:20 and 1:21 mark. From time of stimulus to reaction? Very close to the 3/4 second norm. Total real time elapsed between stimulus (bad guy presenting threat) to deadly force (first shot fired at bad guy)to neutralize threat was a little over 2.5 seconds minus .75 seconds reaction time. From beginning of threat being presented, to assailant on ground incapacitated, and good person with a gun finding cover to scan the situation, less than 4 seconds.
Second, the criticism of the one handed presentation of the pistol. Two things come to mind. Number one, the critic stressed the advantages of the two handed grip training. No doubt a good technique on the range and in a firefight with some amount of distance from the target. Discounting the fact that many are taught the one handed technique for point blank encounters (for many demonstrably good reasons), notice what the woman was doing with her off arm. She was securing her purse to her body. This could be just because women unconciously protect their valuables in the purse or because she new that was her only source for a reload if necessary. Whatever, I believe the critique that she should have dumped the purse prior to engagement was misguided. To have done so would have drawn attention to her intentions prematurely, causing a loss of precious time to deliver effective fire on target.
Third, the criticism of extending her weapon to almost point blank contact to the chest of the evil doer, exposing it to possible defensive action by him. She had already made her decision to take him out. Fact is, in split second situations, the indisputable winner is action over reaction. That is, the one acting has all the advantages over the one reacting. This video confirms that. She had put three shots into him before his weapon and off hand came up in reaction to her actions. She knew what she was going to do, did not hesitate in doing it, and she won.
Fourth, the “backstop” of the innocent woman and child. Not a good scenario, but the problem with deadly force encounters, once they start the good guy has no control of what bystanders do. All the good guy can do is, to the extent that circumstances allow, try to mitigate the likelihood of injury to innocents. In this case, could that mitigation have been, after noting the proximity of the woman and child to the direction her bullets would travel, to extend her weapon to what appeared to be less that a foot from his chest before pulling the trigger, thus insuring no misses? Remember this, at this point, 2.5 seconds into the incident, she had made the decision to inject herself into the fight, and had initiated her reaction. Any hesitation, even if physically possible, could very well have destroyed her chances of survival.
In closing, I’m not discounting any of the mild criticisms, just pointing out the possible reasons this hero did what she did when she did, and the fact that encounters like these happen in extremely sudden and short time frames. I would also point out, and this is very important to remember for those inclined to criticize the actions of others in situations like this. No one is seeing the scenario unfold in exactly the same way as the one who is taking action.
*gold clap*
*golf clap*
Elaborate on your disagreement, please.
Is “Me” “you,” Dennis? Appreciating your time analysis. Plus the woman’s stances look similar to the Massad Ayoob “Stressfire” technique. Fortunately, the robber’s shots seem to cause no physical damage. Luckily, the woman’s bullets don’t seem to miss, over-penetrate, or hit the sign post. Also, the robber appears to be wearing lucky (gang?) number 13, well consistent with his results. No doubt just about everybody incurred some trauma from the event, and I even feel somewhat sorry for the robber, but hey, only so much.
The woman’s three shots may also reflect practicing the “Mozambique drill.” Kind of hard for me to see exactly where her shots are hitting. They did a good enough job, though. I would not support jamming somebody else’s handgun in a waistband. Too much chance of an accident.
Steve,
Nope, I’m guessing *me* was a drive-by. I love engagement in discussion, but not someone taking a shot without giving reasons. Heck, I had to look up “golf clap” to see where *me* was coming from. Supposedly means sarcasm/and or a show of disrespect.
Your points are valid ones, as were Correa’s and others. My post was mainly to remind folks that deadly force incidents can’t be choreographed to fit what’s been practiced and trained for. They happen in incredibly short time frames, once they start, it’s like water flowing over rocks, you can’t control all the directions of flow, like the movements of by-standers, or the driver of the vehicle she took cover beside deciding to to get the heck outta Dodge as she went to recover the gun.
Critiquing a shooting such as this one is good. Trying to understand why someone stepped outside their training in the heat of a battle is where, sometimes, new techniques get their beginning.
Dennis, thanks again for your thoroughness. I started imagining that “Me” might have been Mas. He has never been that cryptic, for sure.
Not much doubt that off-duty MP had an angel caretaking her over the shoulder. One little variation in what she did could have given a very negative “butterfly effect” with a whole chain of bad consequences. Hats off to her decisiveness and winning ways.
Wasn’t this “me,” Steve; I post under my own name, here and elsewhere.
Mas,
This question is off thread, but due to recent trend of liberal states and cities passing a hodge podge of so called “assault weapons” bans and registration requirements, inevitably some tourist/traveler is going to find themselves in violation, inadvertently. Has anyone done any research/made predictions of how these restriction/bans will affect non-local citizens passing through these jurisdictions?
I know that currently bans on high capacity magazines are enforced against travelers, and outright non-tolerance of conceal carry in non-reciprocating states. What about a hunter transporting his AR rifle to his favorite hunting grounds in Colorado who gets stopped in Boulder where they just passed an assault rifle ban in their city? Are we going to have to wait for some unwitting soul to be arrested and prosecuted (at great expense to him/her) to find the answer?
Back in the day, OPOTA did an analysis of the videotaped actions of a significant number of trainees in their shoot house. They discovered that, despite only being trained in Weaver stance, when the threat was within about 4 yards, everyone shot one handed. Beyond 4 yards virtually everyone shot isosceles. They changed their training to reflect reality.
It’s hard to accurately judge distance in video, but the range appeared to be within 4 yards even if the lady hadn’t moved. Monday morning quarterbacking about style-at least without interviewing the person-seems a bit picky. Reminds me of an old dialect comedians line: “Vas you dere, Charlie?” (No) “Vell as I vas saying…”
Having said all that, no, stepping in that close probably wasn’t the best move. I expect her intent/instinct was to get “too close to miss”. It worked for her-this time-but not a good move.
Being picky myself, the car isn’t necessarily concealment/cover to someone on the ground. Your feet/ankles may be available as targets. But, getting out of sight was a good instinctive move.
An addendum to the above post I thought of while feeding the horses. Under stress people seem to hang onto stuff they should have discarded, even with training to do so. Something to bear in mind when you train.
That is one reason why training needs to be simple, but tough. In the military, under stress in real situations, with lives on the line, I always wished my trainers had pushed me harder, even if I had thought during training that Hell had arrived in spades.
Generals Dwight Eisenhower and the British Orde Wingate, two of the most effective leaders who ever came along, were known for pushing stress in training. Wingate may have been too ruthless, though, and completely ruined some units in training while he learned limits.
“In Brazil, an off duty female officer demonstrates a decisive, appropriate, and successful response when a criminal with a gun menaces a group of women and children:”
For the life of me, I cannot understand the armchair quarterbacks criticism here. “Decisive, appropriate and successful” is the operative point in this whole incident. She was faced with a deadly threat, countered the threat in the length of time it takes for most to sneeze. She didn’t stand aside and take cover and then engage the threat, she took it head on, in a decisive, fraction of a second reaction. Thats all I got.
Stay safe.
The time has definitely come to adopt school security in the U.S. along the lines of Israel. Thorough screening and 40 to 60 hours of rigorous training for armed guards and teacher response teams. Any individual teacher who doesn’t want to be armed doesn’t have to. Two top trainers in Israel are Oren Shemtow and Dov Swerling. Parents who are afraid that their ornery kids will be shot by school staff need to get real. Tased, maybe, but only when truly warranted, which would be once in a great blue moon. The whole gun-free-zone mentality has created this situation.
Correction: Oren Shemtov, not Shemtow.
Wow! Fox news just reporting two mountain bikers attacked by a cougar around North Bend, Washington. One of the riders is dead, the cougar got away. Was either rider adequately prepared to deal properly with an attack? Too likely counting on the “small likelihood of an attack from a predator.” My sympathy for the unfortunate victims and relations, as well as for the hungry cougar, which will now be hunted down. Just an air horn, blank pistol, or pepper spray would be better than nothing, let alone a light but powerful handgun. Enough from me today.
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