What Really Happens In A Gunfight

Well I listened to all the old timers and military folks and I have to tell you, even though I have a permit to carry and can afford the best guns and gear.... I don't have the experience.. and that enough is to get me dead in a hurry.. I am in no hurry to get into a gun fight. If I do it is because there was no where to run or turn to. I don't look forward to an escalation because the odds are not in my favor, but when it comes.. I'll crap my pants, shake like hell and hope it works out.. if not I will be a statistic.. Hope that day never, ever comes.. if ya win, ya still lose.

Practice makes perfect, is neurosience!

Practice raising your sights on your various weapons. Look and focus on various things on the other isde of the room and raise up to see how long it takes you to target.

Originally posted by IgnoranceIsntBlisss
Practice makes perfect, is neurosience!

Practice raising your sights on your various weapons. Look and focus on various things on the other isde of the room and raise up to see how long it takes you to target.

Thats true...just make sure you understand PROPER sight alignment and be prepared to do this about 2500 times per weapon to get BASIC muscle memory....this should be treated as a training evolution...not the end all of practice......also good to use a laser sight to help with muzzle control.

Originally posted by ArcAngel
Well I listened to all the old timers and military folks and I have to tell you, even though I have a permit to carry and can afford the best guns and gear.... I don't have the experience.. and that enough is to get me dead in a hurry.. I am in no hurry to get into a gun fight. If I do it is because there was no where to run or turn to. I don't look forward to an escalation because the odds are not in my favor, but when it comes.. I'll crap my pants, shake like hell and hope it works out.. if not I will be a statistic.. Hope that day never, ever comes.. if ya win, ya still lose.

In truth you don't have time to think, only react.
My training tells me windows and doors are kill zones, don't stand in one...
never try to out draw an opponent, seek cover first. crouch down or lay out prone like a solder will, if nothing else turn sideways, you want to offer as small a target as possible...

Experience tells me your probably not going to remember any of that when the time comes. often its over in the blink of an eye. But if you have time keep your head, stay calm cool and think! if you panic its all over...

Since we have so many new people on ATS I thought I should give this thread a bump
second line.... Hey who ate my Twinkies???

reply to post by Freq Of Nature


Yep, because it is always the fault of either drugs, society and such, and not the person.
You go ahead and stay unarmed. I will stay armed, train like I need it and pray I never have to use it.

reply to post by Freq Of Nature




In 1993 I was walking home after work which was about 3/4 of a mile to the house. I turned a corner and there were 2 guys there, one was up against the wall and the other one was in front of him and they were arguing and then the guy on the outside started punching the guy against the wall in the stomach about 5-6 times. the guy getting "hit" started screaming and slid down the wall. The attacker saw me standing there and asked "what the
F--ck are you looking at?" The other guy was laying there crying

I froze up and didn't say anything and he asked "you want some too bitch?" and when he turned towards me and I saw he was holding a knife. It hit me what just happened and that the guy hadn't got punched but stabbed multiple times.

The attacker started walking towards me calling me a bunch of names I cant type on here and threatening to kill me. I finally snapped out of my daze when I realized what I had walked into.

I put my hand inside my jacket and on the grip of my pistol ( I have had a concealed carry permit since 1991)
He was about 50' away from me and asked "what the Fu--k you gonna do?" and I pulled my pistol out of the holster and held it down pointed at the ground. He notified me that he was going to "cut my Fu--king heart out!"

He started walking towards me slowly and threatening to kill me and I pointed the gun at him and told him I didn't want any trouble with him and that he should just leave.

He said "the F---K I will" and he ran towards me and I fired. When he darted at me so quickly I just pointed and fired at his center of mass but in the panic I actually hit him in the left shoulder. He got crazy then and screamed and rushed towards me and I fired twice hitting him in the chest and he fell down and just kept saying
"You fu--cking shot me, call 911".

I called 911 and reported the shooting. Multiple police showed up with an ambulance and a fire truck and took my weapon and handcuffed me for about an hour and then I was released once everything was sorted out.

The guy died on the way to the hospital. The shooting was ruled self-defense and after about 3 months I received my pistol back.

The guy had 6 felony warrants and the police had been looking for him for a few months and had been in and out of juvenile & jail since he was 14.

The point is: Sometimes you find yourself in situations very quickly where your life is threatened and there is no way out. I know I couldn't have out run the guy as he was half my age. I did what I believed I had to.

I really could care less if he was a product of society, the economy, his mommy didn't love him enough or he had an alcoholic father. Everyone has choices and he made his and what sucks is, he made mine for me also

Not a week goes by when I don't dream about that night and relive the whole thing. If people think that it's easy to shoot / kill someone their dead wrong. Even though the guy was a crack head and a serious scum bag I still feel bad about taking a life. I still think about it and wonder if there was another way out besides what happened and that happened 18 years ago! I guess it is something you never get over but I am happily married, have 5 great kids and a good life which I wouldn't have had otherwise. I could have been laying in the street dead instead of him.

I hate that it happened but I will do it again if need be to protect myself or someone else, even you Freq.

Carrying a firearm is something you should NOT take lightly because if you have to use it it can change your life forever.

The weapon I carried was a Sig P226 9mm., I still have it to this day, still carry it & pray hope I never have to pull it out again in defense.

Edit: The guy that got stabbed died also and Ifound out they had had problems with each other before. This time I just got caught up in it.



And yeah Daddybare, from him turning towards me till it ended was probably 20-30 seconds.

reply to post by DaddyBare

Originally posted by DaddyBare
Since we have so many new people on ATS I thought I should give this thread a bump
second line.... Hey who ate my Twinkies???

Dang it, you noticed....

Yeah, I ran out of munchies, so staged a raid on your compound.

Oh by the way, might want to rethink security. Place was wide open, doing some spring cleaning?

Why would I want to shoot myself to save myself? That doesn't make much sense.
I will tell you what happens in a gunfight. We hold true to our delusions that we are separate from one another and thus our immaturity kills someone or even multiple people, sometimes unintended, we play god and think we have the right to kill and we justify it with all these reasons, some are very convincing... But, when you really think about it, you cannot justify murder, it is what it is. Peace be with the dead person, anger be with the family. Sorrow be with he or she who pulls the trigger. A vicious circle is ignited, pain and suffering grows from the incident like a seed, leading invariably somewhere down the line to more death pain and suffering, which when added together outweighs to death, pain and suffering you were trying to prevent.

Instead of preparing for scenarios to use a gun, which should be trying to prevent such scenarios from occurring in the first place. Imo, the best way is to let the world mature, change your way of life to drastically minimize such a scenario from occurring. Live in a small town for instance or live in an island community. Of course, there is always the potential some gun wielding psycho will kill you and your family. There are risks in life, we can't be prepared for everything, nor do we have the right to be prepared for some of them.

Did you honestly just say we don't have the right to be prepared for some situations? If you are honestly this far gone,I don't know that there's any hope for you. Tell me, how is it better for some deranged criminal to kill an innocent and productive member of society tha to have said member eliminate this pyscopath from our midst?
In many of the situations others have posted, it would have been not only dangerously stupid but also extremely negligent for them not to have used their firearm. If I can stop a killer, by killing him myself if necessary, than I feel it is my DUTY to society to do so, because their next victim(s) may not have the chance or capacity to do so. By turning a blind eye and just walking away with my moral sense of superiority, I may well have signed the death warrant for some other hapless victim. No thanks, I don't think I'd want to live with that. Much as I don't want to kill or shoot anyone, I'll take that over the knowledge that I could have done something to save the life of someone who did NOT deserve to die,and did nothing.

I never had any confrontations at close range nor in a town or city.

It must be because i keep one eye on what is going on around me. i am always scanning,

I have had three times i have drawn a weapon in rural areas.

I had one case where some idiot fired three round into the ground in front of my truck while i was driving in the desert.
I popped out of my truck with a M1 carbine and fired at the ridge where the shots came from and heard a motorcycle leaving down the other side.
Always wondered what the guys point was firing in front of my truck.

One of the others was when a few of us caught a thief stealing mining equipment from a mine.

Me and another friend had been going to the mine and saw the guy loading up the equipment and blocked the only road with our truck while the third guy with us went to town to call the cops.

The thief thought he could bluff us and drove his truck at us at high speed,
I pulled my AR15 and let him know that was not going to work.
He then tried to get away by driving cross country and wreaked his truck and we just waited and watched him till the cops got there.
He did 5 years for grand theft.

The third time was also at a mine.
Two guy climbed over a lock and posted gate tripping a motion detector and walked up to the mine about a 1/4 mile up the road both were carrying high powered rifles.
We had heard the motion detector go off and were watching them.
As they got to the mine we were waiting in the woods and yelled to them that they had better get a**es off the property or we would open fire.

They could hear us but not see us and we had them caught in the open. they left quickly.

I got a couple photos of them and gave them to the cops but never heard any more.
Always wondered what they had planned that day.
What ever it was we threw a surprise party for them.
Many time being armed and ready will keep you from a gun fight if you play it right.

I keep a can of Bear Repellent(pepper spray) next to my home defence gun encase of anyone breaking in.
It gives me a surprise to play on anyone breaking in and a tactical advantage.

Never play fair.

Originally posted by sliceNodice
Why would I want to shoot myself to save myself? That doesn't make much sense.
I will tell you what happens in a gunfight. We hold true to our delusions that we are separate from one another and thus our immaturity kills someone or even multiple people, sometimes unintended, we play god and think we have the right to kill and we justify it with all these reasons, some are very convincing...

First of all it is not the legal gun owner that seperates himself from the flock. The gun owner is a proud member of the flock. He stands ready to ensure that he and the rest of the flock can continue to live despite the fact that there are predators outside of the flock.

It is the criminal, that aproaches with the intent to deal deadly force, that has chosen to seperate from society. They have become predators. They wish to live off of the misery of others instead of trying to contribute to the growth of the society. They do not care about "maturing" their world view. They look at you as nothing but a hinderance to their rewards and gratification. You are the wrapper around a candy bar to them. They have decided to play god with your life. They have deemed your life worthless and decided it is their right to choose when you die. By acting against them you are acting with true self determination. You are saying that your life expectency will not be decided by another. You are resisting the darkest of tyrany.

our immaturity kills someone or even multiple people, sometimes unintended

Rarely does an unintended person get shot when a person uses their gun in self defense. You have a better chance of being killed by accidental poisoning, car wrecks, and many other things. You are more likely to injured by a car as a pedestrian than to be injured by a "gun acident." People are not running around shooting up towns and claiming self defense.

A vicious circle is ignited, pain and suffering grows from the incident like a seed, leading invariably somewhere down the line to more death pain and suffering

Wow, that is a statement of pure conjecture. There is no way to prove that. Actually because it is so all inclusive it only takes one instance of negation to disprove. You should try o avoid speaking and thinking in such grandiose generalizations.

Instead of preparing for scenarios to use a gun, which should be trying to prevent such scenarios from occurring in the first place. Imo, the best way is to let the world mature, change your way of life to drastically minimize such a scenario from occurring.

You know most legal gun owners actively seek out ways to avoid dangerous situations. We use situational awareness to avoid places and things that could escelate in to violent encounters. Most gun owners take an aproach to life that is tailored to avoiding unnecessary conflict and excessive danger.

You know what I do to help the world mature, I raise my kid to be respectfull and tolerant. I raise child to act in a way that first does no harm to others. I teach my child to take responsibility for their actions. I also live my life as an example of these principles.

I attempt to avoid confrontation as much as possible. I know when to walk away, when to ignore, and when to avoid certain people or places. I also engage in conversation when I feel offended or that I have been wronged. However, none of that helped when a man with a knife threatened to kill me (as a child) and my mother. It wouldn't have protected my 80 year old invalid neighbor when two men planned to invade her home.

I live my life and I do all I can to avoid needing any level of violence. However, there are many mentally disturbed people out there. There are many people out there who are simply predators. I refuse to allow them to determine the out come of my child's life, my wife's life, or my life.

"Pray for peace but prepare for war."

my version: "Live for peace, but be prepared for war."

reply to post by sliceNodice


As I have stated many times in this (ATS) board and many others....
You make the decision to protect yourself and your family...
how you chose to do so is your business...

As for me if I had a gun on me the day my son was murdered He would still be alive...I would sleep better at night... and I wouldn't be writing these articles...

Of course your always free to write your own threads... maybe one on how to talk a meth addict into reason... teach him to be all warm and fuzzy...

Good post, I could not agree more, a weapon in the hands of a righteous person is a great tool, and having the skill and ability to use such is well worth it. Unfortunately in our side of the world, we have no right to defense and little ability to hold arms, we do have the right of someone calling the police to write a report after we have been murdered or harmed tho. Keep your rite to arms America.

Gun fights are huge adrenaline rushes, depending if its day or night its a big difference. Night time gun fights are the craziest and scariest do to all the flashing and tracers its almost like a light fight and screams coming from darkness and what not. Day time gun fights are actually a lot like in movies lot of cover shooting and bounding and unlike night time you usually see where all the bullets are hitting rather then seeing the flash or tracer.

I'd recommend paintball....

All the action of gunfights (if you really want to avoid being shot), but with safety.

First lesson you learn...

COVER - something you want at all times.

Second lesson...

LOOK QUICK - no long, lingering looks around, peek, then get back in cover.

Then....

FIRE WHEN YOU WANT TO MOVE - your opponent will duck back in cover, but only if being fired upon.

a reply to: DaddyBare

I was thinking about this the other day as a scenario on how to win a gun fight. I am glad you wrote this as it baffles me what I would do except for crapping myself and dying.

Came across this one piece though on a google search about winning a gun fight. Interesting stuff!

a reply to: Prof. Skrewloose

I have been a avid airport enthusiast and can tell that the ten percent landing on target is fairly accurate in close quart combat situations even when playing with marines a large amount of shots are misses even when under 20 feet away..

originally posted by: sliceNodice
Why would I want to shoot myself to save myself? That doesn't make much sense.
I will tell you what happens in a gunfight. We hold true to our delusions that we are separate from one another and thus our immaturity kills someone or even multiple people, sometimes unintended, we play god and think we have the right to kill and we justify it with all these reasons, some are very convincing... But, when you really think about it, you cannot justify murder, it is what it is. Peace be with the dead person, anger be with the family. Sorrow be with he or she who pulls the trigger. A vicious circle is ignited, pain and suffering grows from the incident like a seed, leading invariably somewhere down the line to more death pain and suffering, which when added together outweighs to death, pain and suffering you were trying to prevent.

Instead of preparing for scenarios to use a gun, which should be trying to prevent such scenarios from occurring in the first place. Imo, the best way is to let the world mature, change your way of life to drastically minimize such a scenario from occurring. Live in a small town for instance or live in an island community. Of course, there is always the potential some gun wielding psycho will kill you and your family. There are risks in life, we can't be prepared for everything, nor do we have the right to be prepared for some of them.

Because when the perp has you by the neck, you shoot though your own body to kill him.

Just don't shoot through your own head.

Fleshy love handles, OK.

originally posted by: DaddyBare
I can tell you from personal experience that 90% of the time you learn your in a gun fight only after someone is shooting at you... and no two gunfights are ever the same.

For many years, we have been taught that armed confrontations occur at very close distances (often times at arm's length), that few shots are fired and the person involved usually misses. These statistics were compiled from the FBI's Officer Killed Summary, which are released on an annual basis. Note that the operative word here is killed; these are officers that lost their confrontation. Have you ever wondered what happened with the officers that won? Did they do anything different to help ensure they would prevail?

I've seen one FBI stat were just over 90% of shoot outs occurred with in 10 feet the the PMA study showed the average distance being more like twenty. both studies do agree that in said gun fight only 10% of the shoots fired hit their intended target.

From all these reports the one and only valid conclusion that could be made, that one clue to staying alive, is that all the survivors had one thing in common... they kept the front sight within their cone of vision!!!

If you want to read a really good in-depth on this subject go to this article by Handgun Mag

read it study it make it your bible, just maybe something you learn will give you the edge


[edit on 10-3-2010 by DaddyBare]

You don’t want to find out what it’s like being in a gun fight I should imagine