[OldMarksman]

WHY do you believe that there will be "more than one assailant" (that will need to be shot)?

I do not. Most encounters do not end in gunfire. With luck, the mere presentation of a firearm (when completely justified, or course) will obviate the need for shooting.

However, I believe that if I encounter persons considering attacking me, one such person is less likely to do so than two, simply because the odds of a successful attack would be better with two. Most of the home invasions, muggings, and armed robberies that have been in the news around my area in the last year or so have involved at least two perps. Common sense and simple psychology tell me that, unless one appears infirm or otherwise vulnerable, or unless one enounters a very desperate meth user or someone using an ambush technique, a single perp is less likely to proceed with an attack than one who has an accomplice.

So, I believe that in the rare event that I am accosted, there is a reasonable possibility that there will be more than one attacker.

For the slightly built young lady who is concentrating on texting while walking, for the elderly person with a disability, or for someone who does not appear to be aware of his or her surroundings, that is probably a lot less likely to be the case.

WHY do you believe that multiple hits per assailant will be necessary?

From everything I have read about handgun effectiveness, including real life experience, and from my belief (supported by experience in tactical training) that, in the heat of a rapidly unfolding violent encounter, some of my shots will probably not be placed effectively. Read on.

Real life does not support these conclusions....I say again, POLICE ENCOUNTERS DO NOT QUALIFY. Police run toward danger. Their job is to insert themselves into bad situations and they are trained and equipped (sort of) to do it.

From the standpoint of tactics and in police officers' having neither the duty nor the option to retreat, that is very true indeed.

However, police experience pertaining to how many rounds it takes to stop an assailant should be very applicable. The physiology and the wound mechanics are the same.

Outside the home or place of business, there is simply no evidence of the need for high-capacity firearms.

That probably depends a lot on what one means by "high capacity"--standards vary. I am not at all enthused by ads for guns that say "17+1." I would not be dissuaded from buying a Beretta or Browning with a thirteen round magazine, but at one time (before I realized that what I had learned about self defense from watching television drama is best forgotten), I think I would have thought it excessive. My largest capacity magazine holds twelve 9mm rounds, and I load it with ten.

FOF training is highly valuable, of that I have no doubt, but it is NOT a predictor of real life scenarios. I could set-up a FOF scenario involving asteroid impacts and alien invasions but it wouldn't mean that you would need to prepare for such an event actually happening anymore that an artificial scenario involving 3 gunmen and a 5 minute shootout indicates a need to prepare for such an event. FOF is, by it's very nature, ARTIFICIAL. The stress may be real, the reactions and results of the ARTIFICIAL scenario may be accurate TO THE SCENARIO, but there is no justification for believing that such a thing would happen in real life just because you can create it, intentionally, in a FOF training situation.

Simulation is indeed artificial, but it is nonetheless a very valuable method for both the development of tactics and for training--again, as in the case of air combat.

If the scenarios in the exercises involve clearing a house or extended gunfights, they would be applicable to LEO training, but not to my needs. Other scenarios would be much more helpful to me. One designs the scenario to met the needs. Further, one can reasonably determine the operational needs by evaluating what happens in properly designed simulation. That technique is employed in a lot of applications.

Training I recently took was intended for SD situations. By the way, the duration of the multi-shot scenarios ranged from four to ten seconds, depending upon the skill of the participants in reloading.

Reloading was taught primarily to prepare participants for managing a malfunction. The guys with the big magazines were told to reload after having fired six rounds. Same for me, and I had seven round magazines.

I don't even carry because I think I might need it. If that was my reasoning, I wouldn't carry at all. I carry because I can and I want to. There is NO logical, needs based argument in my world for carrying a gun. High-cap, low-cap, BUG or Uzi... doesn't matter. Can, want to, do. It's that simple.

Even in areas that we define as "dangerous" the vast majority of residents and passers-through live their entire lives without needing a gun. VAST majority. Most situations requiring a firearm are criminal on criminal. The likelihood of a law abiding citizen needing one is slim, even in the worst areas.

True, the likelihood that one will ever need a gun is remote; the likelihood that one will actually need to fire it is probably less than remote.

However, the potential consequences of not having it when one needs it are very severe indeed, and the inconvenience of mitigation is minimal. So--I do carry a gun, but not because I want to.

I do not expect to ever have to use it. But on three occasions over the years, I have been well served by having a gun to face home invaders bent on mayhem. Never had to fire, fortunately.