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Old June 13, 2014, 10:01 AM   #51
tirod
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the reality is that being that person may mean we put ourselves in harms way. It is a risk we all assume.
It's assumed we should all respond exactly as a trained LEO/MIL would do it. The assumption is wrong.

Having a CCW doesn't make you automatically qualified to assess the entire situation - in fact, as discussed in another similar thread, one individual on the ground won't ever get a full scope view of exactly what is going on. With that in mind, they shouldn't restrict or limit their response to the situation. In the case of the LV shooters, walking past the female and giving her a pass on threat level was a fatal error. The "first responder" lacked the critical thinking and training to see her correctly.

It's why when police do show up - everyone is a perp. Once control over the situation is gained, people sorted out, and identified, then the innocents are released. A touching scene from a recent school shooting was seeing all the students filing out with their hands over their heads. Case in point.

We can dissect the LV Walmart incident all we want, the first decision - to confront - was where the risk was assumed. And in this case, it wasn't needed nor did it help.

If you CCW, the intent is to respond to a direct threat of lethal force. And the law will back you up. But, it's not a license to be a cop any more than having a Driver's license lets you compete at a NASCAR track just because you can drive onto the grid in your minivan. As said, you may very well just become an obstacle to the police who would waste time sorting our your presence.

In this case, no one has yet shown the LV CCW was presented with lethal force until he confronted the male, and he was immediately shot dead by the female. If there is a lesson to be drawn from it, it's pick your fight carefully. If you feel you are under some obligation to do something, then that obligation should include being trained to a professional level, and accepting that professionals get shot, and their family loses them, too.

There is rarely, if ever, an obligation to throw your life away when it's not necessary, and you can't know what will happen, or not. There is no perfect recipe to follow handling a threat. The very real danger is constantly repeating that some act of bravery is rquired, when we don't even know if it's needed. Don't accept as fact that something MUST be done. It's equally plausible that NOTHING need be done, and this case is supporting that point the more is known about it.

Unfortunately, those who let testosterone make their decisions will keep lining up and getting shot. Let your brains make that call, not your glands.
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Old June 13, 2014, 04:50 PM   #52
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Please correct me if I'm wrong, but we still don't know enough. Maybe we never will. We don't know if Mr. Wilcox had military or LEO training. We don't know if his actions prevented a much larger loss of life. Although from what I do know I suspect that they did, those losers didn't go to Walmart to shop. And we do know for sure that he's dead.

We don't know how many others were carrying concealed and saw the situation and didn't get involved. But we do know that if there were any people there who did carry they are alive. To me the lesson from this is that if you are going to act in the defense of others without having taken a pledge to do so then you better be as prepared to die as those who take the pledge are. And of course you better be prepared to face the legal ramifications that will likely be involved if you live. Because like it or not you aren't empowered by the government to open fire in a Walmart.
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Old June 13, 2014, 10:38 PM   #53
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You are right in that we don't know enough, but we do know that if the Millers were interested in racking up a body count, then they missed numerous opportunities at the Cici's where they murdered the police officers. They missed opportunities while transiting to Walmart. Once in Walmart, they didn't start off by opening fire on people, but into the ceiling.

Mr. Miller announced his revolution and that the police were on the way after firing into the ceiling. He didn't fire into people to make his announcement, but the ceiling. So you are right, they weren't there to shop, but they didn't appear to be there to kill shoppers either. After shooting Wilcox, they did not attempt to shoot other shoppers. They seemed to be there to wait for the cops.

It is also pretty safe to assume that since none of the family members have not mentioned it, that Joe Wilcox had not been a soldier and had not received LEO training. He had applied to be a cop a few years earlier, but had not been accepted.
http://heavy.com/news/2014/06/joseph...amanda-miller/
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/n...hate/10261163/
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Old June 13, 2014, 11:14 PM   #54
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From the Daily Mail article- bold type mine.

Quote:
Wilcox, who was legally carrying a concealed weapon, told his friends he was going to confront the gunman - not realizing that he had an accomplice.

Wilcox went from the checkout area to Jerad Miller

and pulled his concealed firearm.

But before he could fire, Amanda Miller shot him in the ribs and Wilcox collapsed.

Police have confirmed that Wilcox was not able to get off a shot before he died.
What did this guy think he was going to do, detain the gunman?

Why did he leave the checkout area and GO to the gunman?

Why didn't he pull his gun until he reached him?

1. Evaluate. Fools rush in...
2. Do not give up cover, distance or the element of surprise.
3. If you can shoot, distance is your friend.
4. If you have justification to shoot someone and are committed to intervene, then SHOOT them until they don't need shot anymore. Drive the OODA cycle like a dragster.
5. Hesitation will get you killed.
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Old June 14, 2014, 07:03 AM   #55
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From what I have read and heard the 2 criminals were so deranged or detached that they thought they would realy start a revalution just like several befor them have . They did not intend a mass killing . I cannot second guess Wilcox . Just for thought and to help others if you find yourself in a situation . Catch cover asses the suroundings give the shooter the comand if practical if he does not comply terminate the threat . That is with time to think if you are blind sided with this like everyone in that store was then you do have to train like you fight . For shooters that have not grown up shooting , have a challenging schedule or what ever the case set up you own training routine think of situations and set up targest and engauge them . Use your imagination . You do not have to hire a tactical guru for this . My point is train and be fimiliar with your capabilities . Then you fall back on your training when there is no time to think .

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Old June 14, 2014, 07:28 AM   #56
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1. Evaluate. Fools rush in...
5. Hesitation will get you killed.
Playing both sides of the coin?
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Old June 14, 2014, 09:33 AM   #57
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Sometimes the coin lands on its edge and spins... I'll play any side that wins, DNS.
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Old June 14, 2014, 12:24 PM   #58
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Situational Awareness is hard to build in a gunfight. Personally, the only situations where I would likely be sure enough to act is seeing a crime from the beginning or an active shooter in progress (e.g. actively hunting down fleeing people). The downside there is that someone will probably be attacked while you observe long enough to make a semi-informed decision.
Running into a situation is likely to provide a very limited understanding of what is happening, and I generally would not recommend it.

Heroes are such because they try to do the right thing, without normal regard for personal risk. That is RISKY.
Perhaps Mr. Wilcox made the calculated risk and lost. If that is the case, we should mourn that his choice did not work out for him.
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Old June 14, 2014, 05:17 PM   #59
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Do you think intervening in a situation that you are not directly
involved in is a potentially dangerously slippery slope?
Once face-to-face, you are involved.

Once to every man & nation
comes the moment to decide...
And the choice goes by forever
'Twixt that darkness and that light.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOGHCzuinBw
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Old June 14, 2014, 07:54 PM   #60
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All I know is that he was a very brave man, God bless him and his family. As for the two cowards, well have a nice eternity in hell.
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Old June 14, 2014, 08:37 PM   #61
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No one questions the bravery involved but those who question confronting an armed criminal have a point, and it is not about proficiency with a firearm. According to one report, Wilcox approached the male killer but it was the female criminal who killed him.

Law enforcement officers are trained to quickly analyze the situation and determine what and who is involved before taking action. Most citizens do not have that training. Mr. Wilcox evidently had either not noticed the woman or discounted her as a threat; a professional law officer probably would not have made either mistake. There is also a tendency of most men to be reluctant to fire at a woman. But LEO training helps to overcome that and teaches that women can be as dangerous as men.

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Old June 15, 2014, 09:05 AM   #62
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Law enforcement officers are trained to quickly analyze the situation and determine what and who is involved before taking action. Most citizens do not have that training. Mr. Wilcox evidently had either not noticed the woman or discounted her as a threat; a professional law officer probably would not have made either mistake.
Sadly, the law enforcement profession has learned about these types of mistakes repeatedly and continue to make these mistakes even though they are trained professionals. Yes, cops screw up. They are human and so are not above screwing up. We could go through a long list of screw ups by training professional cops because of misunderstanding threats, but that would be considered cop bashing.
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Old June 15, 2014, 11:30 AM   #63
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Sadly, the law enforcement profession has learned about these types of mistakes repeatedly and continue to make these mistakes even though they are trained professionals.
Amen, amen and amen!!!!!

You can give someone the best training in the world, but if they don't LEARN and PRACTICE that training, it's useless.

I've seen officers who say, "I qualified, and that's good enough". I've assisted in running our qualification range more than once. And--more than once, I've seen and heard some of our officers ask for a second target exposure on a certain stage--BECAUSE THEY WEREN'T READY. (Really?)

I've seen some officers show up at the range with their carbines that were starting to show RUST because they were left in the vehicle mounts too long.

Or, how about taking a look at the rifles and finding officers carrying them in the vehicles with ONLY TEN ROUNDS OR LESS IN THE MAGAZINE?

We can have the best gear and optics and we can get sent to some of the finest training in the world. But if a person does not have what we call the "warrior mindset"--and the willingness to train, to hone those skills to razor sharpness, it won't do a lick of good.

Now, y'all excuse me, if you would...just qualified two weeks ago with a new duty gun (Sig P227) and I need to go put about 200 rounds downrange.

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Old June 15, 2014, 11:58 AM   #64
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pax
<SNIP>ps -- But none of this means I think Wilcox made the wrong call. I. Don't. Know. And neither do you. We don't know what the other road looks like, the one he didn't take. We only know what the road he did take looks like.
Actually, we know he made the wrong call, because he's dead. Now, was it wrong for him to take that course of action? We'll probably never know.
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Old June 15, 2014, 12:07 PM   #65
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It seems that few people took their threats seriously; both had rambled about right-wing extremist conspiracy theories in online videos and on social media sites for years.
Um, I thought it was a Liberal conspiracy?
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Old June 15, 2014, 12:17 PM   #66
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From a T&T standpoint, this raises the question of who you intend to defend with your weapon. Wilcox decided to try to defend other people in the store, whereas many of us believe we carry only ourselves and our famlies. I won't call either of these right or wrong, but I think it is ALWAYS a bad idea for a non-LEO citizen to engage a shooter, especially since the only known crime at the time was shooting into the ceiling and ordering people out.
Ya know, after reading all 3 pages of this, I gotta say that we as a group, in general, love to Monday morning quarterback more than discuss what strategies should have been taken.

Personally, if my life or that of my loved ones weren't in danger, the first thing I would have done would be to get the hell out of dodge. Only then would I have re-evaluated the situation by observing.

Basic project management 101 using a waterfall methodology. Define Scope/Objective, Identify, Plan, Act, Review. Use the brain that gawd gave ya.
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Old June 15, 2014, 12:22 PM   #67
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The definition of heroism is stepping up to take care of a problem when:

1) the stakes are very, very high;
2) it's not your job; and
3) The odds are against you.

That means the normal, expected outcome of heroic behavior is a catastrophic loss, often including the hero's death.

Americans are funny. We cheer people who beat the odds, but also treat beating the odds like it's the normal outcome when it most assuredly is not.

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Old June 15, 2014, 03:30 PM   #68
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Here's something else that we do know, Mr. Wilcox didn't shoot an innocent bystander. And none were shot as a result of his actions. The bad guys are dead, and unfortunately so is he. But the loss of innocent life stopped with him. I call that heroic.
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Old June 15, 2014, 09:02 PM   #69
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Unfortunately, heroism does not equal competence. And again, we emphasize "training" in the use of a weapon and confuse it with training in dealing with dangerous people and hazardous situations. Of course, LEOs don't "get it right" all the time, and some die because of that. But LEOs do have training in analyzing a situation and determining the proper response. Too many citizens who carry guns know HOW to shoot, but not WHEN, and WHEN NOT, to shoot. And too many CCW courses stop with the HOW, teaching the armed citizen to puncture paper targets, not wanting to "turn off" students by discussing the implications involved when the target is not paper, and is able to shoot back.

Not many CCW instructors will tell their students one simple hard truth: That gun you spent time choosing, you loaded so carefully, you worked and paid to get a license for, CAN AND WILL GET YOU KILLED IF YOU DON"T KNOW WHEN TO DRAW AND WHEN TO LEAVE IT IN ITS HOLSTER! If you draw on the wrong person, at the wrong time, you will not go home to your wife that night, or ever again. If you draw when you don't have to, your children may be without a father (or mother). Or you may be paralyzed for life. Or imprisoned for murder.

Yes, use your gun when you must, as a last resort, to defend your own life or the life of a family member. But if you draw that gun with the idea of defending others, make very sure you know exactly what is involved and that there is no other choice.

Jim
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Old June 15, 2014, 10:06 PM   #70
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James,

I wasn't trying to suggest that anyone was questioning his bravery, just pointing out that no matter what mistakes or decisions were made on his part, the bottom line is he was a very brave man.
Law enforcement and military are trained to try and limit the effects of there sympathetic nervous systems in high stress situations which causes tunnel vision and hearing loss but it is a very tough thing to overcome at best, no matter the amount of training especially when your first focal point is one of somebody that is armed and has already fired a shot. Tunnel vision was what led him to not notice the female that killed him.
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Old June 16, 2014, 08:56 PM   #71
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And who is it that does sometimes shoot innocent bystanders when responding to a crime seen ?
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Old June 16, 2014, 09:42 PM   #72
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And who is it that does sometimes shoot innocent bystanders when responding to a crime seen ?
I am sure you mean cops, but it isn't just bystanders that negligently get shot and it isn't just when arriving at the scene. It also isn't just cops that do this.

Quote:
Yes, use your gun when you must, as a last resort, to defend your own life or the life of a family member. But if you draw that gun with the idea of defending others, make very sure you know exactly what is involved and that there is no other choice.
Nobody ever knows "what is exactly involved..." Even if you think you have identified all the actors, that does not mean you have identified all their strengths and weaknesses or know who hasn't shown up yet that may interfere. So at best, you are just making a guess for which you feel you have high confidence, which isn't the same as actually knowing.

So far, I have yet to see any accounts from the incident where anybody else identified Amanda Miller as a threat in Walmart during the event before she killed Wilcox.

I did find this interesting however, Mr. Miller ordered everyone out of Walmart, threatening to shoot them if they didn't leave. People were leaving at the time that Mr. Wilcox confronted Mr. Miller.

Quote:
He heard Miller shout, "This is the beginning of the revolution! Everybody get out! You will be shot!"

...

Wilcox "had the option to go left to exit the store to safety," Tanner told CNN. But he chose not to leave. Wilcox instead stayed inside and confronted Jerad Miller, Tanner said.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/10/justic...egas-shooting/
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Old June 20, 2014, 03:45 PM   #73
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im amaze at all the responces dealing with tactics. i see this as a regognition and personal safty problem. i have drilled into my kids heads since they started shooting with me, if you ccw and get involved in a situation no one should know you have a gun till You use it. that means it stays holstered till you know the situation and have a shot. why LEO has a uniform so s/he is imediatly recognized as..... good guy! someone in street close waving a gun is a bad guy to LEO and John Q. and just futher confuses the situation. someone in street close waving a gun that the bad guys see, they know who is with them, becomes a priority target. so for a ccw to move around a shooting situation with gun drawn puts him at a disadvantage. sorry all you "DIE HARD" fans

this should be the first consideration before any engagement.

after the engagement the guns holstered again for reasons stated above.

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Old June 20, 2014, 09:45 PM   #74
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At what point do we, as folks who might know some common rambler about revolutions and killing decide, know when the person is just still spouting nonsense or is spouting actual threats and basically saying they are going to take action?
Well, that's the question, now isn't it?

The people Tim McVeigh stayed with heard his rants, and thought they were all just hot air.

They wound up with a couple dozen year sentences because they DIDN'T call the FBI (or anyone) about him.
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Old June 21, 2014, 07:30 PM   #75
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Michael Bane had an interesting podcast on his blog about civilian interventions and the problem with challenging the shooter. He recalled how Gunsite used to teach (never there, so correct me if I'm wrong) you to challenge the bad guy. I certainly took classes where such was taught.

Bane thinks and I agree that with an active shooter, you have no responsibility to challenge. It certainly didn't work in Tacoma and may have been a negative in this case.

At the NTI, we were doing a house clearing and I simply shot the bad guy. I was asked why I didn't challenge and I said - he's in my house. There was no doubt that they were bad guys, not just some drunk who wandered in. However, you did need to be careful. A friend came out of the same run and said - Oops, I shot my son. He was a touch upset.
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