What makes some people think all criminals are bad shots?

[C0untZer0]

There is the much touted survey of prison inmates that said that the number one thing they fear is an armed citizen - I believe the NRA uses this study frequently.

That certainly seems to conflict with:

Criminals, particularly gang members, are normally not frightened of being confronted by a citizen with a firearm

But I also have read 2 news stories recently where a criminal and or gang members were not frightened off by a homeowner brandishing a gun - or even firing warning shots.

It would seem to contridict the idea that the sound of a shotgun being racked sends criminals fleeing.

I think the statistic still is that in 85% of cases criminal break off an attack at the sight of a gun - but like all statistics this applies generally to situations across the board. So those statistics include attempted muggings where the attacker is armed only with fists or a bludgeon, rapists armed similarly, car theives where the owner walks out armed while they're attempting to wire the car... I'm not sure anyone has narrowed down the statistics to see how they apply to those attacks by violent gang members, or those cases where the attackers are armed with high capacity / major caliber weapons.

convicts often have nothing better to do to keep busy in prison but to practice taking guns away from you by distracting you and executing well-rehearsed moves

IMO, another argument against firing a warning a shot, the time you take your weapon away from target and discharge it may be all the time the attacker needs to cover the ground between you and grapple with you / make your weapon inoperable or take it away from you.

The last thing I want to address is this idea that criminals are or are not afraid of me as an armed citizen.

I really don't care. I hope that no one cares if a criminal is either afraid of them or not and I hope no one is intimidated by the prospect of a criminal not being afraid of them.

It really doesn't matter. If I am in a situation - the gravest extreme - where lethal force is required, I don't intend to cow the attacker into submission by brandishing a weapon, or making verbal threats, or firing warning shots. I intend to stop the attacker by disrupting vital tissue until the aggression stops.

[zxcvbob]

Perhaps it means you don't get to pick your badguy. The badguy picks you.

[UtopiaTexasG19]

I think television dramas over the years have repeatedly shown the good guys mostly comming out of gun fights without a scratch and the bad guys almost always getting wounded or killed. Sure, as adults we know this is not always true but when you repeatedly see the same senario over and over again with the same outcome it's bound to eventually influence how one thinks. On shows like Criminal Intent, NCIS LA, Law and Order, The Mentalist etc. it is almost comical how the "bad" guys with automatic weapons always miss their targets but the good guys take them out with pistols, sometimes at huge distances.

[C0untZer0]

^ I think Hollywood has had a HUGE impact on self-defense / justifiable homicide laws.

It's led to important misunderstandings on the part of judges, juries, and lawmakers, about violent confrontations I have found that the people who vehemently oppose Castle Doctrine usually believe in one or more of these Hollywood generated myths about firearms. The people who came up with the duty to retreat doctrine had no realistic idea of what violent attackers actually do or how they act, how a normal human responds while being attacked or what happens in a violent confrontation.

I wish the NRA would take on these myths when they are propogated by the media.

[zxcvbob]

The people who came up with the duty to retreat doctrine had no realistic idea of what violent attackers actually do or how they act, how a normal human responds while being attacked or what happens in a violent confrontation.

Those people need to watch the movie "In Cold Blood" (or read the book) Even when the criminals are executed, you don't feel good about it even tho' they deserved it by anybody's definition -- just maybe numb or a little sick.

[Willie Lowman]

The constant use of "Bad Guy" to identify and describe a particular person is in itself ignorant. Are they bad as soon as they wake up or is this something that only applies during particular activities? If someone has a job but does bad things on the weekend are they bad 24/7 or only on Saturday and Sunday?

Is there a card someone must carry in their wallet identifying them as a "Good Guy?" (Oh, my Good Guy card? It's right here next to my driver's license, CCW permit, and my TFL screen name.)

Second, bad guys are lazy- otherwise they would have jobs.

I'm lazy and I'm laid off for the winter, so does that mean I'm in danger of loosing my Good Guy status?



I know everyone likes a good "Us vs Them" but life isn't a college football game. The guy who is fixing your transmission might be the guy selling your kid dope later in the day. The young vet that you just got done telling "Thanks for your service" could very well be the one to stick a pistol in your back later this evening.

[Brian Pfleuger]

Originally Posted by Willie Lowman

The constant use of "Bad Guy" to identify and describe a particular person is in itself ignorant. Are they bad as soon as they wake up or is this something that only applies during particular activities? If someone has a job but does bad things on the weekend are they bad 24/7 or only on Saturday and Sunday?

It clearly applies to a person who is or has committed a crime. They're pretty "bad" guys.

How would you prefer that we refer to this person? Suspect? Person of Interest? Convict? Criminal? Wrongly convicted, poor, innocent guy who only robbed the store because his mom was mean to him?

They're "bad guys". Referring to them as such is hardly ignorant.

[Willie Lowman]

So, if someone commits armed robbery, they are a bad guy. I think we are in agreement.

What If they committed several armed robberies five years ago, they now own their own business and support their wife and two kids. Are they still a bad guy?

What if they sell dope but they help stop a burglary? Good bad guy?

[Brian Pfleuger]

Completely outside the context of the use of the word in this discussion. I'm confident we're not talking about the marksmanship of a former bank robber who found Jesus.

Context is your friend.

[Willie Lowman]

You are right. I am off topic.

Good day to you sir.

[brickeyee]

While some may not be, the majority of them in Washington, DC appear to be.

Plenty of 'shots fired' with no affect.

That would tend to indicate they are not very good shots.

Unless they are illegally practicing with their illegally possessed guns?

The problem is that at 'bad breath distance' you do not need to be all that good a shot, and a lot of 'events' likely end without shots even being fired (from good or bad guys).

I know how many rounds I fired learning to move and shoot and hit movig targets.

The number of hood rats with similar training and practice is most likely vanishingly small.

Distance, movement, cover.

Even against a good shot they are all your friend.

[jimbob86]

some bad guys even shoot better than your average cop.

Damned with faint praise.

I used to shoot IDPA mini-matches at a local range. There were a couple of cops that shot there regularly (sometimes even using their duty rig). They were GOOD.

...and then once, a cop showed up "to brush up for qualification" and shot the match...... tea-cup grip, came down on the target on each shot, glacial times and would have been more accurate if had thrown rocks ..... the regular shooter cops remarked "Hey at least he fired the thing between Quals!"

[jimbob86]

IF the bad guys were "all" such good shots, why is it that 10-25% of the victims seem to be innocent bystanders?

"Because, Statistically Speaking, the most dangerous thing you can do in life is be standing on the street/sitting in a car (in a crappy part of town between the hours of 1 and 3 AM), "Minding Your Own Business"."

That's why.

[jimbob86]

Fate doesn't care how much you've trained.

....and I don't particularly much care for Fate, either. I'll make my own Luck, thankee.

[Double Naught Spy]

Prepare, yes, but ...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In a gunfight, I'd rather be lucky than good.

Fate doesn't care how much you've trained.

Why bother to waste all that time preparing if Fate determines the outcome? Heck, why are you even in a gun fight at all. Fate will determine whether you live or die so why bother with unnecessary things like preparation, training, or even owning a gun? Come on. Fate? Really?

I know how many rounds I fired learning to move and shoot and hit movig targets.

The number of hood rats with similar training and practice is most likely vanishingly small.

Sure, but you are likely an exception to most gun owners who are lucky to get to the range once a year to practice. Many of the bad guys may not practice as much as you, but more and more are returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan as combat hardened and US military trained soldiers. Of course, this isn't a new problem.

[nate45]

I don't believe many 'Bad Guys' are worried about duty to retreat laws, the ramifications of using head shots, or of hitting innocent by-standers. Its a possibility that many of the by-standers who get hit, may be intentionally targeted for the fun/terror factor. Even if their not, I don't think the welfare of by-standers is given much consideration.

Originally Posted by jibberjabber

In a gunfight, I'd rather be lucky than good.

Fate doesn't care how much you've trained.

I'm not sure if Gary Player was the originator of the quote or not, but he said it and it's most often referenced to him...

"The more I practice, the luckier I get"- Gary Player, winner of nine major golf championships.

[pax]

"If you are fighting for your life in a gunfight today, today is not your lucky day." ~ Tom Givens

pax

[Stevie-Ray]

I know that if I am ever in the situation where I need to draw, as far as the talent of my opponent, I'm going to be expecting the best and praying for the worst.

[Buzzcook]

I think if you check back you may find that Oswald did not qualify as Expert Marksman in the USMC.

Yes and no. When Oswald first qualified in training he did so as "Expert". Then at re-qualification while serving in Japan he didn't.
People in the conspiracy-industrial-complex site the latter instance and never the former.


Bad guys are bad shots, because the TV machine tells me so.

[brickeyee]

Many of the bad guys may not practice as much as you, but more and more are returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan as combat hardened and US military trained soldiers.

By what statistics?

Sounds like a 'pulled out of thin air' idea.

[C0untZer0]

I know that if I am ever in the situation where I need to draw, as far as the talent of my opponent, I'm going to be expecting the best and praying for the worst.

I'm also going to be hoping that they are using cheap, not-well-maintained firearms, and also hopefully chambered in something smaller than .355 caliber.

I think the statistics bear out that criminals do use a lot of .32 and .25 caliber firearms, but the police officer that was killed in Chicago right before Christmas was shot with a 9mm.

The shooter used a Tec-9. The Tec-9 had a reputation for being a jam-o-matic. The guns that were made before the company folded up were terrible, besides jamming, they had crooked sights and internals that would break and even the early models didn't do well feeding anything but FMJ . My Tec-9M always worked fine with FMJ and Federal Nyclads.

It might be said that the shooter was using a cheap low-quality firearm in the Chicago shooting, but if the accounts are true he shot three times and missed with none of them. The distance wasn't far but the shooter made a head shot and then put two in the chest of officer Lewis.

So his shooting was as good as it needed to be to kill someone.

I know its anecdotal, but it just reminds me that not all the criminals are carrying Davis, Ravens, Lorcins and the like.

[hangglider]

I'm sure it happens--but I'm dubious of the "increasingly" x-vet criminal claim--especially as a hardened repeat offender type. I'm guessing vet shootings is more of a PTSD/emotional imbalance or occasionally because the SO didn't have the will to keep their shorts/panties on while the service person was away.

[C0untZer0]

The military is made up of people, some people commit crimes some don't.

I knew a soldier at Fort Huachuca who murdered a fellow soldier in a particularly gruesome way. I was aware of a guy in my battalion at Fort Polk who was jealous that another soldier was dating someone he liked, so he put a 12" Rambo knife in the gut of his romantic rival. My friend and the guy who fixed my CUCV tackled him as he tried to flee the scene.

I can't tell you how many pot heads I knew who got chaptered out.

It's not like putting on the uniform makes you an angel.

On the other hand - this notion that returning vets are going to get angry and dissilusioned because they cannot find jobs and they're going to join militias and plot the over throw of the governmnet turn into Timothy McVeighs and or turn into Platt and Matixes... is ridiculous.

[Nnobby45]

People think that because most of them are. But, as has been pointed out, not all.

Many gang members have been involved in shootouts. Many have shot other people and have been shot themselves. What that means is that many are NOT going to be shaking in their boots when confronted by you or me. They're the ones more likely to have "combat" experience--maybe a lot of it. Even if it means just pointing a gun and spraying bullets.

Most are still probably bad shots, but that doesn't mean they aren't dangerous, given the close nature of shootings.

Not a pleasant thought, but some may have the right mental attitude for winning gun fights. Some may run like rabbits if someone fights back.

Don't worry about their attitude. Worry about yours.

[hangglider]

In today's episode of "as the bullets fly" in Chattanooga, two house robbers opened fire on policemen--one the officers scored a hit while the BGs attempted escape in a vehicle: http://timesfreepress.com/news/2012/.../?breakingnews