After Action Review - Page 2

sylathnie · September 30, 2008, 09:03 PM

Just a quick observation. Flashing your light from the porch with no cover immediately and clearly reveals your position. Especially with something dim like a mag-light.
Take a look at a flashlight from a distance at night. Think you could shoot the person holding it?

Other than that I admire your sense of responsibility and compassion to keep an idiot from killing himself or others.

bikerbill · October 8, 2008, 11:31 AM

Gotta comment on one thing ... jrothWA's potato idea is nuts!!! No offense, but getting behind a car with an unknown person in the driver's seat is such a bad idea, I don't even know where to start. Jeez ... Besides, if he drives away, you win. Why would you NOT want to let him go?

I would NOT have gone outside. The police are closer here (maybe 10 minutes away) and I would have called them, turned the outside lights on to avoid backlighting and kept the car under observation. I would have been armed. If the person in the car is hurt, that's a problem -- for them. But there's no way to know that without putting yourself in serious harm's way; your first job is to make sure YOU and YOURS survive the encounter; staying inside makes that most likely.

w_houle · October 8, 2008, 11:59 AM

I would have to say that it sounds like it played out well:
Nice alert status, good threat assessment and good danger assessment. You had a good command of the situation, and used your equipment well.
I can't say the driver ceased to be a threat, as his motivations were still unclear; But, He still had control of a deadly weapon and was a threat to the public. In some states that would be justification for a legal shoot. I think your solution was fine.
A couple of short blasts from the flashlight to the eyes will take his night vision away for a few seconds.

WESHOOT2 · October 9, 2008, 08:09 AM

MY Mag-lite is verybright.

Sometimes around here the police are an hour away........

David Armstrong · October 9, 2008, 04:35 PM

Quote:

take a potato with you, the shove it up the exhaust.
No way will the car start.

IIRC, those good folks at Mythbusters recentlybusted that idea.

For the OP, I'm with the stay-inside crowd, or at least go back inside after you found out nobody was hurt.

GetYerShells · October 13, 2008, 08:17 AM

I can't say that I would have done anything different. I will ask this however, what did you plan on doing if he didn't comply with your requests and just got in his car and drove off? I mean would you have attempted to restrain him forcefully? tried to talk him down? what?

11B20 · October 15, 2008, 12:42 PM

[CODE]what did you plan on doing if he didn't comply with your requests and just got in his car and drove off? I mean would you have attempted to restrain him forcefully? tried to talk him down? what?/CODE]

Rest assured that I gamed all possible actions in my head, including my response and subsequent outcomes. That said, i would be a fool to admit publicly what my theoretical response would be to theoretical actions.
I will say that the likelihood of this individual driving off was next to nothing. I have a fairly steep driveway with some curves. One side has a stone wall and one side has a drop off of about 3 feet to lawn. In the last 8 years we have had probably 2 people a year go off the drop or scrape the wall, and all of these were sober and most during daylight (using your mirrors to back up is a dying art

) Like I said, the odds were against him getting much more than 30 feet.

M1911 · October 15, 2008, 02:05 PM

Quote:

3 The crossed wrist, mag light & weapon hold. (sorry, don't know the term) was incredibly strange. My watch was in the way, I kept fidgeting etc... I now know that I need to take my mag light to the range, assume this position and actually practice firing from this position.

It's called the Harrie's position. Yes, it is hard to maintain for any period of time. It is even harder to shoot accurately and control the recoil.

Gabe Suarez suggests a modification of this position, with your hands held in more of an X. That is, instead of having your right arm straight and your left bent, bend both of them, with the handgun being slightly canted to the left.

Yes, you really do have to train with it on the range, because it really is different.

As for the AAR, I'm in the "call the police and watch from behind a locked door" crowd. But I'm in the suburbs with a sub-5 minute police response time. I'm also nearing 50 and have never been in the kind of shape to be an 11B (thank you for your service, by the way). So the last thing I want to do is get within wrestling distance of a drunk. YMMV.

September 30, 2008, 09:03 PM	#26
sylathnie Member Join Date: November 21, 2007 Posts: 32	A note about the light Just a quick observation. Flashing your light from the porch with no cover immediately and clearly reveals your position. Especially with something dim like a mag-light. Take a look at a flashlight from a distance at night. Think you could shoot the person holding it? Other than that I admire your sense of responsibility and compassion to keep an idiot from killing himself or others.

October 8, 2008, 11:31 AM	#27
bikerbill Senior Member Join Date: September 19, 2007 Location: Lago Vista TX Posts: 2,425	Gotta comment on one thing ... jrothWA's potato idea is nuts!!! No offense, but getting behind a car with an unknown person in the driver's seat is such a bad idea, I don't even know where to start. Jeez ... Besides, if he drives away, you win. Why would you NOT want to let him go? I would NOT have gone outside. The police are closer here (maybe 10 minutes away) and I would have called them, turned the outside lights on to avoid backlighting and kept the car under observation. I would have been armed. If the person in the car is hurt, that's a problem -- for them. But there's no way to know that without putting yourself in serious harm's way; your first job is to make sure YOU and YOURS survive the encounter; staying inside makes that most likely. __________________ "The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants." Albert Camus

October 8, 2008, 11:59 AM	#28
w_houle Senior Member Join Date: March 29, 2007 Location: Raleigh, NC Posts: 1,391	I would have to say that it sounds like it played out well: Nice alert status, good threat assessment and good danger assessment. You had a good command of the situation, and used your equipment well. I can't say the driver ceased to be a threat, as his motivations were still unclear; But, He still had control of a deadly weapon and was a threat to the public. In some states that would be justification for a legal shoot. I think your solution was fine. A couple of short blasts from the flashlight to the eyes will take his night vision away for a few seconds. __________________ How could you have a slogan like "freedom is slavery" when the concept of freedom has been abolished?

October 9, 2008, 08:09 AM	#29
WESHOOT2 Senior Member Join Date: February 20, 1999 Location: home on the range; Vermont (Caspian country) Posts: 14,324	de fence MY Mag-lite is verybright. Sometimes around here the police are an hour away........ __________________ . "all my ammo is mostly retired factory ammo"

October 13, 2008, 08:17 AM	#31
GetYerShells Senior Member Join Date: September 29, 2008 Location: San Antonio, TX Posts: 118	I can't say that I would have done anything different. I will ask this however, what did you plan on doing if he didn't comply with your requests and just got in his car and drove off? I mean would you have attempted to restrain him forcefully? tried to talk him down? what? __________________ Sig P226 .40, Mossberg 500 Persuader, Springfield 1911 GI, M91/30

October 15, 2008, 12:42 PM	#32
11B20 Junior Member Join Date: August 11, 2008 Posts: 5	[CODE]what did you plan on doing if he didn't comply with your requests and just got in his car and drove off? I mean would you have attempted to restrain him forcefully? tried to talk him down? what?/CODE] Rest assured that I gamed all possible actions in my head, including my response and subsequent outcomes. That said, i would be a fool to admit publicly what my theoretical response would be to theoretical actions. I will say that the likelihood of this individual driving off was next to nothing. I have a fairly steep driveway with some curves. One side has a stone wall and one side has a drop off of about 3 feet to lawn. In the last 8 years we have had probably 2 people a year go off the drop or scrape the wall, and all of these were sober and most during daylight (using your mirrors to back up is a dying art ) Like I said, the odds were against him getting much more than 30 feet.