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LASur5r
September 6, 2000, 08:49 PM
There was a general discussion going about "Being a hero." Many topics were started from that one thread.
I saw various responses and I would like to address one and I hope that many of you will respond to shape it up.
Whether or not you live in the city or in a rural area, I assume you know your neighbors at least by sight.
Let us say that you are committed to trying to saving women and children...okay..okay...saving children.
Scenario...a 10 year old girl comes pounding on your door, she's screaming that a man broke into her house and is killing her family. You know the little girl because from time to time she plays with your kids. You've met her parents and they appear to be good sorts, no family disturbances, no police calls late at night to their door.
You ask her if she's seen any guns. She shakes her head.
Now, you see a ragged car parked behind their house as you approach. It doesn't belong to your neighbors. You have already left the girl with your wife and kids and they have barricaded the house and stand ready and armed to repel all boarders. Your wife called "911." and past experience is that it takes 15 minutes for the cavalry to arrive. She's given dispatch your description and has informed them that you are armed.
How do you approach? Behind as much cover as possible? Straight charge to the front door? or do you do leap frog? Cover to cover
Or do you follow the cover and come up near a side or rear door, trying to use element of surprise?
What do you listen for? What are you trying to see as you approach?
Are you visible all the way to the house..from someone who might be inside watching to ambush any body coming to help?
Are you going to try for dynamic entry? Kicking the door? Or do you try for open window or door?
No noises from inside the house...your heart is pounding, your breathing is ragged..should have gotten in shape sooner. Did you choose a long gun or handgun? Is the long gun too long for close quarters combat?
You're up against the front door...did you try the door knob to see if the door can be opened just by turning the knob? The door is solid wood, were you planning on kicking it in?
The door is locked. Now what? Run around to the back door?
Still no noise coming from within.
Use dynamic entry? or subterfuge? Call out and hope for a response thereby alerting the potential killer that you're there? Maybe that will stop him/her? Maybe that might make him/her stalk you or set up to ambush you? Do you yell and say the police are coming? Will that make the BG run? or shoot? or come out to confront you?
You quick peek into a window by the front door. You see a shadow move inside the house...BG? or good guy? or shadow only? maybe the reflection on your glasses?
A noise, like a dull thud...Did that come from inside the house or a neighboring house?
You realize by glancing at your watch that it has already been five minutes elapsed...do you realize that everyone is probably dead already?
You hear a muted crying sound...a baby! Did it come from inside or from a neighboring house? You look over your shoulder as you hunker down below the window sill and notice a lady walking her baby in the stroller and that is where the sound is coming from. As you see that you notice a moving truck down the block and a box had fallen out of the truck...is that where the thud sound came from?
You work your way around to the back, keeping low so that you won't be seen from any of the windows.
You are trying to assess what is going on, gathering information before you rush into the building.
Do you know the layout of the building? Have you been inside before or are you gathering that information as you duck walk in the side yard.
Do your neighbors have a dog? Is it an attack dog? Do they keep it in the yard? Will it attack you? You hear growling as you near the corner of the house. What to do? Shoot the dog?
Folks, I am not an LEO, but I have been on numerous real scenarios like this one with the entry team folks. I had been assigned to go with them whenever they were serving warrants on houses.
These are many of the factors you need to think out,hopefully in your imagination. The more real information that you have, the better your assessment will be so that you can make a real decision and not throw your actions away needlessly.
Have you looked at your neighbors' houses on a cursory level? where are the doors and windows. Are they barred? How many in the family? What do they look at?
Entry teams usually have a briefing as to all the information that can be provided so that they are well prepared or as well as they can be.
When you arrive on scene, you are trying to stay calm and absorb as much necessary information as possible. You try to use as much cover and make the least amount of noise as possible approaching the scene. When you get up to the entry point, did you notice where the hinges are? Does the door open inward or outward? Makes a difference when you try hitting the door.
Anyway, enough stirring up the gray matter. Please add your thoughts because a lot of you have experiences that can help a lot of members of this board.
Try this...get your kids or the neighborhood kids, get some super soakers and you play the good guy trying to get to the front door of your house without getting hit. If it's too cold, try nerf guns, or laser blasters(200 foot range) If it's not a water gun, tell the kids to hide out in the house and you go from entering to "clearing" the house.
Your neighbors will only think you're going through your second childhood.
You want to try something challenging? Try getting your shooting friends and you take turns trying to enter and clear a house that you are not real familiar with. You are the only good guy and they are all BG's.
Guaranteed to stunt your growth!

krept
September 6, 2000, 09:44 PM
Well, I am about to show how ingorant I am re: tactics, but out of pure fun, I'd give it a shot.


First I would try to ask the girl how many, what they were using and where in the house they are. What was her escape route? Did anyone see her go? I would grab my knife (always have a blade), longun (AR) and a pistol, assuming that it would not leave the rest of the tribe unarmed. If so, I would leave behind whatever my wife felt post comfortable with (probably longarm).

Depending on the answers from the girl, the situation would change. In general this is what I would do next. Grab flashlight (off). Sneak around in dark, listening. Check out situation in front of house, depending on cover. Make sure of make/model # of car.

Now, again depending on situation, I would advance to the rear. Carefully and quietly, as dark as possible. check out situation in rear of house. Stay near hard cover and look for way into house. At this point, I don't know if I would start making loud noises (then head for hard cover like a wall) or stay quiet and look for a way to enter. Chances are if the people are being quiet about what they are doing, they will not want to hang around when someone starts drawing a lot of attention, especially in close neighborhoods like large apartment complexes, etc.

Because it's coming from the rear of the house, I would think that they would head immediately for the car. From hard cover, I would ready the light and try to get a sight picture (glad you got those trijicons now? haha). If no movement, make even more noise and possibly wait. Chances are they are aware someone is outside and are ready for an entry. Flood the house with flashlight from maximal hard cover. Maybe wait for cops (could be suicide to enter at this point, especially in CQ with multiple armed assailants.) or enter using hard cover to hard cover staying low and quick. Get behind wall, break out rear sliding glass door with light. Flood room once quick. Retreat back from behind wall back to original HC, backwards, ready with light on. Reassess room, situation. Look for light, lightswich. I guess even if noone came out or nothing happened originally instead of advancing I would try to assess the entire situation from the outside, circling the house.

It would be IMO tremendously difficult to try entry with multiple attackers, even armed with good CQ longarm. Best to try to drive out the attackers with noise from the outside and allow them a chance to get in the car or hold them off long enough (if they are willing to shoot it out, you've gotta wonder what's going on) until the police arrive. One thing is, however, if you do make noise or try entry from the front, they will probably run out the back, possibly into your house...

Great question. Real thinker. I am interested to know what those with training or knowledge on the subject would do. I have spoken with my friends about playing the GG/BGs thing. We were thinking about using paintballs (with appropriate equipment, of course). That way, you are reeeeal careful about barging into a room. I lived on Camp Pendleton (father was a Marine) and they had a place called Combat Town out in the boonies... it was a bunch of concrete structures used to represent urban combat. I'll betcha it would be fun to play in there!

fubsy
September 7, 2000, 07:23 AM
Out side of a tactical nuke Im not sure I would get involved. I would most likely gather what information I could and wait for the police and swat to show up and give them the information. I have no illusions regarding such a scenario, even the people trained lose people, and they are going in as a team. Now I would take precautions to remove my family and that child to a safer area, and would wait with the cell phone for the police. It apparently is the rage for most ccw folks to think they are "john Waynne" and I dont believe for a second that unless you have trained and trained with the right type of folks your training will allow you on a first time approach to such a situation to react in such a manner as to "win" the day. If the police were available I would not be entering, now if they were not that would change the scenario....and Im not sure how I would react.....fubsy.

sedwards
September 7, 2000, 08:19 AM
1. Grab the Mossberg and the P14-45 --lock & load.

2. Grab the cellphone and talk directly to the dispatcher (I'm not interested in getting shot if the LEOs show up suddenly).

3. Clear all extraneous neighbors from the area.

4. Disable the unknown vehicle (preferably by taking the distributor cap).

5. Retreat back to my house and wait for the cavalry.

My first duty is to my family; if I get myself killed trying to enter somebody else's house (by the homeowner -- who mistakes me for an intruder, by one or more intruders, or by the police) I have failed in that duty.

I have no illusions -- I've played far too much paintball to believe that I could clear a house by myself without getting shot.


------------------
The value of my life, my Rights, and those of my family are incalculable;
your life and your Rights, should you choose to threaten mine, are worth exactly $1.79 --
delivered 230gr at a time.

LASur5r
September 7, 2000, 10:47 AM
Hey, great replies, guys.
Besides, sharing your thoughts, I want to stimulate the old gray matter between our ears. Everybody who carries ought to run scenarios through their thought processor.
We need to be mentally prepared as well as physically prepared. Not only the commitment but the mindset and the analytical mind, etc..
Knowing all the while, if you choose to ride to the rescue, that all h*** breaks loose when the first shot is fired or you hear someone screaming in pain...discipline needs to kick in then because you're no good to anyone dead...especially if you rush into the BG's.

On another tact, looks like in SoCal we're starting to have the good guys fighting back and they're winning.

One guy in a donut shop. BG had a gun which later turned out to be a BB gun, store owner is ordered to lay down. Fearing for his life, he grabs his gun and fires, hitting the BG four times in the torso. They find the BG down the block.

Another one in Hollyweird. BG decides that he needs to do a little armed robbery in a store. Store clerk wrestles gun away and shoots (I'm not sure) BG. I'll look for news article.

We get some more of these success stories and we might see a lot of BG's leave the city.

ctdonath
September 7, 2000, 11:53 AM
Lesseehere...

- You don't know what's going on beyond what the kid said.
- Clearing a house requires a minimum of a 10-to-1 force to reasonably ensure effectiveness and survival. You're...one.
- The killer is, well, a killer. Don't get cocky.
- Your wife's 911 call means that very nervous police are going to show up soon and will expect to find an unknown armed man storming the neighbor's house. You, playing hero, are an unknown armed man storming the neighbor's house. Do the math. Even if they are forewarned, you're risking friendly fire.
- You don't know the house, who's in it, or where. You probably don't have advanced training in clearing houses; if you do, you're probably rusty.
- Your family needs you. The neighbor girl probably needs you.

There's a lot of extremely serious negatives to playing hero. "But..." - I know. Keep your priorities straight. Take care of your own.

LASur5r
September 7, 2000, 06:51 PM
CTDonath,
You are so right.
Not enough people have made this threat assessment beforehand. I don't think they have taken the time to analyze what it takes. It is not enough to go charging off into the crime scene, gun in hand.
Like I keep asking, what good is a dead hero, especially if you haven't rescued the good guys.
We want all you gun handlers to survive the fights not just go down in a blaze of glory (?)...and we haven't even thrown in Mr. Murphy on these excursions yet.
Wait till he shows up.
Anyway, let's keep these threads going so that you really serious survivors keep the gray matter going.

krept
September 7, 2000, 07:33 PM
To be honest with you, I really do not think I would be able to just sit in my house and wait for the police to arrive. I don't think I would ever be able to forgive myself if everyone was killed and I didn't do anything about it. I would feel like that guy on Saving Pvt. Ryan that just stood there and let his compadre get knifed.

So yes, I would do something about it and given the situation and information it would be one of those extremely rare occasions that I feel the need to put a live round in the chamber and go outside with a firearm ready to use it.

Well, I do know that I would go outside and would be armed, but after that is up in the air. Most likely I would probably try to make some kind of noise to wake up the whole neighborhood and keep cover and at least 30 feet away from the car. At least. Well, still, I don't know what I would do, but I know that I would do something.

Just imagine the same thing happening, except you and your neighbor are in a very rural area with no one around for miles and the avg. response time was an hour. Then you know you have to do something... or... would you still wait? Crazy situation...

fubsy
September 7, 2000, 08:22 PM
Lasur5r,
Have you ever heard of O'toole's law?.....He says Murphy was an optimist...fubsy.

LASur5r
September 8, 2000, 10:14 AM
Fubsby,
I am well acquainted with Murphy or was it O'Toole in disguise?
Once when I was practicing sword drawing in a park, I was approached by three guys. I didn't like the way they were eyeing my sword which I had set aside (Practice Japanese sword, cheaply made but mine nonetheless.. They started fanning out to surround me when I decided to use a Hapkido technique.
I walked over to a young tree, I figured that I would jump kick a low branch and hope that would impress them.
I jumped up in the air, front snap kicked the branch where it joined the trunk and when I landed, my foot came down on a wet section of grass...so it slipped and I landed on my a**...(rhymes with grass).
To add insult to injury, I snapped that branch (about 3 inches in caliper) clean off and the entire branch, leaves and all, landed on me as I lay there.
Welcome Mr. Murphy? Mr. O'Toole?

Fubsby, could you tell me about the story of O'Toole?

Anyway, they ran from me...I would too, they must have thought that I had killed myself.

By the way, guys, I had changed Bruce Lee's words to " Just hand this guy any weapon and he will beat himself...there is no need to fight him."
:( :( :(

ctdonath
September 8, 2000, 11:49 AM
Yes, there will be a strong motivation to get involved. Certainly evaluate the situation and do what you can to save lives - just keep your priorities very clear and straight.

Donath's Observation: Murphy was misquoted.

LASur5r
September 8, 2000, 01:47 PM
Hi,folks, I'm going to try another post relating to what prepared us to at least want to respond to rescue someone, but I'll put it on a new post.

Combat vets know that there were many times that an outfit was getting chewed up by NVA or Charlie or ChiComs, etc.,etc.., and you volunteered to go to the rescue, but time was not on your side.
So sometimes, you gnashed your teeth, cried,got an ulcer,swore, swore that you would get even, etc., etc.. All the while knowing you couldn't get there fast enough.
Sometimes When you finally got there, you were amazed by the will of our guys to survive. Often they did...badly wounded, but alive.
You learned not to rush headlong into an ongoing battle....HaHaHa...I just remembered a couple of hot LZ's that we landed in under orders. Anyway,by choice you moved quickly, decisively, but always ready to react, always on the alert...of course, you grunts are different. In WW2, my dad said the saying was..."then you called in the Marines!"
Being 1st Cav, we just followed SOP and hit Charlie with everything but the kitchen sink, then we went in at least platoon if not company strength to effect the rescue.

Off the track, but there is a big difference between military and civilian rescues...in that when the baloon goes up in a civilian rescue...you and only you can make the decision to risk your life so might as well think about it now because when it really happens, it happens fast, and you don't have a whole lot of time.

fubsy
September 8, 2000, 02:12 PM
Lol...lasur5r, are you related to Hud?..lol...

all I know of Otoole is that he thought murphy was an optimist, and it struck me funny that two irish men are arguing over who could be more negative...lol...fubsy.

M1911
September 8, 2000, 04:53 PM
Lessee, I know the neighbors, but have never been inside their house. Police are on the way, and maybe have a sketchy description of me from my panicked wife. I only have a description of the situation from a panicked 10 year old. The police dispatcher has a third-hand description of the situation. The responding officers have a fourth hand description of the situation. And I've already accepted that it is suicide to clear my OWN house, which I know like the back of my hand.

Uh, no thanks, I'm no one person entry team. As horrible as it is to sit and wait, I'd probably be as much of a danger to the neighbors as to the goblins if I went charging in (provided, of course, that I didn't get blown off my feet the minute I entered). I s'pose I might take a long arm, circle around back of their house and try to stop one if he bails when the cavalry arrives.

Also, given that I am all of 160 lbs (with 20 lbs of that around my waist), any entry I make isn't going to be "dynamic" unless they have a really piss-poor door...

M1911

LASur5r
September 8, 2000, 07:54 PM
Of course, if we used military tactics...?
Call for an air strike? Mortar attack? Lay down covering fire?
Obviously al lot of the military responses is not suited for single person response.
Kick the door and toss in grenade? Follow up with emptying couple clips on full automatic?

Ok, ok...all seriousness now...I hope you readers get a better picture of doing a one man rescue. Like anything, it is a calculated risk...Still, the one variable that no one predicts is...it's up to you.
Knowing the odds, knowing little information, do you find a vantage point,try to contain the BG(s) at that point by putting yourself in a good solid cover area and prepare yourself to perhaps take a life?
Keep in mind, you have no idea what the BG looks like...you might be wasting a good guy.

One of the deterrents when the baloon goes up is thinking too much...analyzing. He who hesitates and all that stuff...
But if you rush in? Maybe you might take out the good guys? New factor this time,right?

I hope you have an understanding now of the discipline you need and the frustration a good guy faces when you decide you want to be on the side of the good guys.

The temptation is strong, that if you think you can wait it out for the cavalry to arrive, for you to sit it out in a vantage point...good field of fire, good hard cover, etc...
Legally, I don't think this is self-defense anymore. I.e...you have a rifle with iron sights, you lay in wait for what you think is a BG and you drop him when he leaves the house. (A visiting uncle getting stuff from his car?)

All I'm saying is train,train,train...until you pass on to your reward...if you intend to pack heat, you need to prepare yourself...

Keep up the good fight.