[Lee Lapin]

There were several lessons that were important to me I took away from this event. I've looked at it for a long time, and I read the book and pretty much everything else I could find as well. YMMV here of course. Here goes...

Firearms are not necessarily death rays. Just because someone gets shot doesn't mean that person will stop, or die right there. Just because you get shot doesn't mean you will stop or die right there either. It is critical to stay in the fight, or get back in the fight, if things don't go your way. Otherwise you might very well die needlessly right there. You stop when the fight is over and not before. Whatever else happens, don't let your people down.

Cars can be surprisingly good cover in some cases. Cover is a really good thing. About half of a gunfight is the process of not getting shot. That's not something you want to forget.

It's not enough to get peripheral hits, nor is it good enough to get torso hits that do not drive deep enough and/or fail to intersect sufficiently critical anatomical structures to be incapacitating. Placement counts a lot, but placement without sufficient penetration won't get it done. The human target is 3D. It's like a covey of quail on the rise, there's a lot more air than bird and you have to pick one bird out of the uproar and shoot it. There is no magic caliber or magic bullet that will fix both placement problems and penetration problems.

Gunfights are what they are, not what you had planned for them to be or thought they would be. Outgunned and outnumbered does not necessarily mean outfought. When it starts, it's all on until it's all over.

It's better to out-think your opponent in the first place, if opportunity presents itself, than to have to out-fight him later.

You can do everything right and still get killed. You can do a lot of things wrong and still survive. Sometimes it doesn't make sense but it happens that way anyway.

lpl