An example for the endless is 5 enough, I can't handle more than one opponent

[Nanuk]

5 used to be enough!!!!

5 What? 5 anything from a snubby 38 was never enough.

[Lohman446]

So, being prepared is the key to success?

For over fifty years now, people have preached at me that luck can bring you victory, or that it's a matter of destiny, they've said that preparedness is unimportant because a noble soul will push us to magnificent heights and this superpower will decide any confrontation, that skill will always lose to good fortune.

What I have observed throughout my own life, however, is that even my noble spirit can't seem to defeat someone who's just better than I am. That nerdy guy with the dopey glasses who was always sitting around reading got first and I got second in the spelling bee.

Obviously, he hadn't gotten the memo

One of my favorite quotes on the subject comes from legendary college football coach Paul "Bear" Bryant. "It's not the will to win that matters - everyone has that. It's the will to prepare to win that matters"

I still think that we often attempt to solve a user issue with hardware and I say that having grudgingly and without great joy purchased a G19 yesterday to replace my P938. All the hardware in the world is not going to suffice if you are not prepared and, as in the case of the officer, able to think clearly enough to carry out that training.

I still say the #1 lesson that can be taken from the article is the officer advanced on his targets even though he was far outgunned and in a defensively inferior position. By putting "the cards on the table" so to speak with this tactic he effectively worked to nullify the primary advantages the aggressors had.

[adamBomb]

What is wrong with looking at actual cases?

Its good to look at cases as long as you don't assume an n of 1 = significance. I think that is what he was pointing out because on the flip side there will be cases where you fired zero rounds. There is no right answer to this discussion other than the amount of rounds you carry is fine until you are in a situation when its not. At some point there will be situations where the only thing that could of gotten you out is a tank.

[DM357]

Here's a better lesson, and one that doesn't require quick thinking, the "right" gun, and so on: Don't do stupid contests and exhibits like this.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Folks misunderstand statistical significance. It means that some sample statistic or relationship is not likely to be due to chance. Its relevance when looking at a critical event in the extremes of a distribution events isn't really clear.

If the average number of shots fired is three, so what? Another study might find that the average was 5 and that difference was significant at the .05 level but not a .01.

The average (yet again) isn't guaranteed to be your gun fight.

N=1 - that killed the dinosaurs.

[Lohman446]

My point was that arguing that this case calls for X number of rounds (0r more than Y) while citing this case is as meaningful or meaningless as citing a case that took 1 and was successful. It's cherry picking data and building a card stacking fallacy.

Your point about statistics stands to a degree. In a gun fight I will not be concerned about a reasonable sample size. I will be concerned with a sample of one.

Somewhere we, each of us individually, have to decide how prepared we are going to be. Are we prepared to handle the anemic pan handler who will flee at the first sign of resistance? Are we prepared to attemp to fight off Delta Force attempting to kill us? The answer lies somewhere in the middle

My argument is you succes or failure is likely determined by your skills and not your equipment and hardware will it overcome a skill deficit in most cases. Of course each person is free to determine how that influences his or her decision making. I think I've failed to articulate the argument so much at this point even to myself. In most cases there is minimal difference in carrying a 15+1 firearm and a reload (or multiples) in comparison to a firearm with less capaxity and it's easier to err on the side of being over equipped.

[OldMarksman]

My point was that arguing that this case calls for X number of rounds (0r more than Y) while citing this case is as meaningful or meaningless as citing a case that took 1 and was successful.

Not really.

The question is one of sufficiency. A few data points showing that some number has been sufficient would be meaningless. Data showing that a certain number of rounds properly used has been insufficient can tell us something

But we need to keep in mind the number of variables. That's where actual cases fail us. Where did the rounds hit? At what angle? Etc.

[briandg]

Glenn, it's always been a belief of mine that statistics gleaned from myriad random events such as this are just short of useless, here can be no accounting for the multiple variables involved in creating that one event that was studied. The best that can be done is to create some very general rules of thumb, or try to pack all of that information into a single gestalt statement. We agree on that, I believe. We can pretty easily determine statistics about what days are more dangerous for drivers, but what real use is it if we don't have a why, or even a remote understanding of the statistical data?

The demolition derby used to run here every third Saturday. That statistic of 200 collisions outside of the city limits is truly valuable to certain people.

After all of the number crunching and case studying, it's still going to be all up to "fate" whether a person will succeed. I sneezed once with my crosshairs on a squirrel.

I was reading an analysis of high voltage lines and health hazards, and one of the "scientists" (loosely termed) said something outrageous. He remarked something along the lines that statistics are all just useless, research, double blind studies, it's all baloney.

He said that when you spend sixteen hour days, work day and night, sitting alone in the dark with experiments and data, that is when you will find the truth.

Sleep deprivation, mountain dew and cheese doodles are what it takes to understand and interpret what field researchers provide.

I know that I sound like a broken record, chaos is the only constant. I never would have missed that tree rat if I hadn't sneezed.

[Lohman446]

Not really.

The question is one of sufficiency. A few data points showing that some number has been sufficient would be meaningless. Data showing that a certain number of rounds properly used has been insufficient can tell us something

But we need to keep in mind the number of variables. That's where actual cases fail us. Where did the rounds hit? At what angle? Etc.

Define sufficiency. Reagan had an untold number of highly skilled individuals carrying an untold number of weapons and I would bet tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition. It was still insufficient to stop John Hinckley entirely. One could argue its sufficient in that Reagan survived but one could also argue that it was not the defensive measures around Reagan that saved him - it was luck in that Hinckley failed.

So while we know there is some number that is sufficient we don't know, if we are looking at single case studies, exactly what that number is because one can point to the case study of Reagan and show that whatever that great number was it was not sufficient.

We have to be able to make a decision about what is sufficient for us as individuals. As Glenn has argued (I think) the large myriad of information out there is not vital to you if you ever have to use your weapon. What is vital is that you are adequately prepared. Its not a poor argument it just is not one based on statistical evidence. It's based on individual case studies such as the above. For his line of argument though you only need this type of case study because surely being prepared for the situation the officer found himself in facing two jihadists also indicates being prepared for the drunk idiot who has decided killing someone sounds like a valuable life experience.

The problem I have with the argument of "you might as well be prepared as possible" is it begins to justify, in the absurd, carrying many multiple firearms, a folding high capacity rifle (perhaps in a disguised case), and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. While I respect Glenn's argument I question if the argument in itself justifies a particular stopping point. For instance is a G19 and 45 rounds of ammunition (or 60 or 120 or whatever) a logical conclusion to the argument?

In the end individual preparedness is an individual decision that one must be comfortable with. I think as we discuss carrying enough equipment it is easy to get lost in the very real ability to vastly over equip one's skills.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

You still don't understand statistical decision making and the difference between planning for the measure of central tendency vs. planning for an event in the distribution of possible events that might be in the extreme tails.

As said by Marty Hayes:

We have a saying: We don’t train for the average, we train for the anomaly

As far as training - you are hung up on folks thinking hardware is a substitute for training, skill and mindset. Of course, that is true. However, we are trying to reach folks to abandon that world view and train up. An incompetent person is incompetent with a J frame and incompetent with a Glock. Don't be that person.

Unfortunately, most carriers don't train. It is true that they may make it through the single mugger be gone incident. However, we are speaking to a higher standard.

[Lohman446]

I guess my big question is where in the tail does on stop once one begins to prepare for events outside of the "normal" distribution and that is assuming we are even discussing a standard distribution. Looking at a standard deviation the extremes, those with greater than a 1.5 standard deviation, only occupy, one one end only occupy 6.7% of the cases. If we allow ourselves to go clear to a 2 standard deviation before calling it extreme we get this down to 2.3%.

That 2.3% take a tremendous amount of skill when compared to the rest of it - if we can somehow figure out how to reconcile enough variables to cram encounters into a standard deviation chart. Frankly I expect the data would become very skewed towards a "positive" skew were even less of the encounters are represented on the extreme "hard" side.

Again its up to every individual to decide where he or she should train and prepare for but if we set the "bar" too high towards the extreme encounter more and more people will be turned off because of the amount of time, effort, and money that will be required. We must not be in a position where we take the idea of "prepare for the extreme or don't bother" because very few people are actually going to prepare for the extreme and we can have a long conversation about what exactly the extreme is - for instance is it the 5 competent attackers who have picked the time and place against a single defender? I would say yes, yes it is.

[Double Naught Spy]

People have said it for years.

"Is five enough? Yes, except when it isn't."

To be honest, statistics mean nothing once the shooting starts. They are not predictive of how your gun battle will turn out, only descriptive of what has happened in the past. You don't get to pick what part of the curve your battle is in until after it is over.

[adamBomb]

I guess my big question is where in the tail does on stop once one begins to prepare for events outside of the "normal" distribution

When you need to get through 100 armed soldiers and need a tank with air support to accomplish it.

The amount you carry is enough until you are in a situation where it isn't. I can come up with situations all day where what anyone on this forum carries won't be enough. If you truly want to play the stats, just having a gun is already preparing for the anomaly outside the normal distribution as most people won't ever need a gun, let alone need to fire it. How much is enough? We can only say for sure in hindsight.

[OldMarksman]

Define sufficiency.

From the dictionary: "the condition or quality of being adequate or sufficient". In this context is should be plainly obvious that we refer to being adequate to effect a physical stop.

Reagan had an untold number of highly skilled individuals carrying an untold number of weapons and I would bet tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition. It was still insufficient to stop John Hinckley entirely.

You apparently ignored the words "properly used".

The problem I have with the argument of "you might as well be prepared as possible" is it begins to justify, in the absurd, carrying many multiple firearms, a folding high capacity rifle (perhaps in a disguised case), and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.

Just how might that begin to justify anything of the kind?

I guess my big question is where in the tail does on stop once one begins to prepare for events outside of the "normal" distribution...

There are no "events 'outside' of the normal distribution".

...and that is assuming we are even discussing a standard distribution.

That may be your assumption, maybe.

Frankly I expect the data would become very skewed towards a "positive" skew were even less of the encounters are represented on the extreme "hard" side.

What on Earth do you mean by that?

Again its up to every individual to decide where he or she should train and prepare for but if we set the "bar" too high towards the extreme encounter more and more people will be turned off because of the amount of time, effort, and money...

What do you mean by "turned off"? Are you contending that people who understand the difficulty of achieving some kind of perfection will not try to improve their skills?

To be honest, statistics mean nothing once the shooting starts. They are not predictive of how your gun battle will turn out, only descriptive of what has happened in the past. You don't get to pick what part of the curve your battle is in until after it is over.

That hits the nail on the head!

[briandg]

lohmann, if I'm understanding your reference to hinkley, you seem to be saying that many thousands of rounds on the ground in that area, maybe one hundred men, and they still didn't keep one lone nutter from firing at the president at near point blank range has some sort of significance. It doesn't.

In sacramento, squeaky forgot to put a round in the chamber of her .45 and in san francisco sarah moore missed him at about 40 feet.

Neither of those encounters included bullets used by secret service officers and one didn't even involve the secret service at all, a civilian stopped the attack. are we to understand that bullets don't matter?

There is no relevance to how many bullets are necessary and how many are provided to ensure safety. Seriously, squeaky had four rounds, and didn't fire a round. Sarah had six, I guess, and missed with her only round fired. Chaos, or the existence of unpredictable variables that could never, ever be imagined or prepared for are what turn the entire concept of what defense equipment is needed into a pretty much meaningless argument.

Clint smith said that the only thing that you should take to a gunfight is an atom bomb.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

There is no algorithmic answer. The answers are heuristic at best. That being said- from my experience with folks who plan for more than the single opponent who falls to one or two shots - reasonable EDC is a Glock, M&P, ish gun (certainly other similar guns work) with an extra mag or two.

That is a reasonable cut off.

Here's a good take on training with mention of those who don't train.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZYQ-B2sdBU

http://blog.krtraining.com/beyond-th...ercent-part-1/

[Lohman446]

What on Earth do you mean by that?

In statistical analysis there is the "standard" bell curve everyone is familiar with.

There are then various positive and negative skews. A positive skew puts more results (and thus the curve of the "bell) further to the left side of the graph. A negative does the opposite.

If you are prepared for the hardest possible encounter (represented in the extreme tail of the graph) it stands to reason you are prepared for the easier ones as well. The point I am trying to make is that very few of us can be prepared for that worst case scenario represented in that little tail of the graph. We have to balance out what "worst case" scenario that we are able to be prepared for and accept it. Perhaps this covers the vast majority of possibilities.

Glenn and others point out that a large sample size is not relevant. By pure sample size the vast majority of individuals in this country will NEVER need a gun in their life to deal with a violent threat. If you need your firearm you are not really worried about if the average encounter is ended with less than X shots (or more than). The only encounter that will matter is the one at hand at the moment.

Brian points out, in slightly different words, that because of the unpredictability of shooting events in general, and the large number of confounding and codependent variables, that our statistical discussions are meaningless. He is likely very correct in this as not of us have actually even managed to offer up the provisions for statistical analysis let alone the data. We are left referencing rather vague ideas of scenarios and how they fall on the "hard" scale in regards to having the least negative outcome.

My reference to Hinckley was an attempt at argument in the absurd to illustrate that no amount of training or equipment (or even man-power) could assure a successful outcome if success involved escaping without injury. So the idea that X amount of training or equipment did such should be discarded. We simply cannot assure that the very extreme case is accounted for and we should not allow ourselves to think it is. Of course for those that argue for extreme amounts of training this same example can be used to argue that "you don't have enough"

[OldMarksman]

In statistical analysis there is the "standard" bell curve everyone is familiar with.

You are no doubt referring to a normal or Gaussian distribution.

There are then various positive and negative skews.

Of course. Asymmetrical distributions.

If you are prepared for the hardest possible encounter (represented in the extreme tail of the graph) it stands to reason you are prepared for the easier ones as well.

Yes, it does.

The point I am trying to make is that very few of us can be prepared for that worst case scenario represented in that little tail of the graph. We have to balance out what "worst case" scenario that we are able to be prepared for and accept it.

Yes, we have to establish our own risk threshold.

Perhaps this covers the vast majority of possibilities.

Would you bet your life on it? Would you knowingly travel in an airplane that would only land safely in the "vast majority" of landings? Would you knowingly get into one if there were a 2.3% likelihood that it would crash?

By pure sample size the vast majority of individuals in this country will NEVER need a gun in their life to deal with a violent threat.

That is irrelevant to the discussion.

If you need your firearm you are not really worried about if the average encounter is ended with less than X shots (or more than). The only encounter that will matter is the one at hand at the moment.

That's a fact!

Brian points out, in slightly different words, that because of the unpredictability of shooting events in general, and the large number of confounding and codependent variables, that our statistical discussions are meaningless.

Brian pointed out that your reference to Hinckley was meaningless.

He also pointed out that equipment is only part of the picture.

My reference to Hinckley was an attempt at argument in the absurd to illustrate that no amount of training or equipment (or even man-power) could assure a successful outcome if success involved escaping without injury.

putting the irrelevant Hinckley incident aside, we train and equip ourselves not to ensure success, but to provide us with an acceptable chance of success.

[briandg]

ya gotta admit that the squeaky fromme incident just shattered expectations. It shows that nobody can absolutely prepare for the worst, for example, a crazed manson family member coming to pay a visit with a .45. Full auto weapons, armed body guards, snipers, armored vehicle, a ring of armed bullet eaters surrounding the man, and the best surveillance and intelligence possible at the time, and a kook in a red cloak snuck a gun to within a few feet of ford, who was arguably the most important man in the world.

There is no bottom limit to certain things, for example, stupidity or evil. No matter how often you hear the stupidest thing ever spoken, well, there are a million people out there doing their best to top that.

Coincidence is another thing that has no limit. Somewhere on this earth, today, the weirdest thing ever will happen, something that will make being struck by lightning look tame.

For example, I fully expect to die during first contact. I'm going to be taking a whiz, and the reactor core of an FTL ship full of intergalactic nuns who have come to punish us for not paying attention will crash right through the ceiling, killing nobody but myself.

in the last fifty years i have had the most freakish things happen to me that have ever happened in the history of man. If I am surrounded by a dozen jihadists with flame throwers someday, my only weapon will be a gallon of gas.

[Xd45owner]

Wow! This thread gets one to rethinking

[MandolinMan]

Great article and thanks for sharing.

we train and equip ourselves not to ensure success, but to provide us with an acceptable chance of success.

Good point. No two lethal confrontations are exactly alike and there is no guaranteed outcome. It becomes wise to train for not just the averages ( 3 rounds, 3 yards, etc) but as many different scenarios as possible. I think that this is highlighted by this particular case with officer Stevens. More than 3 rounds were needed, and the initial shots were fired from 15 yards, not feet. And, that it is possible to achieve accurate marksmanship while bullets are flying back.

[Double Naught Spy]

Good point. No two lethal confrontations are exactly alike and there is no guaranteed outcome.

This is why the statistics can be so problematic. These are mutually exclusive events. The stats are better for understanding historical perspective than actually predicting what will happen in future events. People often make the mistake in believing that just because success happens X% in the past that they therefore have X% chance of being successful and that just isn't the case.

[briandg]

Something as simple as getting an unpleasant email before boarding the bus home could be the deciding factor in a confrontation. Mood or attention will factor in if you are held up by an armed assailant.

[SonOfScubaDiver]

I don't think the question of how much is enough will ever be settled. What to carry, how many rounds, how much training, etc. are all questions we have to answer for ourselves. What works for me may not work for you, and vice versa. I didn't know I was going to be born, and I don't know when or how I'm going to die. I just know that I didn't get into shooting to become obsessed with round counts and training for endless possible scenarios in which I will have to defend myself. I have seen the need for more training than what I've learned from shooting paper targets at an indoor range and speaking with the active and retired LEOs that work there, so I've got plans to attend a CFS class in the Spring with a local instructor. For now I am happy with my 5 shot snubbie and two reloads when I'm out in public, but I'm open to changing that at some point. I'm glad to be a member of this site where all these different viewpoints are shared and discussed, even though I sometimes get lost trying to figure out what some of you are saying.

[Rangerrich99]

Note: after reading the article through a couple times, I don't think that ammo load or type of weapon or even caliber are the primary arguments within the story. I believe the point of the story is more about situational awareness and close quarters tactics, 2v1. YMMV of course.

Going back to the OP, I think it's fairly obvious that 5 would not have been enough in that scenario. Of course, one could argue, "what if my revolver was a 4-inch .44 mag?" And I would concede that if the good guy in this case could place his first two rounds on each bad guy with a .44 mag, where he did with his Glock 21, then probably the fight would've been over right there. I believe this, because one of the officer's first rounds went through the bad guy's arm, into his chest and stopped near his spine. I posit that a .44 magnum round would've likely went through the spine, ending that guy right there. But the vast majority of people do not carry .44 mags and very few of those who do could place rounds as quickly and accurately as the shooter in question.

Anyway, it's likely that 5 rounds are not probably enough rounds when confronted by two attackers armed with semi-automatic rifles at close range. In fact, it's highly likely that the encounter would've ended far differently had the bad guys decided to stop the car 50 yards farther away and began their attack from there, making effective hits with a pistol much more difficult. Meanwhile hits for the riflemen would've still been pretty easy at those distances.

As far as the discussion of the thread so far, I only EDC a revolver with a speedloader when I'm hunting or fishing or otherwise "outdoors." Because most of the places I go "outdoors" there aren't people. In fact, most of the places I go the population of mountain lions is several times higher than the number of people I might run into. So a revolver carries enough rounds (no one ever is going to have time to reload with an attacking mountain lion whether its armed or not) to do the job.

Anywhere else I carry some form of semi-auto with one spare mag, with a load-out of at least 16 rounds, on up to 25 rounds. I settled on this number, after reading an article a few years ago that basically gave percentages for how often 3 rounds were fired in an incident up to 16 rounds fired in a single incident. Unfortunately, I can't remember the name of the article or even the exact numbers given for 3 round events, 4 round events, etc.

One of the things I took from that other article is that 10-12 rounds covered about 95% of all defensive shootings over a 10 year period. So it seemed fairly rational to carry at a bare minimum 10 rounds, hopefully in one mag so I wouldn't have to be coordinated enough to execute a tactical reload under fire. After all, I'm not Rambo or John Wick. Or Wild Bill for that matter. I'm a middle-aged freight pilot with a fetish for fly-fishing that likes handgun training.

However, I'm sure that several people reading this thread or dozens of members on this forum would argue that my 16 rounds in two magazines weren't enough "because . . ." and I wouldn't really be able to argue that. A person carries what they want for their own reasons.

I mean, I used to think that back when I lived in a tiny little CO town that I never needed more than 6 rounds out of a revolver (population was 1,100 or so); it's not like some nut would ever come into town and start shooting up the place with a M-16, right? Then Sutherland Springs happens. So who knows?