The reloading pause fallacy

[Glenn E. Meyer]

This is a great piece on Karl Rehn's blog about the stupidity of magazine capacity bans because, the reloading pause can give the average person time to charge the shooter.

http://blog.krtraining.com/the-reloading-pause-fallacy/

Well documented with research and performance data. It also points out that the better response is to shoot the bad person, if you look at times.

Years ago, I did a little test with some IDPA shooters. It was told to us that we should throw our lap tops in class at the bad guy. So we went to the range with an old, nonworking lap top. I sat at a desk and the shooter (a good IDPA shooting LEO) stood next to me facing a target. At the beep, I had to stand, fold the computer and toss it at another target. While I was doing that, the officer easily got off 6 shots at a moderate pace. You can't throw the lap top that far anyway. Easy to dodge and shoot the thrower.

In a large classroom, you would have to be an Olympic shot putter to get to the shooter. In a middle or far row, you would just bean the first row.

[T. O'Heir]

"...have to be an Olympic shot putter..." Frisbee thrower. It's highly unlikely any untrained, unarmed, "average" person would ever 'charge' anybody who is armed. The average person isn't likely to be capable of moving that 20 feet in 1.4-2.0 seconds either.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

There have been normal folks who tackled shooters. There's a post in Tactics that listed successful events. Some folks have been shot doing that.

It's usually in close quarters where the shooter starts to posture or fumble. Sometimes, it doesn't work out.

[stinkeypete]

There is a “proof” video on YouTube where a highly trained idpa shooter “proves” that one 24 round high cap magazine is no faster than four six round magazines.

The flaw is the shooter has the magazines all lined up on a perfectly located oil drum, ready to go. “Sure, it’s only a little slower if you carry around an oil drum.”

Try putting the magazines in your jacket jeans pockets and try again.

There must be some sort of internal logic flaw here. Look at the OP video. The guy is holding the mag as he fires. Let’s see him hold 4 magazines like that.

Highly trained shooters can change magazines in a flash. Jerry Miculek can shoot a revolver so fast time goes backwards. The average fella can’t do that without extensive practice and that isn’t most people.

If Single stack magazines are just as fast as double stack... why does everyone feel the need?

[Aguila Blanca]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hgdq1FBYTUE

Here's a real world example of tackling a shooter:

https://www.nydailynews.com/news/nat...icle-1.4009920

[HiBC]

If your option is laying down on the floor in a corner,taking a chance on fighting is not a bad plan.Especially if other folks join you.

If your mags are hard to get to,who set them up that way? A mag holder is not all that hard .

With a single stack,counting down your rounds is not that hard.You can reach for the full mag while you still have a round or two. You can have a loaded gun,a mag ready to stuff,and then push the mag release. The chamber is still loaded.


Sometimes there are no good options.Pick one .

[Lohman446]

Can you tackle a shooter? Of course you can. People have done it. But does the reload matter? Only on TV. In order to time rushing an attacker during reload I would have to recognize the gun, know the capacity, and establish a round count. Highly unlikely. Further if the shooter is going to be less focused on shooting it’s going to be during reload which will likely be done before I could get there. Like it or not if you are going to rush an armed attacker it’s probably best done while said attacker is shooting and watching the sights. Your best chance, as the collective, is to do it in mass so that even if one or two of you fail others get there. Of course this also ignores the more and more real possibility of explosive devices.

[AL45]

Maybe not laptops, but what about other objects. I carry a leatherman, a pocket knife and two key chains full of keys. (Not to mention a firearm). And I suspect most shooters have not spent any length of time practicing or shooting at events that require rapid shooting at multiple targets and quickly changing magazines while people are throwing cell phones, keys, knives, shoes, books, snuff cans and carmex chapstick jars, while somebody else rushes at them. If I'm firing in a classroom and a dozen smaller objects start bouncing off my face, I would think it would distract me enough to be tackled. But maybe that's just me. Of course, everyone would have to act together instead of hiding under their desks, and therein lies the problem.

[DaleA]

It was told to us that we should throw our lap tops in class at the bad guy.

And of course there was the Alabama middle school where they asked kids to bring 8 oz canned items to throw at the shooter.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...on/1063337001/

[dahermit]

I am nearing 76 years of age...my charging the shooter while he is reloading, or even throwing things at him are way behind me. I could still bite him an the ankle though...I still have all my teeth.

[K_Mac]

dahermit at 76 having all your teeth is excellent. I'm 62 and even with a partial denture my bite is less than perfect!

I think the point is advocating for back up plans like laptop throwing is bad policy. Understanding one's limitations and training to minimize them requires honest assessment. Most of us don't want to hear we are vulnerable at times even when armed with proper weapons, let alone electronic devices and canned goods.

Being a compliant victim is not an acceptable plan in most cases either. We must accept that being willing and able to fight may be the difference in living and dying. While a well placed bite, laptop or can of green beans may end a fight; it is mindset, training and awareness that really matter.

[Lohman446]

Being a compliant victim is not an acceptable plan in most cases either. We must accept that being willing and able to fight may be the difference in living and dying.

Sometimes its not just about living or dying. Being unwilling to be the complaint victim may succeed as in the case of this teacher that rushed an attacker (1). Flight 93 teachers us that success does not always mean we survive either. Sometimes it is about protecting the greater good. Sometimes its about protecting something more precious than ourselves.

(1) http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/02/24/...nke/index.html

[fastbolt]

Well, if your only option of hoping to possibly survive an active shooter incident is to attempt to physically resist an active shooter, how much worse might it be than just standing there (crouching, kneeling, cowering, etc) and waiting to be shot?

Now, as far as taking advantage of a shooter pausing to reload? Well, sometimes being able to hit someone while they're "between punches" may be the only opportunity you have to act.

[44 AMP]

it is mindset, training and awareness that really matter.

IF "mindset" includes the will to act, then yes it certainly matters. It also needs to include the will to act in disobedience to classroom "authority".

I discussed this matter at length with my kids, when they were in highschool. It's been a couple decades since then, but the same principles still apply.

This was in the days before laptops and cell phones were so common as to be virtually "issue" items. And before "campus lockdown" became the almost universal policy.

Kids in school, response with a firearm is not an option. (so, all the studies about draw and shoot response times don't apply.) Armed response, however is still an option, any item you can physically lift can be a weapon.

books, chairs, desks, a lunchbox, or a coat, anything you can throw as a distraction or a weapon. No one is going to be on top of their game if you swat them in the head with a fire extinguisher...things like that...
And not screaming like a banshee announcing your attack. Save the kiyahh! for the dojo. We're not lions who can freeze a victim with our roar, all a scream or yell does is tell the bad guy you're attacking, and point out where you are...and tactics like not waiting to see what the thrown object does, THEN charging, we talked about everything thing we could think of to do, and not do, if the killer was in the room or if he wasn't. yet...

And that I expected them to choose escape if at all possible. Screw "lockdown", screw what the teacher says to do, if it is "hide and hope.." (prayer is still forbidden in schools, isn't it? )

go out a window if you have . Break the window if you have to, get out, get away. If you get out, don't go running up to the cops. (we don't want them shooting you, either..)

I'd suffer what every parent suffers if I lost any of my kids. But if my kid died because the did nothing but wait to be shot, guilt and shame would add to my burden.

Swarm the shooter during his reloading pause? maybe, possibly, IF the situation seems possible. one of the school shootings was stopped that way, and the kid who lead it had already been shot! But they took down the shooter.


Large capacity magazine bans to make the killer reload more often and so create more "reloading pauses?" Screw that. I WANT the shooter to have a high capacity magazine. I want them to have a uber capacity magazine, not to eliminate or reduce "reloading pause" times, but because high capacity magazines are more likely to JAM!!

At least a couple of mass shootings had this happen. The Aurora CO movie theater killer did nearly all his shooting and killing with his "backup" weapon, a pump shotgun, because his AR with a 100rnd beta mag jammed after the first few shots.
Consider this point, if it s the law you can't get large capacity magazines, then isn't that in effect, ensuring that future mass killers are armed with the standard MOST DEPENDABLE magazines there are?? Thereby potentially increasing the killer's weapon's reliability, and therefore the body count???

Also consider that even if its against the law to have high capacity magazines, its also against the law to shoot people for fun or profit, and anyone willing to break that law probably will be willing to break others, too...

[Aguila Blanca]

I'll just drop this here:

https://dailycaller.com/2019/04/28/c...gogue-shooter/

Military veteran says he charged the synagogue shooter and scared him into dropping his weapon and departing the scene. Some previous reports say the shooter's rifle malfunctioned. If thhis guy's story is true, he may indeed have lucked into charging when the kid was reloading (or needing to reload) and causing the kid to abandon the mission because he didn't want to get his head kicked in.

[Lohman446]

Or he met resistance even when he had a gun and did not know what to do. How many scenario drills go sideways when the trainee draws his or her gun, expects instance compliance, and does not get it? Many people believe the presentation of a firearm is going to instantly save them or at least put them at an insurmountable advantage. When that illusion is shattered by resistance they are incapable of effectively responding.

[K_Mac]

I've been thinking about a couple of the issues raised. 44 I certainly include will in my definition of mindset. Lohman I completely agree that there are more important things than living or dying. Being willing to deliver or take a bullet for a greater purpose is part of being a responsible human being in my opinion.

Willingness is only one part of mindset in my definition. The resolve to act as quickly and violently as needed has to be informed by the equal commitment not to act if possible. This is a complex and challenging concept that requires more of us than talk. For most of us that is an uncomfortable understanding.

[44 AMP]

We could discuss a few thousand years of various philosophies at great length, if we were somewhere else. But we're in Tactics and Training, so, I think that, beyond causally touching on the why we do or don't do, we should focus on the how's of what to do, or not do, and how to prepare for them.

A point mentioned about how guns are, and are not magical talismans, depending on your point of view, and (I'd say) personal knowledge.

Anything is magic, and has power, if a person believes it does. With guns, most people they know about hot deadly being shot is, but not nearly as much about the "launching systems", so they rarely recognize if the system isn't fully online.

Ever see a scene in a movie where the bad guy is about to shoot a good guy, and the good guy distracts the bad guy by telling him his safety is on? And the bad guy looks at the gun, to be sure, taking his eyes off the good guy, who then takes out the bad guy or escapes?

There are documented cases of bad guy getting good guy's gun and not being able to shoot the good guy because the safety was on, and the bad guy didn't know about it.

I'm not even remotely in shape to be an action hero, but if I were, and I could see a guy with an SA pistol (one I recognize and am certain about ) and the hammer is DOWN, there might be an opportunity there.

Like wise, while they are reloading, that endless window of time where the unarmed hero can cross a room, and tackle the killer before his gun is able to shoot again... that can work in the movies, but movies follow a script the real world doesn't.

[davidsog]

Military veteran says he charged the synagogue shooter and scared him into dropping his weapon and departing the scene. Some previous reports say the shooter's rifle malfunctioned. If thhis guy's story is true, he may indeed have lucked into charging when the kid was reloading (or needing to reload) and causing the kid to abandon the mission because he didn't want to get his head kicked in.

Startle and followed by a Surprise reaction. Human factors that have more to do with the psychology and mindset of the attacker than the status of his weapon.

It is the reason bayonet charges work on the battlefield.

The regiment's sudden, desperate bayonet charge blunted the Confederate assault on Little Round Top and has been credited with saving Major General George Gordon Meade's Army of the Potomac, winning the Battle of Gettysburg and setting the South on a long, irreversible path to defeat.

The Confederates were preparing to mop up and make what they knew to be a final assault to take little round top. They knew the 20th Maine did not have the ammunition or the strength of manpower to hold their position.

The 20th Maine fixed bayonets and charged instead of continuing to defend their trenchline. The Startle and Surprise reaction of the Confederates caused their line to break. Instead of celebrating another victory over the Federals it began long road to defeat.

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/a...ttle-round-top

The Startle and subsequent Surprise reaction has nothing to do with an opponents weapon being loaded or unloaded. It is a Hail Mary that depends on mindset and training.

[TunnelRat]

The Startle and subsequent Surprise reaction has nothing to do with an opponents weapon being loaded or unloaded. It is a Hail Mary that depends on mindset and training.

It also relies at least in part of the mindset and status of your opponent. For instance, at Gettysburg the Confederates had been attacking the 20th Maine up a very steep hill over a series of repeated assaults where they had to retreat and then climb again. The Confederates were tired and there was likely some loss of morale from the number of failed assaults. Had they been in better condition (fresh to the battle that day) maybe they would have held.

There's also something to the notion that Chamberlain's training, mindset, intuition, however you want to phrase it, allowed him to recognize that a bayonet charge with limited soldiers who were out of ammunition, that might seem crazy otherwise, had merit in this situation.

When you do what people don't expect it really messes with their OODA loop. Being able to determine what someone expects and use that to your advantage can be critical.

[44 AMP]

It is the reason bayonet charges work on the battlefield.

I've been thinking about this a bit, and I think there is an additional reason beyond startle and surprise. The Fear of Cold Steel.

Startle and Surprise is why the charge works. Fear of cold steel is where the bayonet comes in. Everyone "knows" what bullets do, so there's always an intellectual fear of being shot. But everyone on the planet has been cut at some point in their lives, so there is a "gut level" experience added to the intellectual fear of cold steel.

And that why the bayonet is still useful in the modern era. Especially for prisoner control. Its almost unbelievable, but some people will defy someone holding a loaded gun on them, but obey when there's a naked blade on the end of that gun.

Startle and surprise alone has ended some of the mass shootings. And by alone, I mean without physically taking out the shooter. Just the act of resistance, particularly armed resistance (and not just with a gun) has caused some of the shooters to stop and retreat. Some have even killed themselves when their fantasy didn't go as planned.

[TunnelRat]

^That last part is important. Again, ruined expectations really throw people for a loop.

In another force on force scenario I observed I watched a man try to clear a failure to extract that had lead to a double feed with tap, rack. Obviously it didn't work. The man sat there trying the same technique over and over. After some time the shooter in this scenario was next to him shooting him at contact distance. The original man was so absorbed in clearing the malfunction because it wasn't working as planned that he had become oblivious to what was more of a hand to hand confrontation at that point.

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

[JERRYS.]

this tackling a criminal shooter makes less sense than shooting them back.

[MarkGlazer]

The human condition is a mystery. No one knows exactly how they will react when fired upon, at least not the civilian population. Will we freeze, run, dodge, attack, what? How many of us train to be shot at and react to the bullet coming in our direction? We only hope we will answer the call. And so we train. The young man who recently gave his life charging a shooter could not have known his destiny, could never have known what would happen to him that day nor how he would respond.

Sorry to sound morose people, but studies are just that, studies. No one knows how they will react. Yes, our law enforcement officers are trained as are our military. They run to the sound of gunfire. The majority of us who encounter these horrendous situations are ordinary civilians, which is obviously the point of the attacker, is it not?

We train in hopes of never having to respond. And no matter how many rounds we put down range, not a single one of us knows how we will react when bullets come in our direction. I hope I rise to the occasion should it ever come to pass. But truth and transparency, I have no idea what my response might be. I hope to never find out.

Bless you all.

[Aguila Blanca]

Originally Posted by MarkGlazer

Sorry to sound morose people, but studies are just that, studies. No one knows how they will react. Yes, our law enforcement officers are trained as are our military. They run to the sound of gunfire.

Unless they're the school resource officer at a certain high school in Florida.

Police officers are human beings, just like the rest of us. Some will react well when the balloon goes up, others will panic -- just like anybody else.