Last week, I found this article about a home owner killed by an intruder. The homeowner found someone on his property (that he had a trespass notice against), tried to hold him at gun point when the intruder produced his own gun and they shot it out. Both got shot and taken to the hospital. The homeowner died at the hospital and the intruder is being arrested.
Semi-good outcome, right? The bad guy was caught and will face punishment for what he did. But not a really good self defense shoot as the homeowner was killed.
The homeowner had him at gunpoint and was still killed. This isn’t something you want to do. The chances are good that you are going to have a problem. This isn’t the movies where people just give up and let the police come and arrest them. These people can be like a caged animal that is fighting for it’s survival and will do anything to escape. That’s fine. Let them escape.
I know that sounds bad, but your first duty is to you, your family, and the people you love. That has nothing to do with catching or punishing bad guys and everything to do with you keeping good people from getting hurt. Remember, your mission for self defense is to keep yourself safe, not to catch bad guys. That is for the police to do.
Police are trained, have the equipment, and more people coming that can take someone into custody. When is the last time you carried handcuffs and trained to put them on someone? Most of you don’t have cuffs and have zero training at using them. When you have a bad guy, it’s not the time to learn.
Police get hurt all the time and get into fights at this point in the arrest. Just because a cop has someone at gun point doesn’t mean it’s over for the bad guy. The bad guy will fight until the end and sometimes longer and is willing to hurt or kill police officers to get away. What do you think the bad guy thinks of hurting you?
So does that mean you need to shoot someone if you pull your gun and they give up? No. It means you need a plan. Like anything else in self defense, the more you can train, plan, and practice, the better off you will be.
Let’s go down the “what if” rabbit hole for a second. You are the homeowner from the news article. You find someone on your land and you were smart enough to go armed when you went looking for someone you thought was outside. That maybe mistake number 1. If you know someone was outside, call the cops and let them take care of it. I’ll bet there is nothing outside your house that you are willing to die for.
So you thought you heard something and went with your gun to investigate. You find someone. Now what? “Freeze! Don’t Move!” never works. The person is going to turn to look at you, especially if you scared them. My favorite, my wife laughs at, is, “Hey, can I help you.” Normally, it gets anyone and everyone to stop and think about what they are doing. It slows them down and gets them off guard.
You yell at the person and they turn, see your gun, and say don’t shoot, and put up their hands up. Now what? From the second that guy sees you, he is thinking how he can get away. And if he has to kill you to do it, that probably won’t bother him.
My suggestion… let them get away.
Couple tricks you can use. If the person is obeying your commands – Have them turn towards an open space, towards the road, towards the open gate, towards the open door. If the bad guy sees day light, he may just run away. Get a good description and tell police what he looked like and which way he went. Police use this the opposite way and have people face walls or their car so there doesn’t look like a way out. By giving this guy a way out, you may solve all your problems.
If that doesn’t work, tell him to go. Tell him the police are on the way. If you leave now you might get a head start. Go! Run!
People really screw this up (cops have been messing it up for about 20 years now) when they make a threat they can’t or won’t carry out. If you say “get your hands up or I’ll shoot,” and the guy doesn’t put his hands up, now what? You may or may not be legally and morally justified to shoot. If you don’t, you’ve lost all your power over the bad guy because now he knows you won’t shoot. I’m not saying you should shoot him unless you or someone else is going to die, I’m saying don’t use the threat unless you are prepared to carry it out. In your home with your family behind you, “if you come down here, I’ll shoot you,” could be legitimate and is something I would and do use. But I’m prepared and will carry out that threat.
Better wording is “maybe” or “might.” As in “get out of here, the police are on the way. If you stick around here, you may get shot.” It changes the bad guys probability matrix. I guarantee the intruder in the article thought he had a better chance of surviving and getting away by shooting the home owner than anything else. You want to give the bad guy you are facing another alternative to get away than killing you. Create the possibility in his mind that if he runs, he has a good chance of surviving, but if he stays, he might end up dead.
If I found an intruder in my house with my family there, I’d still give him the chance to get away if it was safe. If the intruder has a weapon, I won’t say anything and just act. If the intruder doesn’t appear to have a weapon, I’ll let him know I’m there. Tell him police are on the way, and then give him a chance to leave. If he seems to be following commands, I’ll even give him help. The door is right there. All you have to do is open it and run and you’ll probably get away. If he doesn’t want to take the hint or looks extremely dangerous, I’ll tell him straight up… “If you run I won’t kill you. If you stay I’ll kill you where you stand.” I won’t quite carry out that threat, but if he turns toward me or my family, or moves toward me, I’m going to shoot him a lot!
The difference is the bad guy’s intent. If his intent is to just leave, let him go. If his intent is to stay and fight it out, you have to win no matter what.
Stay Safe,
Ben