Curious....

[Boarhunter]

This is not a "best caliber" thread.
This is not a semi-auto v. revolver thread.
This is not a tactics thread.
This is not a open-carry v. concealed-carry thread.
This thread has nothing to do with LEO or military experience.

I am not trying to push one agenda over any other.

I am just curious the answers to several questions that I think are interesting and relevant to me personally as a gun owner, firearms instructor, RSO, and lawyer.

How many here have actually discharged a handgun in civilian self-defense? If you have, how many rounds did you fire before the threat was neutralized? Were you required to reload before the threat was neutralized?

I am not interested in what anyone has read or about studies on the subject. What is your actual experience?

BOARHUNTER

 

[Boarhunter]

By the way, for what it is worth, I have legally and consistently carried concealed for 45 years and have never discharged a firearm in my defense or in defense of another. But I will continue to carry concealed until they put me in the ground...

BOARHUNTER

 

[theotherwaldo]

I was in one situation where I fired two shots in self-defense.
I was in three other self defense situations where I had no reason to fire a shot
I greatly prefer the latter.

 

[<*(((><]

I was in one situation where I fired two shots in self-defense.
I was in three other self defense situations where I had no reason to fire a shot
I greatly prefer the latter.

Did you draw your gun in the three other situations where no shot was fired?

 

[theotherwaldo]

In two cases I drew my pistol. In those cases the would-be attacker backed off.
In the third case the gun that I had at hand was a Topper 12 gauge. The attacker had run out of ammunition shooting at my house and was having trouble reloading. I knocked him rolling and took the rifle. He ran off and the police picked him up later. He later killed himself.

 

[Boarhunter]

In the single instance I know my handgun saved me, I was carrying Christmas loot in both hands to my car parked in a distant and dark part of the store’s parking lot. I noticed an obvious threat hiding between two cars near the path I was taking to my car.

I stopped and waited for him to reveal himself.

He did and moved to intercept me, so I pulled my jacket out of the way, apparently revealing the sidearm backlit by the store.

The bad guy immediately ran full-speed out of the parking lot, across a busy highway, and into a dark alleyway behind another store.

No shots fired. No draw from holster. No reloads. The gun served its purpose.

BOARHUNTER

 

[Milt1]

BOARHUNTER, as a lawyer do you think you have a leg up on non-lawyer CCP individuals that have to shoot in a self defense situation? Are you as concerned about the legal intanglements in a shooting situation as we are?

 

[Boarhunter]

Perhaps I do, but only because I have spent a good bit of my professional career defending use-of-force cases, including use of deadly force, against LE departments and police officers. I think I have the laws figured out!

But I am just as concerned as you, if not more so, about the fallout of even a lawful shooting. Defending the civil cases thereafter has been my career. I know how tough and expensive and time-consuming and stressful the cases are, even cases that are won.

But despite all this, I still carry and would not hesitate to defend myself and my family if circumstances warranted.

BOARHUNTER

 

[bikerdoc]

Never drew it as a civilian in a SD situation.

 

[MedWheeler]

No shots fired.

Occasion one: Display only. Got stuck behind another driver at a stop sign in a bad neighborhood while driving to a structure fire (I was an amateur fire photographer and also a volunteer firefighter in another city.) A man ran up and started banging and pulling on my driver's door, yelling something like "I'll take you there!" There was no way he would have known where I was going. I pulled open the glove box and he saw what appeared to be a nickel-plated 1911 appear near my fingertips, and immediately ran off. I wasn't old enough to have bought a handgun yet (from a dealer), and this one wasn't even real.

Occasion two: Display only. Late-night knock on motel room door while out of town. Cracked door with .357 revolver in hand (loaded with .38 ammo, so I guess technically a .38 revolver that night.) Very attractive woman outside said she had been "called to come and visit this room." Saw larger figure in parking lot behind her, somewhat shielded from view, and turned to make sure said shadow saw the handgun. Told her she was clearly at the wrong room, and both she and the silhouette swiftly slipped away into the shadows. Learned later about such a tactic being used to conduct motel-room invasions; get the door opened for the woman, then accomplice(s) burst in.

Occasion three: Announcement only. Same motel room, same stay. Received call on room phone (no one I knew knew I was there) from unknown caller threatening to attack me after seeing me ogling his wife. Caller was merely trying to mess with a friend in another room, but rang mine by mistake. Later that night, someone body-slammed the door, then did so again. Could have been same oaf as before (I believed I knew which one of the drunken, out-of-town-roofing-crew buffoons I'd seen in the parking lot had called me.) I loudly announced that, if the door were breached "You will be shot!" Whoever it was disappeared.

 

[Tallball]

Once a man was apparently trying to abduct my wife in a parking load. I drew my revolver and started walking towards him. He fled.

Another time a very wasted man was trying to force my neighbor's door open. He was screaming at the top of his lungs and she was trying her best to hold the door closed. I came out of my house with a 357 and yelled at him, but he was too loud and wasted to hear or understand. I didn't want to kill him, so I shot into the mud at the base of a tree. That shut him up. Mixed in with a few choice words I shouted that the next one was for him. He took off.

I didn't want to kill either one of them, but I would have if they'd forced me to.

 

[jar]

Once.

 

[1KPerDay]

In the single instance I know my handgun saved me, I was carrying Christmas loot in both hands to my car parked in a distant and dark part of the store’s parking lot. I noticed an obvious threat hiding between two cars near the path I was taking to my car.

I stopped and waited for him to reveal himself.

He did and moved to intercept me, so I pulled my jacket out of the way, apparently revealing the sidearm backlit by the store.

The bad guy immediately ran full-speed out of the parking lot, across a busy highway, and into a dark alleyway behind another store.

No shots fired. No draw from holster. No reloads. The gun served its purpose.

BOARHUNTER

curious which hand you used to pull your jacket out of the way

 

[Fyrstyk]

I've had two occasions to draw my CC firearm. #1, I drew and fired at a pit bull dog that was severely mauling a 5 year old boy. Killed the dog. Got into a little trouble with the law, but the parents of the boy came to my rescue and no charges were filed. #2, I had to draw my firearm when two would be, knife bearing, attackers approached me as I was entering my vehicle in a dark hotel parking lot. Once they saw the gun, they immediately fled. Ireported the incident to the police, but of course they did not find the culprits.

 

[<*(((><]

I've had two occasions to draw my CC firearm. #1, I drew and fired at a pit bull dog that was severely mauling a 5 year old boy. Killed the dog. Got into a little trouble with the law, but the parents of the boy came to my rescue and no charges were filed.

What was the problem with the law? Based on what I just read above from you, it is ridiculous that you were in trouble with the law. That was obviously a tough shot being the dog on top of a boy.

 

[FL-NC]

Never as a civilian, twice in the mil.

 

[Kleanbore]

How many here have actually discharged a handgun in civilian self-defense? If you have, how many rounds did you fire before the threat was neutralized? Were you required to reload before the threat was neutralized?

Ift is usually not a good idea to publicly post, e-mail, or record such information in diaries.

That's true if a weapon were produced, exposed, or spoken about in a "tactical" sense, even if no shots were fired.

The reasons for that are explained in a sticky in the ST&T forum.

Exceptions include reference incidents in which no one was injured and the stature of limitation or any civil or criminal suits or charges for assault, aggravated assault, etc. have run out.

In most jurisdictions if not all, that period runs out only after the actor has remained in the jurisdiction in which the incident occurred for a total amount of time equal to the time specified in the statute.