Do You Ever Comply?

[Plan2Live]

During an interesting discussion in another thread regarding keeping handguns in vehicles an exchange developed that sounded like it was a better fit for Strategies and Tactics so I am starting this thread.

The two main questions are 1) Does an unwinnable scenario exist? 2) Is there ever a scenario where you comply with a bad guy’s instructions?

The set-up.
Last year I took a force-on-force class using Airsoft pistols. The scenario I want to discuss was defending against a carjacker while seated in your vehicle. Because we were using Airsoft guns we were instructed to keep our windows rolled down so we could tell if we took hits. Because this was a mock exercise we were not allowed to run over the bad guy. The drill required us to drive up to a stop sign, a pedestrian would be crossing the street. In some cases he was merely a pedestrian and nothing happened. Sometimes he was a carjacker and drew his weapon. When the pedestrian was indeed a carjacker we had to decide what our best options were and implement our plan. Everyone who attempted to draw their pistol took rounds, a lot of rounds. Several who decided to comply were left standing on the street as the bad guy drove away. Some who complied were shot and left for dead. All but two who hit the gas in an attempt to flee took rounds.

In some ways, the scenario was a Kyaboshi Maru (Star Trek reference), an unwinnable scenario. The purpose of the drill was to show us how difficult it is to defend yourself while seated in a vehicle and to reinforce the idea of not letting the mere presence of a gun lull us into a false sense of security.

Going back to the scenario, you are stopped at a stop sign while a pedestrian is in the crosswalk and either approaching from your left or right. As he nears your front bumper from the left or as he clears your front bumper crossing from your right, he draws a gun from his jacket pocket, a gun he already had his hand on, and with finger on the trigger he points it directly at you at a distance of about 7 feet and at approximately a 60 degree angle to you. What do you do? Remember, in our drill, with only two exceptions, everyone that tried to flee took rounds to the upper body, head and/or neck.

Other points to consider; This is South Carolina, as a CWP holder you can legally carry your gun concealed on your person, in an open or closed container in your passenger compartment (glove box, console, door pocket) or “secured” under the driver’s seat. As a non-permit holder it has to be in a closed container with a latch (console or glove compartment). The holsters that strap onto the steering column are not allowed for anyone. Driving around with the handgun on the seat beside you or cradled in your lap or tucked under your leg or tucked between your seat and the console is not allowed. If a pedestrian has one foot in the crosswalk and you drive across the crosswalk, even if they are on the other side of the street and nowhere near your vehicle, you can receive a hefty ticket with more than a few points…ask my son. So driving away before the pedestrian gets close to your vehicle and not showing any aggression is illegal.

So what do you do, how do you respond to this drill? Do you ever comply and let the carjacker have the car?

 

[Thermactor]

The problem with this scenario is that most armed carjackers that I've heard of don't expect to actually use their guns and aren't going to carjack a car with the secondary objective of assassinating the driver. The force on force scenario might have exaggerated this potential aspect, hence the driver receiving a lot of lead.
Even well-trained, highly-alert police officers sitting in their squad cars have little to no recourse over an ambush like that when an armed, determined lunatic gets the drop on them. That seems to be what happened in New York recently.
So, to summarize,

you are stopped at a stop sign while a pedestrian is in the crosswalk and either approaching from your left or right. As he nears your front bumper from the left or as he clears your front bumper crossing from your right, he draws a gun from his jacket pocket, a gun he already had his hand on, and with finger on the trigger he points it directly at you at a distance of about 7 feet and at approximately a 60 degree angle to you. What do you do? Remember, in our drill, with only two exceptions, everyone that tried to flee took rounds to the upper body, head and/or neck.

This really sounds like a murder scenario, being in the sights of a gunman who already has his weapon drawn and his finger on the trigger.



Edit: so my final recommendation?
Prayer, Mr Saavik. Klingons don't take prisoners.

 

[ilbob]

IMO, an artificial scenario was created that has no good outcome no matter what you do.

Whether this is "good" training or not is debatable.

 

[notaglockfanboy]

So they basically set you up in a no win scenario and call that training?? My question is, what did the instructors suggest you do in the situation?? They set the situation up, so they should have had a solution to the problem, right?? I mean you lose either way, either your vehicle or possibly your life or the life of passengers if you are lucky enough to dodge the gunfire.

 

[TRX]

The scenario might be called "carjack," but it's really "thrill killer." Statistically, most carjacks go down without shots actually being fired.

Perhaps the intent was to show that not all scenarios are winnable, but the result certainly isn't "best methods to deal with a carjack."


As described, I'm going for "bad course, bad trainer."

 

[hatt]

Easy scenario. Gas pedal.

 

[Deaf Smith]

Skeeter Skelton, who was the sheriff of Deaf Smith county here in Texas, one wrote about if the bad guys got the drop on him with such as a shotgun.

He opined that in such situations where to draw was to die he would submit as long as they indicated the would no kill. But if they indicated by words or body language they intended to kill, then he had nothing to lose in resisting.

So if the jackers ask me to exit.. I'll exit and look for opportunities.

But, if I cannot drive away and the carjackers insist I come along for the ride, I just might take them for one.

Deaf

 

[Sav .250]

No pat answer. Seems to me you have to play that one as you see it. Right or wrongly.

 

[X-Rap]

JMO
While the OP's scenario may not be what everyone considers a true jacking it is plenty relevant and plausible IMO.
It could be no more than a robbery or maybe a gang initiation, or maybe just the wrong color skin in the wrong neighborhood but to say that no win situations don't happen is ridiculous.
I don't think putting the car in R rather than D is submission at all, it is deceit and in a life and death situation I hope there are no rules, I agree that statistically there are bad time ahead if you comply and let an assailant remove you from the initial point of contact but even then there might be conditions in which I might let someone put me in the trunk of a car. There was a thread here that talked about having items stashed within the trunk of your car like a gun, light, knife, cell phone for instance. If it is a very public kidnapping the attackers may not search or even suspect weapons may be on ones person so I say there can't be any absolutes when fighting for ones life and the most important thing is to get past the initial shock and start your mind working on survival, which might mean standing ones ground and fighting while screaming bloody murder or popping the trunk lid while under way and jumping out or using your hide out gun as soon as you see a body as the lid is lifted.
Submission and hopelessness is death, feigned submission, deceit, and aggression may mean survival.
The later won't work without a proper mindset and the acceptance that bad things happen every day to very good people and preparing for the worst and hoping for the best.

 

[strambo]

These things can't be war-gamed in advance beyond training and preparing for different options. In a real event, your senses will be flooded with information that your subconscious will be processing faster than your conscious mind can keep up. And the situation will be dynamic and changing from moment to moment.

Your written description can be exactly the same of the "scenario", but in real life maybe you see dilated pupils and a crazy look and just feel he's going to shoot so you immediately hit the gas, duck and hope. In another case, carjacker is calm and business-like-comply and live to fight another day.

I'm always willing to comply if that seems it is the best response in the moment, but ever cognizant that may change in the next moment.

Extensive training in firearms, hand to hand and tactics gives you options. A lack thereof, limits options...to the point that with no training you'd be like any other hapless potential victim out there.

Regardless of how well the scenario was, or wasn't run, there is value to force on force training in and of itself. From a trainer perspective, you don't ever want to model failure, the student should always prevail...they may make a mistake and get the crap shot out of them, but the trainer should keep them in the fight until the eliminate the threat or escape.

Handgun wounds are very survivable...only 1 out of 8 people shot with them die. The trainee needs to train to fight until they collapse from blood loss. So, in training, that means they never stop until it's over or they are safely away.

The most critical component to a good force on force training event is a very good role player. A role player who can model realistic criminal behavior, be flexible to alter based on the student and know how to push a student close to the failure point and/or back off at the right time so it doesn't seem un-winnable.

 

[Plan2Live]

I certainly didn't view this class as bad training/bad trainer. In our after class discussion the instructor said he wanted us to think about all the variables involved in a real world situation. He wanted to show us that going for the gun isn't always the best/first option. We talked about accelerating into traffic and the problems associated with that response. We talked about having the gun in the console rather than on body and how in some scenarios you could lose the vehicle and the gun if it wasn't on your body. The instructor's intention was to demonstrate the fluidity of a bad situation and how they don't always play out the way we rehearse them in our mind. I think he hit the mark with this class.

My goal in posting here was to see if others agreed that at times we are faced with a no win scenario and in such circumstances is complying, aside from being relocated, an acceptable option. Another member seemed to think that was never an option and he could always find a way to fight. I thought that opinion was overly optimistic so I came here to see what other members thought about a no win scenario or if they ever even believed a no win scenario existed.

 

[rondog]

In areas I consider hazardous, I'll usually have my gun unholstered and in my lap or next to my thigh on the seat, ready to use. I know that drawing from a holster or glovebox ain't gonna work, so I prefer handy and ready. It's legal here too.

But I feel the best defense is awareness, and avoiding bad areas to begin with.

 

[Trunk Monkey]

I wanted to think about this before I responded. First I agree with Strambo, the student needs to be trained to stay in the fight as long as he can or until he can get away. The best example is someone that does martial arts training and has great moves until you really hit them in the nose. People need to be trained to fight with a broken nose.

Second, training should take into account that sometimes you’re just faced with a crappy situation that really doesn’t have a good way out. That’s life and you need to fight through it.

Final thought in the training the “bad guy” knew you had a gun and you were gonna fight back, he was prepared for it. In the real world I don’t know that they go into it with that mindset and when you pull that gun out it resets their OODA loop and they’re the one that has a new problem to solve. With that in mind I think in some of these scenarios where you got shot you might not have been in the real world

 

[Apachedriver]

In order to define a training scenario as unwinnable, you first have to define what constitutes a win, i.e., Driving away w/o taking any hits? Taking hits but keeping your vehicle? Stopping the threat? Getting away with your life but no vehicle?, etc.

In a scenario where the gas pedal isn't an option, if I'm alone in my truck and you have the drop on me, I may take my chances that you won't shoot me if I give it up quickly. It's a machine. It's not as valuable as my life, or that of any pedestrians/bystanders/drivers. Although I'm already in a life-threatening situation, I'd rely on my experiences/skills to read a situation in order to decide on further actions.

If I have valuables with me such as my wife or kids, the rules change. They get out quickly, moving away from the threat, before I give it up. Otherwise, I will take different actions of potentially higher risk.

Many situational variables will exist: threat intensity, foot/vehicle traffic, ability to access my firearm, use of the gas pedal/gear shift, etc. The vehicle I'm in also plays a role. I'm at a decided disadvantage sitting in my Vette as opposed to a 4x4 pickup truck where an outsider can't see my hands as easily. However, I can certainly accelerate much faster in the Vette.

 

[Kleanbore]

Posted by Plan2Live:

1) Does an unwinnable scenario exist?

I would defined "unwinnable" as not being able to avoid being seriously injured or not begin able to prevent serious injury to a lived one.

If I do not recognize a dangerous situation in time to avoid it or to otherwise deal with the danger, or if I fail to act on that recognition until it is too late, yes, such a scenario would exist.

2) Is there ever a scenario where you comply with a bad guy’s instructions?

Yes. If non-compliance means certain injury, and compliance appears the better choice, certainly.

 

[9mmepiphany]

1) Does an unwinnable scenario exist?

Of course it does; this just isn't one of them. What they have done is remove the obvious response/solution to this situation..driving at the attacker.

I do understand the point/lesson of the exercise...it is much like the Dozer Drill...You gun isn't a Magic Shield

2) Is there ever a scenario where you comply with a bad guy’s instructions?

They are many, with the most obvious being
1. When compliance avoids placing others in unnecessary danger
2. When compliance offers a tactical advantage...distraction/distance/complacency of he attacker

 

[Willie Sutton]

"Whether this is "good" training or not is debatable."


Hardly debatable: It's lousy training "For learning how to deal with a carjacking". They excluded the one ultimately useful weapon (the vehicle), and after that it's all just playing games. Train as you fight, fight as you train. If you can't train correctly, you shouldn't practice making errors, as primacy of learning shows that when the elephant comes into view, we do what we did in training. This sort of scenario ends up with a negative transfer of knowlage to the recipient, who truthfully would likely react better in the real world without this experience. Your accellerator is your weapon in a case like this. Lower your head and floor it. Maneuver and separate.

Of the Romans, it was said "Their drills were bloodless battles, and their battles were bloody drills". This should be taken to heart.

Of *course* there are unwinnable scenarios. A guy with a high power rifle 100 yards away from you is one. After that it's all a calculus of possibilities.

As far as "cooperating" with an attacker, if you're in a position to be talking, you've been caught in condition white. Armed or not, you're totally defensive and at the mercy of your attacker. Gun in the center console with a guy standing there with a gun at your head? You're unarmed. Lesson: Don't stick around long enough to engage in debate. Use your car and get out of there. Learn to move other cars out of the way with yours (it's not hard to do). And whatever other mistakes you make, *never* allow someone to remove you to a secondary place EVER. That's the easiest way to get killed.




Willie

.

 

[Shadow 7D]

Consider:
you have a child in a car seat, there won't be time to get the child out?
what if you have your disabled mother or wife in the passenger seat, are you willing to let them be kidnapped?

If driving the fool under isn't an option.. (most shots through windshields deflected until it looses integrity, from the intended path, and as Iraq and A-stan have proven, unless TRAINED in how to shoot a driver, most take the 'obvious' sight picture and miss...)

Then you have a few other options, including faking compliance and executing the carjacker somewhere in the getting out/getting in interaction.

There have been a few posts here about car holsters, which are covertly located close to the seatbelt release.

 

[newfalguy101]

crank wheel towards baddy, flop over towards passenger seat, hit gas, after the thump, sit up and drive to a safe place and call it it

 

[Double Naught Spy]

Regardless of the scenario, you comply so long as it is to your advantage or favor to do so. Sometimes, compliance serves as a delay tactic until you can respond accordingly.

 

[Trunk Monkey]

Hardly debatable: It's lousy training "For learning how to deal with a carjacking". They excluded the one ultimately useful weapon (the vehicle), and after that it's all just playing games. Train as you fight, fight as you train.

C'mon man what do you expect them to do really drive over they actor? There are certain things you can't do in training

 

[JohnKSa]

Compliance is one of many tools that a person can use to survive a scenario. The defender will have to make an on-the-fly assessment of when compliance (temporary or otherwise) is the best strategy and when a more active response is called for.

The two questions are not directly related. Yes, there are unwinnable scenarios, but that's not the main factor in whether or not compliance is a good strategy in a particular scenario.

By the way, it's useful to remember that in FOF scenarios, unlike the real world, (1) everyone knows for a fact that everyone else is armed and (2) everyone knows that getting shot won't put them in the hospital or the ground. Those two factors are going to figure heavily into how the players respond. IMO, that's why mutual suicide is such a common outcome in FOF and such an unusual one in the real world. In the real world, it seems more common for no one to get shot (even when shots are fired) than for everyone to get shot. In FOF, just the reverse seems to be true.

 

[RetiredUSNChief]

Yes, there are unwinnable scenarios.

The purpose of training isn't necessarily to elicit a certain response for any given scenario. It's to enable the person undergoing the scenario based training to use the various skills they've been developing and to evaluate what did and did not work under the conditions of the specific scenario.

Even a no-win training scenario has value for a variety of reasons, and I can think of a couple right off the top of my head. They tell you that sometimes you are NOT going to get out of something alive. That's a real-life factual possibility. They tell you, when you're done and reviewing what happened, at what point the encounter transitioned into a no-win scenario. They also tell you that there are circumstances that are totally beyond your control that can get you killed.

The Kobayashi Maru of Star Trek fame isn't about actually surviving. It's about assessing the character of the person in command under circumstances in which the commanding officer is compelled to make certain decisions whose consequences may have dire repercussions, such as might be involved in not answering a distress call, causing an interstellar war, or losing one's ship and all lives on her. Sometimes you can do everything "right" and still lose everything as a result...but knowing that, will the person STILL do the "right" thing?


So, to the question: do you ever "comply"?

This is a judgment call that can only be made on the spot in the exact circumstances one finds oneself in. Here, in the internet, we can ALWAYS answer one way or the other and find some justification. Therefore I'll base my answer situationally.

Whatever action one takes, including compliance, should be taken with the intent to increase one's opportunities and chances for survival. Acting to comply MAY marginally increase those odds by some factor. That's a judgement call.

Trapped in a car that can't move and in which I have limited range of motion in which to bring about a defensive act, with or without my firearm, I may indeed choose to comply.

Why? Not because I'm hinging my chances on whether or not I'll get shot by complying, but because the aggressor has NOT simply shot me out of hand and therefore acting in compliance with his direction MAY provide me with a better chance at improving my odds than they currently are as a sitting duck trapped in a car.

- Opening the door to get out increases my mobility.

- Movement on my part increases the range of dynamics the aggressor has to cope with in order to successfully engage me with his gun.

- Exiting the vehicle makes it easier for me to draw and present my firearm if opportunity presents itself.

All of these things, and more, can work to provide me with some advantages that I would not have had by staying in the vehicle with a gun aimed at my head.


So yes...I MAY comply.

 

[Fred Fuller]

Gunfights are places where you can do everything right and still die.

And you can do everything wrong and still prevail.

I would say there are very very few absolutes where a gunfight is concerned, but YMMV.

 

[9mmepiphany]

Gunfights are places where you can do everything right and still die.

And you can do everything wrong and still prevail.

I would say there are very very few absolutes where a gunfight is concerned, but YMMV.

Having been to a number of shooting debriefs and having personally debriefed a number of OIS participants, I would agree with this