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Is Drawing Your Gun a Mistake?

ECS686 said:
Your gas station scenerio that’s a forcible felony so Yes! Ut your also not wrong hitting him with hot sauce to see what happens again depends on Jurisdictions. If I am in Seattle visiting my Son I am armed but that’s one of the last places I really want to use deadly force!

Another scenerio that I have had a few times as an LEO that shoots holes I. (No pun intended) that whole “don’t draw it unless your gonna use it) I drew fully thinking I was going to have to shoot and the dynamics changed that quick it went from justified to iffy and thankfully I didn’t have to shoot!

Cognitive decision making is left out of most training programs.

While the folks that use to say that “don’t draw it unless you are gonna use it” ment well we have found out through the years that’s not always the best advice

Like we use to never use harnesses in deer stands or seatbelts in cars but when we say a whole lot of folks get jacked up we learned from it!!!
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As a LEO you are held to a much different standard. Not to mention the fact that you can and often do draw a weapon and point it at someone when you really have no intention of shooting. If I did that I’d go to jail. So yeah, by the time I have drawn a gun I have already decided that there is imminent danger of death and decided to use the last resort at my disposal. That’s not to discount the rest of your post or to say I can’t see a situation changing after I have drawn a gun. The phrase you are referring to is largely meant to discourage people from pulling a gun they don’t intend to use in order to scare someone. Because that is illegal. 😉
 
By the way I was once detained by a cop for cussing in a drive thru. Not even at the person or as a threat, just saying “ just give me a F’in soda. Cops blazed in and blocked my car, fat POS throws his big ol belly across the hood of his car with his gun pointed at me and says “ outta the car A hole”. 🙄

My response by the way was to tell him he surely got his ass kicked all through high school and became a cop so he could feel like a man. And yes I ended up getting my ass kicked by a pair of cops and taken to jail. I wasn’t charged. And a few months later both of those cops were fired for unrelated BS.

For some reason an inordinate amount of cops believe it’s perfectly fine to level their weapon at the head of someone in order to get them to stop, not because there is a threat. Cognitive decision making for sure.
 
Ultimately it's not up to you to decide whether drawing your gun is a mistake or not.

That decision if you were right to draw is going to be made by the responding officers and maybe the DA.

I will say that almost every single one of those scenarios that the author listed I would have gone to OC before I went to a gun.
 
Bassbob said:
As a LEO you are held to a much different standard. Not to mention the fact that you can and often do draw a weapon and point it at someone when you really have no intention of shooting. If I did that I’d go to jail. So yeah, by the time I have drawn a gun I have already decided that there is imminent danger of death and decided to use the last resort at my disposal. That’s not to discount the rest of your post or to say I can’t see a situation changing after I have drawn a gun. The phrase you are referring to is largely meant to discourage people from pulling a gun they don’t intend to use in order to scare someone. Because that is illegal. 😉
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my point is dynamics can and will change in an instant .

I will also say that higher standard is slowly changing. Anyone that has worked LE we have pointed guns at people we probably shouldn’t have and it’s cause Police to shoot the wrong people. At some point in the next 35 years you are going to see an LEO charged for pointing a weapon at someone on a non forcible felony or even misdemeanor property crime.

It is why you are seeing shootings that have ended up utter abortions. The Airman and the handcuffed suspect in Acorn cops SUV and the 2 Deputies that mag dumped over 40 rounds in an apartment in Houston only hitting twice in non critical areas (thankfully)

Back in the day they use to teach force and crisis management and you were able to physically handle your business going hands on. Today everyone is sold in a gazer that usually doesn’t work or a gun nobody like OC which can be the difference (especially with dogs but that’s another issue)

And for the Punisher cops there that get a high off pointing guns at people on everything would you be ok with someone pointing a gun at your family member for some BS trespassing or misdemeanor????

Cops don’t know how to physically fight anymore or administrations have comedown too much. (De escalation can sometimes be more than words as an administrator I could explain and justify a busted lip a lot better than a gunshot wound)

Indianapolis PD was trying to rewrite deadly force policy basically going against Graham vs Connor because they had a coup legitimately bad Officer shoots but more because they just didn’t like the good shoots fortunately the State legislature was able to change it as a state (state has preemptive powers) as they knew the city would loose their A$$ in court

 
I forget (but it is a very big number) how many instances John Lott says a gun is used to stop a crime every year without shots being fired. I am totally opposed to punishing someone for “brandishing” a firearm in order to stop a threat if brandishing is all that happens. If letting someone know you are armed stops a threat without you having to shoot someone, that seems to me a good outcome. How in the world did we ever get to the place we are now?! Crazy!
 
somorris said:
I forget (but it is a very big number) how many instances John Lott says a gun is used to stop a crime every year without shots being fired. I am totally opposed to punishing someone for “brandishing” a firearm in order to stop a threat if brandishing is all that happens. If letting someone know you are armed stops a threat without you having to shoot someone, that seems to me a good outcome. How in the world did we ever get to the place we are now?! Crazy!
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The numbers for Lott is somewhere north of 2 million.
Mas far as brandishing that’s dependent on jurisdictions. I’d like to see everyone so away with that and have a “pointing a firearm” like Indiana a person can be at low ready as long as you don’t point the firearm at the person you are golden just like if a LEO should do if challenged a perp
The problem most civilian training is stuck or confused with Military and LE where they reach folks to point at the subject 100%

It’s all about what is “Reasonable” but it’s sort of changed over the years.

And states that have brandishing laws take that low ready deterrent out of play so there you better really be right!

The other part of How we got here well this trickles down and effects Civilian use of force as well and is related but started with LE.

First is body cameras. While they are great for showing su suspects being a$$hats and disproving BS allegations

The downside it also has shocked the public as in the past Cops had to physically handle business and the public didn’t see it in the past. With Body cameras they were seeing how real crime was handled and some cried foul when their loved one got out in place.

I am talking real use of force accelerated by the suspect as back when I came up in the 80’s we were told and driven into our head you have authority don’t use it unless absolutely necessary. Then sometimes in the late 1990’s it changed FTOs suggestion that baby cops should be let go were discarded and administrations don’t like to get sued and everybody sued when they get fired or let go from not meeting standards now. This same baby cops grow up and go unchecked so you have the George Floyd type incidents or federal lawsuits breaking medium cities because of Officer Cartman

Back then is wasn’t uncommon for folks to get cracked in the head with a sap or baton but cops had enough character then you knew the suspect was the one that elevated that issue. Now a days in everyone gets a trophy and lowered entrance and qualification standards I’m not so sure. Why many LE shootings didn’t have to happen. If they knew and or were allowed to fight or carried OC a lot less would escalate into shootings!
 
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Confused by the ending paragraph. So we don't draw down on a drunken neighbor kicking in your back door. Suppose we just let him force his way in, and because he's drunk let him kick the **** out of me because he thinks I'm in HIS home. Uh, yeah neighbor in this scenario would be bleeding waiting for an ambulance once inside my house.
 
bangnburp said:
Confused by the ending paragraph. So we don't draw down on a drunken neighbor kicking in your back door. Suppose we just let him force his way in, and because he's drunk let him kick the **** out of me because he thinks I'm in HIS home. Uh, yeah neighbor in this scenario would be bleeding waiting for an ambulance once inside my house.
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I believe the article and most of our discussion was in public spaces.

In your home you have a lot more leeway and are generally GTG. We had a shooting a homeowner shot the guy at a detached dwelling while he was fleeing after the suspect rushed through the homeowner knocking him down to get out of the way. Prosecutor didn’t charge the homeowner and even stated it was the homeowners dwelling at his house and he had the right to be there the dead perp did not!

But if I identified my neighbor as the one busting in I’d say a good a$$ whipping would be done before I **** him barring any physical limitations on myself. But that’s generic and situations are fluid so!
 
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