How many times were 5 shots not enough?

[AZJD1968]

Two weeks ago I went to a local Academy Sports store on Sunday afternoon to pick up some ammo. While there I had my Ruger SR9c and S & W 642 as my BUG. I'm browsing ammo and keeping aware of surroundings. Within a few seconds there are at least 15 young teen, gang types flooding in the front door and spreading throughout the store. None of them looked even 18 years old. I turned my back to the shelf to keep my eyes on my surroundings with my back protected by the solid shelving. Many of these kids with hand signals flying and colors and tatoos galore are swarming the ammo area. A couple of them were standing near the front door seemingly guarding the exit and entrance. All the employees are wide eyed and taking defensive positions ... getting behind counters, getting on the phone, etc. These kids are picking up boxes and boxes of ammo that I know they are not old enough to purchase. Others are taking t-shirts off the racks, others are in other departments picking up items and carrying them toward the exit. The store alarm goes off, I suppose a shoplifting alert when someone has exited with an item that has not been paid for when exiting. One employee goes from behind the gun counter to the entrance/exit in a run. My mind is in high gear and watching for any weapon to become visible and to stay in a position as protected as possible and still with back covered and clear view of situation. The ammo area was swarmed with what I felt were gang members taking what they wanted. Then, as if someone gave some secret signal, every one of them headed for the exit at the same moment. They left with their stolen items as quickly as they arrived. Nobody was hurt, no weapons were seen. It took a bit of time for me to get my heart rate down to normal!

I don't go to stupid places at stupid times. I mistakenly thought Academy Sports on a Sunday afternoon was not a high risk situation of that magnitude.

I have always felt confident in my S & W 642 even if it is all I have. My Ruger SR9c with total of 2 mags and 27 rounds seemed very unlikely to ever be needed. However, on that Sunday, in that situation, I felt I didn't have enough in the worst case scenario even having both. Thankfully, I didn't need any. I still feel fine with my 642 and even better with my SR9c (if something like this ever happens again) ... and am more actively avoiding gangs and going to LGS more often where every employee is visibly armed, rather than Academy.

Probably 40% of the time I have only my S & W 642. 40% of the time I have my Ruger SR9c. 20% of the time I have both. 100% of the time I attempt to stay situationally aware and I'm always hoping there are other concealed carriers nearby.

Scary situation. Thank goodness that you didn't need any rounds.

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[marcclarke]

Not directly answering your question, but: The Thinking Gunfighter: Self Defense Findings (avg. (and median?) number of shots fired: 2)

Sorry to be a wet blanket here, but Werner's numbers are completely meaningless. The NRA magazine's staff had some criteria (we don't know what) for deciding which reports to not print and which to print. For all we know, the NRA editor had a rule that only incidents with fewer than 5 shots fired were selected. To have meaningful numbers we have to know the NRA editorial staff's selection and rejection criteria, we also have to have all the incidents that the NRA'a editorial staff chose *not* to print, plus we have to know all the incidents that the NRA editors never saw.

The NRA's modest collection of incident reports is not a data set; it is the outcome of a deliberate editorial selection and rejection process. We don't know what the selection process is. We don't know what that rejection process is. We can't see all the incidents that the NRA's editorial staff chose not to print. For all we know the NRA's editorial staff is heavily biased in favor of pocket revolvers so they mostly chose to report stories where pocket revolvers did prevail or would have prevailed. Similarly, the NRA's editorial staff may have had a policy to simply not report on multi-attacker assaults, or to minimize reporting of multi-attacker assaults.

A statistical analysis of cherry-picked data is completely meaningless, particularly if the cherry-picking was done by someone other than the person doing the so-called statistical analysis. Please do not make any decisions based on Werner's "analysis" of the NRA's thoroughly cherry-picked set of incidents.

[Hopyard]

In my own town or areas around it, 5 or six shots with a reload in the pocket will make me feel well armed against even several thugs. However those types tend to not hang around these parts long.

I have a hunch I know why they don't hang around your territory. :)

[glockman10mm]

Sorry to be a wet blanket here, but Werner's numbers are completely meaningless. The NRA magazine's staff had some criteria (we don't know what) for deciding which reports to not print and which to print. For all we know, the NRA editor had a rule that only incidents with fewer than 5 shots fired were selected. To have meaningful numbers we have to know the NRA editorial staff's selection and rejection criteria, we also have to have all the incidents that the NRA'a editorial staff chose *not* to print, plus we have to know all the incidents that the NRA editors never saw.

The NRA's modest collection of incident reports is not a data set; it is the outcome of a deliberate editorial selection and rejection process. We don't know what the selection process is. We don't know what that rejection process is. We can't see all the incidents that the NRA's editorial staff chose not to print. For all we know the NRA's editorial staff is heavily biased in favor of pocket revolvers so they mostly chose to report stories where pocket revolvers did prevail or would have prevailed. Similarly, the NRA's editorial staff may have had a policy to simply not report on multi-attacker assaults, or to minimize reporting of multi-attacker assaults.

A statistical analysis of cherry-picked data is completely meaningless, particularly if the cherry-picking was done by someone other than the person doing the so-called statistical analysis. Please do not make any decisions based on Werner's "analysis" of the NRA's thoroughly cherry-picked set of incidents.

I can see the reasoning here, and I agree. It just seems counterproductive to the NRA's mission to only tell of incidents that happen with less than 5 shots only. I have been looking over some old crime folders involving all different types of shooting in this area, and so far have not turned up anything over 5 shots, and this includes police involved. There was one drive by where a murder took place at a red light, but that was with a rifle and point blank style shoot consisting of at least 10 or more shots fired.

[highvoltage]

......... (avg. (and median?) ......

The average (which we're all probably familiar with) is the sum of numbers divided by the count. For example: 1, 2, 4, 25, 30 would yield an average of 13. The median is the number exactly in the middle of the samples, i.e. 4. If the average and median are widely apart, it indicates samples with extremes (as in the case above).

The article states that the average and median was 2 indicating tightly grouped samples.

[Brad426]

The average (which we're all probably familiar with) is the sum of numbers divided by the count. For example: 1, 2, 4, 25, 30 would yield an average of 13. The median is the number exactly in the middle of the samples, i.e. 4. If the average and median are widely apart, it indicates samples with extremes (as in the case above).

The article states that the average and median was 2 indicating tightly grouped samples.

Agreed, the average and the median being the same is a pretty good indicator that 2 is good number to go by, although as the wet blanket guy pointed out, we need to know the criteria to really trust their conclusions.

Now something else that has been bothering me... if a train leaves Chicago traveling west at 40 mph...

[ScottM]

Regarding whether you shoot more rounds if you have more rounds, forum member "BlackEagle" posted this on the WarriorTalk forum a while back:

Here at SI, we teach students to shoot in bursts of 4-6 rounds. A burst to the chest, and if that doesn't work, a burst to the face. Accordingly, I find it useful to look at a firearm's capacity in bursts, rather than the number of rounds.

Accordingly:
5 or 6 shot revolver - 1 burst
1911, most single stack 9s - 2 bursts
Glock 26 - 2.5 bursts
Glock 19 - 3-4 bursts
Glock 17 - 4-5 bursts
Glock with Happy Stick - 7 bursts

So, if we think in terms of bursts, that 10+1 is 2 bursts, maybe 3 at most (and the last one is going to be a bit short). Given that 50.7% encounters involve 2 or more assailants, and 24% involve 3 or more, is that enough?

It's really your decision, but I'd prefer to carry something with a larger capacity if I possibly could.

[HotGuns]

I can tell you of one case that five shots wasn't enough.

I was the first responding officer. This is a long story,so bear with me.

One hot summer night myself, and 9 other officers gathered up to do what we call a "warrants party". We did this a few times a year,when the warrants officer at the Sheriffs Office just couldn't keep up and they started backlogging. A lot of them were simple things, like "Failure to Appear" or non payment of child support, or violations of protective orders and things like that. Some of them were felony warrants, we usually saved them for last, doing the simple stuff first.

We had two to a car, and this night a crew from Parole Dept went along with us, mostly for training. They had two news guys that had never been on a warrant, in fact one of them had never strapped on a gun until that night. I had the supervisor ride along with me.

It was an uneventful night that resulted in several arrests, with most people posting bail and then going home. The ones with felony warrants were no issues, we had one runner take off through the back door and run right into an officer that was there waiting. He got cuffed and stuffed and that was about all the excitement we had.

We showed up at a trailer house where someone was supposed to be, but the trailer was abandoned. Three cars were sitting there, windows open, we were about to call it a night when a domestic disturbance call went out. When doing special details, we did not respond to radio traffic as the other Deputy's on shift were there to handle it, so although we heard the call we ignored it. Within a couple of minutes, it escalated to a knock down drag out. Several witnesses had dialed 911 and the fight was getting violent. I started listening a bit closer, as it was only a mile and a half away from our location. A couple of minutes later, the call came out, "any unit respond, shots fired man down". As I was the team leader that night, with three cars sitting there, I made the call to go. I remember telling the Parole Officer that was with me to call her people and tell them to stay in the cars and do not get out. Last thing I needed to worry about was them.

We got to the scene,and saw two people standing. When we drove up, they took off running. We apprehended them at gunpoint. A woman with much blood on her white top was rolling around in the grass yelling and screaming. I thought that she had been shot and went to her aid. As it turned out, she wasn't hit, but her ex husband was laying in the grass. He had been shot 6 times, point blank, by a 9mm.

The shooter, which we apprehended, was her boyfriend. He was 21 and had just been released from prison, being on parole from aggravated assault. He was cranked up on meth.His buddy, also on meth, did not have a record. The ex-husband apparently walked in and his ex-wife and her boyfriend were sitting on the couch drinking beer. They got into a argument and it resulted in a fight in which the 50 year old ex husband stomped the young man and put the hurt on him. That should have been the end of it, but it was not. The young man went to his Dads house a mile down the road, and retrieved his dads pistol, a Hi-Point 9mm. He returned to the scene and got into another argument. Once again the ex-husband put the smack down on the kid. At some point the kid pulled the 9mm and shot the gun point blank. The ex-husband saw it coming and attempted to grab the gun. The first shot contacted him in the elbow and exited out the top of his shoulder.
Shots 2,3,4 and 5 were point blank into the torso.

The people that lived there witnessed the whole thing and they were traumatized.In the witness reports, ALL of them thought that the shots were missing because they noticed that the ex-husband didn't seem to have reacted like they thought he should have. None of them realized that he had been shot.

The fight went on for several minutes.When the kid finally got the gun back into play, he placed the gun right on the chin of the ex-husband and pulled the trigger. That ended it.Witnesses said that we arrived about a minute after that happened. The kid placed the gun on the hood of a vehicle when he saw us, and he ran across the front of the yard, where we took them both down at gunpoint. We got the shooter, the smoking gun which was locked open on the vehicle not far from the body, and lots of people freaking out at what they had just witnessed. It was quite chaotic actually. I must have been ramped up on adrenaline when it all occurred as I had a hard time actually writing my part of the report. Its always amazed me how one can go from dull routine to a wild adrenaline flow within seconds.

Now, I said all that to say this. The deceased ex- husband had a pretty good blood alcohol content in him. We was known to be an alcoholic and abusive to all around him. The shooter and his buddy, both were on meth and had been drinking for awhile.

Ask yourself what would have happened if the shooter just happened to run into you and present a gun or make a threatening gesture. Do you think 5 shots would have been enough? In almost all shootings, at least one party was on drugs or alcohol. They are in an altered state of mind, and its not a normal one or things wouldn't have gone down as they did.

Yeah, I realize that this story doesn't actually relate to most folks here because they are smarter than all of the players that night.

On the other hand, when you figure out that you may have to defend yourself from some drug crazed syko that feels no pain and has a history of being a bad guy, and may be he is mad at the world cause his momma didn't treat him right when he was a kid, 5 shots in a revolver all of a sudden seems a bit short on the ammo. If Mr. Syko happens to have a big ugly knife and he wants to rob you because he is crashing and needs another hit of meth, are you going to be able to stop him before you get cut?

Times are changing and the world continues to get crazier by the day. People are getting stupider, many of them have no morals,no sense of responsibility, some of them are angry at the world,and they are lacking even basic education.

If you want to face that with only 5 shots, that it your call. As for me, I wont handicap myself when there are a host of better, more capable, more capacity guns out there. Even those are no guarantee that you will win a fight for your life, but why not stack the deck on your favor?

It's your life and very possibly, the life of your loved ones.

[AZJD1968]

This will not end well.

Yep.....

[sgb]

Those of us that carry firearms for self defense all do so on the very small chance we may need it to protect ourselves. Now this includes those who carry a 5 shot .38 revolver they haven't fired in 10 years (with the same ammo left over from that practice session 10 years ago) with no reload to those who shoot IDPA twice a week, pack a 15 shot service auto with two spare mags a BUG with a spare reload, two knives and a 150 lumen flashlight.

Which one is right and who's wrong? Odds are neither based on statistics. Which would you want to be if you unfortunately fell into the .05% group?

Yes, I've been on both ends of the muzzle flash.

[MisterB]

I haven't read all responses, but enough to get the point that the OP isn't getting enough first hand responses from CCW citizens. The reason for that, may be due to the legal end of things. Someone involved in a shooting (even if 100% in the right, and vindicated in a court of law) may have been told for legal reasons to not go talking about the situation, especially on a forum. There's another CCW forum I've belonged to for like 5 years, and recently the search function stopped working on the site. I went to report it, and noticed another thread complaining about it, and the site owner said that there was a former member of the forum who the media was attempting to dig up his past posts on the forum, and it was happening so much that it brought the site to a crawl. So, the site owner deleted all his posts and disabled search. I don't know for sure that it was Zimmerman, but if I were a betting man....

[barstoolguru]

This cop shot 11 rounds and the perp shot 8 back (posted on a thread here) so I am just curious when do you start questioning your choice of carrying a 5 shot when you get in this situation? At round # 3 or 4; yea I know “it will never happen to me” and I bet if you asked this cop he will say the same thing

Off-Duty Cop Wounded In Bronx Shootout Still Collars Suspects: Gothamist

how about this.... was he thinking I am going to be in a shootout today I better take my automatic? Someone else can say “sure if you want less and expect more go for it” not me I say if you are going to carry; then carry something worth carrying

[tet4]

From the recent story, it seemed like the shot that was aimed intentionally worked. Again, this scenario shows how strategy is going to play a much more important role than ammo capacity.

4 to 6 round bursts? Yikes, that's a lot of lawyers getting sent down range.

[ScottM]

'Bursts' do not necessarily equal missed rounds.

But people do miss in real life, and you really can't afford to with only 5 shots.

And, I'll worry about the lawyers after i save my (or my family's) lives.

[Happypuppy]

Thanks for posting the article link, it's a great discussion piece. That most common argument I hear is the rhetorical question have you ever heard anyone involved in a gunfight wish they had less rounds after it was over?


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