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Tactical
Scenario: 04-2006
Sunday morning church service has just let out.
You, your wife and 3 children are all rather hungry because the minister had a
particularly long service today. The
misses has not been feeling the greatest with a sinus infection, which will
just not go away. To give your wife
time to rest and get better, you decide to stop at Jim-Betty-Bob’s restaurant
(a nation-wide chain) on the drive home.
The children are excited to eat out and your wife
is just glad for the rest. The children, all girls, are ages 5, 7, and 9.
Just as you are receiving your lunch from the
server, a man about age 60 jumps up and starts firing a silver colored revolver
around the restaurant. He is right handed and has a second revolver in his left
hand. He keeps yelling about killing
everyone in the place because of his lost job.
You and the family are in a U-shaped booth. Your wife is on one end with her back to the
aggressor and you are on the other end facing the aggressor. The crazed man is about 20 feet away but not
facing you. One person has been shot
already and has fallen to the floor.
On your strong side in a Milt Sparks holster is a
Colt Detective Special loaded with CorBon ammunition. You have a cell phone
which is turned off, a folding knife, a Surefire 6P and a speed loader on your
person.
Analyze the situation and take appropriate
action. Describe your thought process and why you took the action that you did.
Family Restaurant Response
First
thing to do is to shove the wife and kids down to the floor NOW as it makes
decent concealment and passable cover. Then give her the cell phone and have
her dial 911-After this, she should leave it on so that the operators can hear what
is going on.
Then with the 6P in your support hand and
the Colt in the strong hand, challenge the person to stop.
Illuminate him in the eyes, and if he fires, then shoot! If he doesn't, then
disarm him, and render first aid to the wounded.
A scenario
much like this happened near my house (Denny's in Pismo Beach, CA), so I
thought long and hard about what I would do.
Family Restaurant Response
On your command (silently)
the wife would scoop the 3 girls to the floor under the booth and lay on
them as you draw and move off the line of attack away from your wife
and kids with his back turned it gives you the advantage to shoot and move
with surprise.
Family Restaurant Response
Hard
to say what the server might do (I will presume "her" just for this
scenario), especially since one person has already been shot... standing still
at first may actually be her best move for the first couple
of seconds, so as not to attract immediate attention, THEN ducking for
cover. If she is frozen, I may have to push her away hard, or
push her down from the shoulder if I can reach, hoping she hits the floor.
Initially,
at least, my immediate response may be to have the entire family duck and cover
just under the table, and have them begin to shimmy around the U shape to my
side, and make ready to exit behind me as I, with Colt and 6P
deployed (120 lumen lamp assembly, of course
:- ) duck-step and crouch under the table
on the side my wife was sitting, using the padded seat back for
cover... I'll be peering around the side of the seat instead of going over
top... (Wonder if Betty-Bob's U-shaped seats were ever tested for projectile
impact?). Since bad guy is faced away from me, if he continues
to shoot around, I probably have to send volleys his way immediately. If
he has stopped long enough to look around, I flash the back of his head, then
get his attention so that when he does turn my direction, I
could sing him a little Manfred Mann's "Blinded by the Light"
just as he gets a center mass massage from my Colt.
If
the situation calls for further tact, I just don't visualize enough
information to make a sound tactical response. Where are the
front and rear entrances/exits? Where is the kitchen? What other
objects/potential cover are there between my family and the exits, or that I
could use to draw his fire away from my family? What are the other
customers doing? For some, initial startle responses could certainly
include freezing completely, for others, ducking as we did, and even others may
actually stand up to try and run! Too many variables not presented here,
unless, of course, you are allowing some imaginative license on my part, in
which case I'd have no choice but to put all the cover in the right places and
win :-).
I
suppose I could play out some heroic tact where I quickly blind him with the 6P
while simultaneously covering the 20 or so feet (folder deployed instead of
firearm) to initiate a weapon disarm, but his gun has already spoken, seems he
made my choice for me.