Serious Mistakes Gunowners Make

and the Decisions That Led Up to Them

ALSO BY CLAUDE WERNER
Books
Indoor Range Practice Sessions
http://indoorrangepracticesessions.com

Concealed Carry Skills and Drills

http://concealedcarryskillsanddrills.com

Advanced Pistol Practice

http://store.payloadz.com/go?id=2613612

Shooting Your Black Rifle

http://shootingyourblackrifle.com/

DVDs featuring Claude Werner

Dry Fire Practice & Methodology

Fundamentals of Snub Nosed Revolvers for Defense

Secrets of the Snubby

Blogs
The Tactical Professor – More than just weapons manipulation
http://tacticalprofessor.com
Facebook – The Tactical Professor
https://www.facebook.com/ATLFirearms/
Serious Mistakes Gunowners Make
and the Bad Decisions That Led Up to Them

By Claude Werner

The Tactical Professor

Copyright © 2019 Claude Werner
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to my Dad, Jerry Werner. He gave me several maxims when I was a boy that I
follow to this day.

“Try to get along with everyone, Son, but don’t let anyone hurt you.”

“Always try to keep the Sun to your rear.”

“Don’t get involved, Son.”

Those are very viable inputs to good decision making.

CONTENTS
Preface
Introduction
Part I – Legal Mistakes
Unjustifiable shootings, including warning shots

Brandishing/threatening
Intervention

Chasing criminals after the end of a confrontation

Undesirable Police Involvement

Part II – Imprudent Mistakes

Mistaken identity shootings
Lost/stolen guns
Unauthorized access

Poor judgement

Part III – Mechanical Mistakes

Downrange failures
Unintentional discharges

Bibliography
PREFACE
The motivation for writing this book began with an idea from my friend and colleague Craig Douglas. At
the end of the annual Rangemaster 2014 Tactical Conference, where we were both teaching classes, he
suggested I prepare a presentation for the next year on what he called ‘Bad Shootings.’ The Tactical
Conference, hosted by Tom Givens, is the premier training conference for Private Citizens interested in
personal protection. I’ve learned a great deal from presenting at it and interacting with colleagues and
other like minded individuals over the course of 20 years.

Craig knew I like to compile databases about a broad range of topics. These range from Real Estate
Capital Markets to armed encounters between criminals and law abiding Citizens. As a result of my
predilection for making databases, he felt I was uniquely qualified in the training industry to undertake
such a project.

It seemed like an interesting idea so I began casually researching the topic. As time went on and I wrote
about some of my preliminary research on my blog, The Tactical Professor, people started sending me
examples of incidents that didn’t go well for gunowners and Law Enforcement Officers. Those incidents
weren’t just confined to unjustifiable shootings but, rather, contained a broad array of types of
incidents. As a result, the topic morphed from Bad Shootings into Negative Outcomes. I eventually
developed 11 different categories of Serious Mistakes and their Negative Outcomes, of which only one
or two would have fit in the original idea of Bad Shootings, as Craig had conceptualized it.

The results of my research affected me profoundly and changed my thinking about the priorities I
emphasize when I am conducting education and training (there’s a difference) for gunowners. In the
course of my research, I also found numerous lists of ‘Concealed Carry Mistakes’ or similar subjects.
However, what I noticed was that those lists mostly focused on what gunowners and carriers do that
deviates from the dogma of the training industry. What they didn’t do was to cite actual examples of
how people had gotten into trouble with guns, the decisions that led to their predicament, and how to
avoid them.
My research drove home two things that one of my mentors in the training business, John Farnam, said.
“The best way to win a gunfight is to be somewhere else” and “Who’s most likely to shoot you? You!
Why? Because you and your gun are always there.” The results also emphasized why Massad Ayoob
entitled his first book In the Gravest Extreme, The Role of the Firearm in Personal Protection. It’s because
using a gun is only really useful in a very limited set of circumstances, i.e., the gravest extreme.
Eventually Rich Grassi, editor of The Tactical Wire, an online industry publication, considered the topic
important enough that he asked me to write a series of articles about it. The series was popular and
generated a considerable amount of discussion in the gun owning community. That’s what I was hoping
for. Discussion generates interest and ideas about solutions to problems and how to get those solutions
into the broader community of casual gunowners.

After over five years of collecting datapoints, my database has thousands of incidents in it. They vary in
long term effect from inconvenient to life-altering to life-ending. Every single incident follows a pattern
of Decision to Mistake to Negative Outcome. Every incident also carries a lesson about how it could have
been avoided in the first place.

I’ve been gratified that the topic of Negative Outcomes and how to avoid them has become much more
commonly discussed in the gun community as a result of my efforts. Sometimes, people say that the
topic will be used against us by the virulent and irrational anti-gun segment in the United States.
However, I think that ignoring problems or sweeping them under the rug is never the way to solve
problems so I wrote this book.
INTRODUCTION
Mindset → Decisions → Actions → Outcomes
This book is not about techniques of shooting firearms; it is about Decision Making, specifically Bad
Decision Making. Our Mindset leads to our Decisions. Our Decisions lead to our Actions. Our Actions
lead to our Outcomes. This sequence controls our destiny in everything we do, including using a firearm
for Personal Protection. Unfortunately, decision making in the firearms community tends to focus on the
tool, the firearm, instead of the desired outcome for owning it. Endless debate goes on about caliber,
action type, ammunition capacity, and other material oriented aspects of ownership. In the broad
context, these are extremely minor considerations as long as the owner can operate the firearm
adequately.
Where the discussions don’t go nearly enough is the circumstances involving the usage of firearms and
the decisions about our internal software that we have to make. “Usage” doesn’t always mean shooting
the gun, either. There are a host of other issues, such as storage, legalities of carrying, and even
possession, that aren’t often discussed. But those internal software issues are much more likely to
determine the difference between a Positive Outcome and a Negative Outcome than hardware issues
like type of gun and caliber. The amount of misinformation that runs rampant within the gun community
leads many new owners down the wrong path in their Mindset and potential Decision Making.

Owning a gun definitely falls under the saying “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” While the firearms
industry tends to tiptoe around it, the fact of the matter is that, now, most guns are purchased or
acquired for the purpose of protecting ourselves and those important to us. And that’s for good reason.
A gun gives a small or frail or elderly person the same power to inflict damage on another person as a
young athletic male possesses in his bare hands and shod feet. Without that leveling of the playing field,
our society would inevitably return to the law of the jungle, i.e., the survival of the fittest. A gun then is
the instrument and tool of equality in American culture. As Colonel Samuel Colt said in the 19 th Century,
the gun is ‘The Great Equalizer.’
With this power comes responsibility. That responsibility is to understand what the possible pitfalls of
gunownership are and deciding how to avoid them. Decision making and avoidance is an active process,
having both mental and physical components. No book or other information source can make a
comprehensive list of every possible hazard. What can be done is provide food for thought about the
principles that guide gun safety and responsible ownership. Then readers can use their own intelligence
on how to apply the principles to their own unique situation.

There are at least 11, perhaps more, different categories of Serious Mistakes than can result from
owning or handling firearms. They occur on a daily basis in the United States. For instance:

Legal Mistakes
• Unjustifiable shootings, which can include warning shots
• Brandishing a weapon or threatening people without justification
• Intervention in criminal events not happening to the gun owner personally
• Chasing criminals after the end of a confrontation
• Undesirable POlice Interaction

Imprudent Mistakes
• Mistaken identity shootings
• Lost and stolen guns
• Poor judgement
• Allowing Unauthorized access to firearms

Mechanical Mistakes
• Unintentional Discharges
• Downrange failures (i.e., shot an innocent person while shooting at criminals)

The Negative Outcomes that result from these Serious Mistakes are things like:

• Becoming involved with the Criminal Justice System, including going to prison
• Shooting yourself
• Shooting someone else you shouldn’t have, either intentionally or unintentionally
• Getting needlessly arrested
• Getting shot by the police
• Having an unauthorized person, usually a child, shoot themselves or someone else
• Frightening innocent people
• Endangering innocent people

Reading concrete examples of Bad Decisions, Serious Mistakes, and the Negative Outcomes that
followed can help gunowners gain a better understanding of how to avoid them. Firearms are deadly
weapons and instruments of ultimate personal responsibility. As a gunowner, you must accept and
embrace this responsibility 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Someone who is unwilling to do so
should neither own nor handle firearms, PERIOD. Irresponsibility easily leads to serious bodily injury or
death. Just as with automobiles, it can occur in an instant from a single mistake or one wrong decision.

Guns can be just merciless about careless handling as household electricity is. No one would hold an
electrical cord by the metal prongs while plugging it in and expect to not get seriously shocked. And yet
many people think nothing of handling firearms with their finger on the trigger, frequently while
pointing the gun at themselves or someone else. Firearms can cause severe injury or death just as easily
and quickly as electricity.

The author is not a lawyer and this book is not about the Law. It is about Decision Making in the context
of firearms ownership. Nothing in this book constitutes legal advice. If you own any firearm, you should
seek out legal education about the complexities of firearms ownership. Much, perhaps most, of the
information available on gun forums and by word of mouth is wrong; bear that in mind. Verbal advice
from law enforcement officers should be considered suspect, as well. Surprising as it sounds, few Law
Enforcement Officers are legal experts.
Decisions can occur in the spur of the moment or they can be thought out in advance. Many spur of the
moment decisions are actually based on a Mindset that is acquired well before the moment of decision
making. Sometimes, a gunowner has only considered one decision in advance and therefore
automatically chooses it, whether or not it is appropriate to the situation. “I’ll shoot anyone I find in my
home” is an example of this kind of pre-made decision. Decisions that do not consider options,
necessity, and reasonableness can easily lead to tragedy and disaster.

Gun Safety
Gun Control organizations have tried to co-opt the term ‘Gun Safety’ for their nefarious purposes but
the fact is that gun safety is an individual responsibility. Gunowners should always remember that
firearms are instruments of ultimate personal responsibility. As an aid to fulfilling that responsibility, the
gun community has developed rules for safe gun handling.

The National Rifle Association promotes three entry level Rules that new gunowners should be
intimately familiar with. https://gunsafetyrules.nra.org/

ALWAYS Keep The Gun Pointed In A Safe Direction

This is the primary rule of gun safety. Common sense dictates the safest direction, depending on different
circumstances.

As Bill Rogers, of the elite Rogers Shooting School https://www.rogersshootingschool.com/index.php

says, “Muzzle direction is the primary safety; always has been and always will be.” In other words, if the
muzzle is pointed in a safe direction, even if the gun goes off, the damage will be minimal.

ALWAYS Keep Your Finger Off The Trigger Until Ready To Shoot
When holding a gun, rest your finger alongside the frame and outside the trigger guard. Until you are
actually ready to fire, do not touch the trigger.

Guns are designed to allow easy access to the trigger, otherwise they would be useless. Gunowners
need to consciously condition themselves to NOT put the trigger finger on the trigger until they are
ready for the gun to discharge. After enough repetitions, this becomes an unconscious habit but in the
beginning, it’s a habit that needs to be consciously developed.

ALWAYS Keep The Gun Unloaded Until Ready To Use

If you do not know how to open the action or inspect the chamber(s), leave the gun alone and get help
from someone who does.
Ready to use is a term that has to be used in context. To be Ready To Use for personal protection, a
firearm needs to be loaded. Nonetheless, being able to inspect any firearm you are going to handle is
sound counsel.
As a gunowner’s usage and experience increases, the Four Rules of Safe Gunhandling used in the Action
Shooting sports become useful.

1) Treat all guns as if they are ALWAYS loaded. (This is a philosophical statement that sets the
stage for the following three Rules. They are operating statements that can be practiced.)
2) Never let yourself point a gun at something or someone you don’t want to be shot.
3) Keep your finger out of and above the trigger guard until the gun is pointed at your target
and you are ready for the gun to fire.
4) Be sure of what you are shooting at, what is around it, and what is behind it.
In addition,

• Store weapons where they are not accessible to unauthorized persons

• Know the law and understand the decision-making process of personal protection
• Know the readiness status of a weapon

There are many good sources of legal education available. The Armed Citizens Legal Defense Network
provides a large amount of information products (book and DVDs) to its members as part of the
member benefits. There are other organizations and excellent books, as well. Regardless of what source
you choose, please seek out some kind of legal education if you own a firearm, whether for personal
protection, hunting, or sport. Just because you don’t envision using a sporting firearm, for instance a
bird hunting shotgun, for personal protection doesn’t mean it is impossible you will need to use it for
that purpose.

Note that this author CANNOT possibly explain nor control every way to avoid the Serious Mistakes.
Accordingly, no liability is assumed for those who read this book and still end up having a Negative
Outcome. Life is not fair; if you want a guarantee, sell your gun and buy a toaster.
 PART I
LEGAL MISTAKES
UNJUSTIFIABLE SHOOTINGS
The use of deadly force is a complex topic. This book cannot and does not provide legal advice about
when to use deadly force. There are numerous legal scholars and organizations that can provide legal
education and legal advice to gunowners. Anyone who owns a gun should seek out such information. At
a bare minimum, read your State’s statutes about the use of force and also a book about the Law and
how it applies to personal protection. A list of such books is included in the bibliography. It will be an
investment that could prove vital to a gunowner’s future.
It’s important for gunowners to understand that there is a difference between force and deadly force.
The legal threshold for using force in personal protection is much lower than for using deadly force.
Conversely, the legal threshold for using deadly force or even threatening to use it in most States is very
high. Not understanding the difference between the two, force and deadly force, can lead to a Serious
Mistake.
Any time a gun is fired at another person, it is a use of deadly force. Outside your home, deadly force
can only be used as a response to a criminal threatening serious bodily injury, death, or in some cases, a
forcible felony. Someone who is only making you extremely uncomfortable IS NOT doing any of those
things. Thinking that your gun is the answer to being uncomfortable is a SERIOUS MISTAKE. Yet, many
gunowners think of a gun as a General Purpose tool for personal protection. It is not. Guns are limited
purpose tools for use in a very limited context. In that context, defending against the threat of serious
bodily injury or death, they are indispensable. In any other context, they are useless. Sorry, that’s the
bottom line of the situation.
The passage of Stand Your Ground laws and Castle Doctrine laws has caused considerable confusion
about what those concepts mean. In general, they don’t mean what people think they mean. The water
is further muddied by the Lame Stream Media. Almost without exception, the media has not one clue
what the laws mean. In numerous cases, incidents are reported as involving Stand Your Ground or Castle
Doctrine legal concepts when, in fact, they do not. The Law regarding personal protection is quite
complex and is not easily distilled down the to sound bites that are the stock in trade of the Lame
Stream Media. Similarly, many Internet common taters opine about concepts that they know nothing
about.

Once again, getting some legal education is the answer. Do not consult a real estate or probate lawyer
for information about self-defense law, firearms law, or personal protection law. Consult an attorney or
firm with experience dealing with the Criminal Justice system. It should preferably be an attorney who
doesn’t just deal with criminals but also has honest citizens as part of their clientele, too.
That all being said, some incidents display a level of foolishness and/or maliciousness that any
level-headed moral person can recognize as inappropriate for using deadly force.

• Laying an ambush for criminals because you are unhappy they have previously stolen your property.
Doing so goes beyond any standard of decent conduct accepted in this country. It is either stupid or
malicious, or both.
• Shooting through doors at someone outside your home when you have not identified the person as
a threat. This is unlikely to be recognized as a valid reason for using deadly force.
• Shooting at someone for revenge or unreasoning fear or anger.
• And in some cases, like it or not, people set themselves up for prosecution due to Bad Decisions. The
recent Drejka case in Florida is an example. It will be discussed in more detail in the Intervention
section since the incident started as an Intervention and then Cascaded downhill from there.

Here are some Real life examples of occurrences of foolishness or maliciousness that led to Bad
Decisions and Negative Outcomes.

On Thanksgiving Day 2012, a Minnesota man saw a neighbor whom he believed responsible for prior
burglaries drive by his home. He then moved his truck to make it look like no one was home, and then
settled into a chair in his basement with a book, energy bars, a bottle of water and two guns, waiting for
possible burglars. When two teenagers broke into his basement, he shot them one after the other with
a rifle. He then delivered ‘coup de grace’ shots to their heads. The next day he called the police to report
the incident.
The Minnesota incident borders on unfathomable to anyone who has a sense of morality. Soldiers can
set up ambushes and then kill the enemy on sight. Private Citizens are an entirely different matter. Being
angry about having your property stolen is understandable and reasonable. Setting up an ambush with a
free fire zone in response is not. Shooting a criminal after they have ceased to resist is not reasonable.
Waiting until the next day to contact the POlice is not reasonable.
In 2014, the man was found Guilty on two counts each of first-degree and second-degree murder. He
was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of release. What the man was following was
not the Castle Doctrine but rather the Shoot on Sight/Sudden Death Doctrine. That was a Bad Decision.
Whether it can even be called a Mistake is debatable because it was a pre-meditated intentional act.
Spending Life in prison for the Decision is definitely a Negative Outcome.

A Michigan man fired a shotgun through a locked screen door at a young woman who knocked on his
door in November 2013. He said he heard banging on the doors of his home and was afraid. The woman
had been drinking and crashed her car hours before she found her way to the porch of his home. He
opened his front door and then fired through the screen door, killing her.
The man was convicted of second-degree murder, manslaughter and using a firearm in the commission
of a felony in August of 2014. He was later sentenced to between 17 and 32 years in prison.

The judge stated “I believe you acted out of some fear, but mainly anger and panic ... When [she]
needed help, she met her death.” The judge added “someone pounding on your door at 4:30 a.m.
‘rarely’ creates a[n] ‘honest and reasonable situation that justifies taking another person's life.’”

The judge’s words emphasize the fact that anytime we use a firearm, what we do will be judged by a
legal standard of what is ‘reasonable.’ We need to keep in mind that what the law is may distinctly differ
from what we think it should be and want it to be. Failing to recognize this distinction is setting
ourselves up for a Negative Outcome.

Deciding to open your front door without verifying who is outside first, especially at 4:30AM, is a Bad
Decision. In this case, it led to the Serious Mistake of firing his gun and killing the woman. Going to
prison was the Negative Outcome.

In September of 2013, a man in South Carolina was involved in an argument over spilled beer, which
then turned into a physical altercation. He was pushed or thrown to the ground. The man then left the
scene. A statement by prosecutors said: "The silly argument turned deadly when the Defendant
retrieved a .22 caliber rifle from inside his residence and shot the victim through a six foot fence topped
with barbed wire." The victim died two days later in the hospital from a wound in his left side.

Forty years in prison was the sentence for the South Carolina man after he was found guilty of murder
for the 2013 killing. This was a revenge killing, pure and simple. Revenge is NOT an acceptable reason for
using deadly force against another person. Controlling anger, just like controlling fear, is key to using
firearms appropriately and legally in the context of personal protection. In general, we can say that
consuming alcohol can result in Bad Decisions, especially concerning the usage of firearms.

Oct. 6, 2013. A Maine man became involved in an altercation with a younger and much larger man, 5
inches taller and 100 pounds heavier. The larger man shoved him repeatedly and forced him to retreat
35 feet. The shooter, who had a permit to carry a concealed weapon, then drew his .380 caliber pistol
and fired three times. The larger man immediately collapsed and died in the ambulance on the way to
the hospital.

A business dispute of the possession of 700 pounds of honey was the cause of the shooting. The honey
had a value of several thousand dollars. It was not on the shooter’s property, rather, it was in a store on
the property of the family of the shootee. The shooter had been drinking, although not heavily, prior to
the confrontation. Upon returning home, his wife told him they needed to go get the honey
immediately. He decided to take his pistol with him even though he had been drinking.
While on the property, a family member of the property owners showed up and began shoving the man
trying to get the honey. After retreating for quite a ways, the shovee drew his pistol and shot the shover.
The shooter was arrested, charged with Murder, and put on trial.

A jury rejected a possible lesser charge of manslaughter and found him guilty of Murder. He was
sentenced to 25 years in prison, the minimum sentence. Since he is 72 years old, in practicality, this
amounts to a life sentence. Assistant Attorney General John Alsop said “People are allowed to carry
firearms, but the law only provides the use of firearms as defense in very particular, limited
circumstances. This was not one of them.” Although the concept of ‘disparity of force’ was raised at
trial, the jury found it unpersuasive. It should be noted that the concept of a ‘disparity of force’ defense
is much more popular among non-lawyers than among criminal defense attorneys. It’s a possible
courtroom tactic but is not the slam-dunk defense that many people think it is.

Whether it was wise to try and recover the honey at all is open for debate since it was a civil not criminal
matter. Theft was not involved. Assuming the shooter thought that going to the location of the honey
was a good decision, once the confrontation started, withdrawing would have been a better decision.
The shootee could possibly have been arrested for assault or battery if he hadn’t been shot. Even using a
non-lethal response, such as pepper spray, might possibly have been appropriate. In view of the
aftermath, we can definitely say that the shooting was a Serious Mistake.

There are numerous lessons to be learned from these incidents. Using Deadly Force should not be a spur
of the moment decision. Every gunowner, even of recreational firearms, such as Joe Biden’s shotgun,
should realize that any firearm might be pressed into service for the purpose of personal protection.

As a result, gunowners must know the law regarding self-defense and personal protection. There are
several good reference books about it available. Please do some research and reading on the topic. Keep
in mind that almost everything you read on Internet gun forums and hear in gunshops is wrong. Verify
the credentials of anyone giving you opinions about what is and is not legal. POlice officers are,
unfortunately, often a terrible source of information. Seek the opinion or read literature by experienced
criminal defense attorneys instead.

Using deadly weapons for personal protection requires keeping a cool head. There’s a lot of literature
available about controlling fear. Gun owners are well advised to do some research on the subject of
controlling fear.

Alcohol rarely provides the basis for good decision-making. It’s probably a good default response to
refuse to go to any possible confrontation if you’ve been drinking. While this would seem self-evident,
it’s a rule often violated. Sometimes, the consequences are severe, as the Maine man found out. Any
gun usage involves decision making. Alcohol doesn’t fit well into the decision making process, at all.

There are no ‘magic words’ that will get you out of a bad shooting. The phrase “I was in fear for my life”
has become something of a mantra in the firearms community. However, the circumstances and the
reasonableness of your actions in those circumstances are what you will ultimately be judged by, not
necessarily by your perception of fear, if it is not ‘reasonable’ fear. Some police departments now
prohibit including such boilerplate language in statements concerning Officer Involved Shootings.

Note that the ‘disparity of force’ defense is by no means fool-proof. The Maine man raised this issue but
it didn’t sway the jury in the least.
Failing to have an intermediate force option, such as pepper spray, implies that all you are willing and
prepared to do to protect yourself and/or your loved ones is kill someone. That’s not a philosophy that
reasonable people should embrace. If you carry a gun, you should carry pepper spray. Keep it on your
keychain and be prepared to use it with the same rapidity you can employ your firearm. It also can
provide you with a means of personal protection in some places where firearms are not allowed. Pepper
spray is not allowed in all places that firearms are not, however. Once again, know the law.

The threshold for reasonably and justifiably using non-lethal force is much lower than the threshold for
using deadly force. As the Maine Assistant Attorney General said, “the law only provides the use of
firearms as defense in very particular, limited circumstances.” If the Maine man had sprayed his
assailant with pepper spray instead of shooting him, life in prison probably wouldn’t be his future. As
the saying goes, “If all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.” There’s a reason
Massad Ayoob entitled his first book In the Gravest Extreme...
BRANDISHING/THREATENING
The California Penal Code Section 417 defines brandishing as:
“except in self-defense, in the presence of any other person, draws or exhibits any firearm in a rude,
angry, or threatening manner.”

All states have either a similar statute or something else that substitutes for it. Frequently, the charge of
Aggravated Assault is used. Regardless of the name, this crime is either a serious misdemeanor or a
felony. Deciding to display a weapon is something that should not be taken lightly. For example:
In October of 2015, a 67-year-old Tennessee woman was in a Walmart parking lot loading groceries into
her car. An unknown man approached, surprising her, and she impulsively decided to pull her revolver
out of her purse and point it at him. He immediately retreated back to the store. As he retreated, she
continued to point her revolver at him. In the process, she also muzzled another woman who was
loading groceries in her car, along with the woman’s child.
It turned out that he had just bought cigarettes and asked her for a light. Witnesses and video
surveillance confirmed that he had never come closer to her than 10 feet and had made no threatening
moves toward her. Several Internet common taters expressed the opinion that he might have been
trying to make an approach to set her up for a robbery. While this is possible, the probability of it is
extremely low. Even if it was true, he had done nothing that warranted her pulling a gun on him.

When he got back into the store, the man she threatened to kill called 911. The woman was then
arrested by the police and charged with aggravated assault and reckless endangerment. The chances of
her being convicted are reasonably good. If she is, her Concealed Handgun Permit will almost certainly
be revoked and she will forfeit her revolver. She may even go to jail or prison.

Anger over minor issues such as Liberal bumper stickers, fast food orders, and wearing a MAGA hat have
also been the cause of threatening someone with a firearm. These are obviously not rational actions.
A Missouri man pulled his .380 pistol on a woman while they were both driving because of the bumper
stickers on her car. This frightened her and caused a minor crash. He was arrested for Aggravated
Assault and she is suing him for civil damages. Police said that he "admitted he made a bad decision."

When he was perturbed about having to wait seven minutes for his fast food order, a Georgia man
became very angry. The order arrived and he felt he had been shorted his French Fries. He then came to
the door of the restaurant with a shotgun and threatened the employees. Of course, they called the
POlice. After a chase, the man was arrested and charged with Aggravated Assault.

A Tennessee man became irate that a Kentucky couple was wearing Make America Great Again caps in a
Kentucky Sam’s Club. He pulled his Glock .40 out of his back pocket and told the victim “It’s a good day
for you to die.” The Tennessee man was later arrested and charged with First Degree Wanton
Endangerment; a felony punishable by one to five years imprisonment. Note that since he was not in his
home State, bail will be more difficult to arrange.

Let’s make something clear at the outset, when you pull a gun on someone, you’re threatening to kill
them. It doesn’t matter whether you say a word (like the Tennessee man) or not (like the Ohio man),
you’re threatening to kill them. Some people apparently don’t understand that and the gravitas it
carries. You better have a good reason for deciding to do it. In some States, displaying a weapon is not
Deadly Force as a matter of law. Nonetheless, it is threatening the kill the person you are displaying it to.

Unfortunately, “I was in fear for my life” has become almost a mantra in the gun community. The
Tennessee woman made that statement but the police were unimpressed. There is a difference
between reasonable fear and irrational fear. Irrational fear is not a good reason for threatening to kill
someone, nor is simply being startled.
"There was no reason for her to perceive any legitimate threat," said the police spokesman. He added
that "Certainly pulling a gun on someone who just asks a question [and] has no weapon is not
appropriate."

A good guideline we can use comes from the Los Angeles Police Department.

"Unnecessarily or prematurely drawing or exhibiting a firearm limits an officer's alternatives in

controlling a situation, creates unnecessary anxiety on the part of citizens, and may result in an
unwarranted or accidental discharge of the firearm. An officer's decision to draw or exhibit a firearm
should be based on the tactical situation and the officer's reasonable belief there is a substantial risk
that the situation may escalate to the point where deadly force may be justified. When an officer has
determined that the use of deadly force is not necessary, the officer shall, as soon as practicable, secure
or holster the firearm." – LAPD Board of POlice Commissioners

The key issue here is that the woman became task fixated on loading her groceries into her car. As a
result, she was startled when someone spoke to her. She even said, “I’ve never been so scared in my
life.” Getting the biggest scare of your life because someone speaks to you in a parking lot is irrational.
One of the ways we avoid become startled is by being aware of our surroundings and not becoming
mesmerized by tasks like loading groceries, playing around with cellphones, or other such activities.
Learn to lift your head up regularly and take a quick look around. That’s also good for your posture.
It also helps to practice saying “NO.” Your ability to communicate with unknown persons is a key
component of your ability to defend yourself. If the lady had simply held up her hand in the STOP
gesture and said “NO,” the situation probably would have turned out much differently.

Even showing or telling someone you have a weapon can be problematic. A Montessori staff member
was concerned about school shootings after the Newtown massacre. She decided to bring her revolver
with her to school in case of another such incident because she had a Carry Permit. Bringing a weapon
into a school is illegal under Minnesota law. She mentioned that she had brought it to another staff
member who immediately told the Principal. The POlice were called and found the revolver in her purse
in her locked locker in the staff locker room. She was not arrested but was immediately removed from
the school and placed on administrative leave.
INTERVENTION IN CRIMES NOT INVOLVING YOU
In the Bible, Proverbs 26:17 states “He that passes by, and meddles with a quarrel not belonging to him,
is like one that takes a dog by the ears.” That has been true for thousands of years and continues to be
true today.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines vigilante as: “a person who is not a police officer but who tries
to catch and punish criminals.” Any time we interject ourselves into a situation involving the law, we do
so at our own risk. If we draw a weapon, and therefore threaten to kill someone, in a situation where
our personal safety or the safety of our loved ones is not at risk, we are crossing into the gray area of the
definition of vigilante. While punishing the criminal may not be the object, persons who have Licenses
to Carry Weapons regularly involve themselves in the process of trying to catch criminals.

There are serious hazards to these interventions that people frequently don’t consider beforehand. Not
the least of which is that most Armed Citizen only have a rudimentary understanding of the law, if any at
all. It is also worth noting that POslice officers are protected from civil suit for honest mistakes by the
doctrine of ‘qualified immunity.’ Armed Citizens are not. A second hazard is that the gunowner may
escalate the situation by becoming involved.
The very recent case of the parking lot shooting by Michael Drejka in Florida is an example of how one
Bad Decision can lead to the cascade effect of a whole series of Bad Decisions.
Drejka’s incident started out as an Intervention and proceeded to go horribly wrong. His initial decision
eventually resulted in what has now been adjudicated by the State of Florida as Manslaughter, an
Unjustifiable Shooting. Mr. Drejka made the decision to confront someone who appeared to not be
Handicapped for parking in a Handicapped parking spot. Then he allowed himself to become task fixated
on the confrontation and didn’t observe the rapid approach of the boyfriend of the woman in the car
from behind Mr. Drejka.
The boyfriend then aggressively pushed Mr. Drejka down. After falling, Mr. Drejka pulled his firearm and
then fired one shot, which struck the boyfriend in the torso. The woman in the car and their children
had a ringside seat to the entire confrontation. The boyfriend retreated back into the convenience store
and expired.

Mr. Drejka claimed self-defense and was not initially arrested by the County Sheriff. Feeling that he was
in the right about the incident, Mr. Drejka subsequently made a statement to detectives without the
benefit of counsel. He invoked almost every platitude known in the gun community to justify his actions.
He also gave an indication of his decision process, since he had previously confronted people for parking
in Handicapped spots. When the detective asked if he was concerned about provoking a confrontation
about the parking spots, Drejka said, "That's why I take precautions. I'm a very careful person. I have a
[Concealed Weapons] permit."
The District Attorney later decided to prosecute Drejka for Manslaughter. The trial invoked a veritable
cornucopia of self-defense tropes: the Tueller Drill, force multiplier, force continuum, threat
assessment, Weaver stance, escalation, and de-escalation. None of these were persuasive to the jury,
which quickly found him guilty. Based on his age and Florida law regarding use of a firearm in a crime, he
will most likely spend the rest of his life in prison.
In another example of the hazards of intervention, in October of 2015, a Michigan woman who was
licensed to carry a concealed pistol fired her gun at the getaway car of suspected shoplifters in the
parking lot of a Home Depot. She saw a loss prevention officer chasing a man pushing a shopping cart
from the store to an awaiting SUV. No one was injured in the theft and she wasn’t being threatened by
the shoplifters. She said she heard a scream and feared the incident was worse than a theft.
She incurred serious consequences as a result of her actions. Although her aim was good and she
flattened a tire on the thieves’ vehicle, she was immediately arrested. The charge was one count of
Reckless Use, Handling or Discharge of a Firearm. In Michigan, this crime is a misdemeanor punishable
by 90 days in jail and/or a fine.

At her trial in December, she pleaded no-contest to that charge. She acknowledged in court that the
shooting in the parking lot was a mistake. Her sentence was 18 months of probation. In addition, her
permit to carry a concealed weapon was revoked until at least 2023.

This is an excellent example of the difficulty police officers face at a crime scene. Unless the crime
personally occurs to you, it’s often hard to tell exactly what is going on. We need to realize that law
enforcement officers are generally shielded from penalties for honest mistakes by “qualified immunity”
while we as Private Citizens are not. This applies in various ways, both civil and criminal.

Regarding the Michigan case, the County Prosecutor specifically stated that gun owners should not be
vigilantes. Although the shooter said she “was trying to help,” that ‘help’ was not desired nor
appreciated by anyone else involved. “You can’t fire shots in a crowd,” the prosecutor said.

“I made a decision in a split second,” the woman told the judge. Decisions like this are best made ahead
of time, with the coolness and rationality of logic. Her defense attorney called her a “sharpshooter” but
her decision making, not her marksmanship, was what got her into trouble. And in the end, the
suspected shoplifters were arrested a few days after the incident anyway.
In another incident, an Arizona man chased shoplifters from a Walgreens and shot at their vehicle. He
stated that he wanted to "be a hero." Two months after the incident he was taken into custody by the
police. The charges he faced were aggravated assault, drive-by shooting, and unlawful discharge of a
firearm. Police said a misdemeanor shoplifting "would not justify the level of force used." The shooter
said “I feel I had good intentions. I meant the best. I meant to disable the vehicle."

A very smart street cop commented years ago about how he would respond to being caught up in a
store robbery or other such incident. “As long as the robbers aren’t searching people, making them get
down on the ground, or herding them into a back room, I am going to act like a CPA from Akron and just
be a good witness.” That is a good model for Armed Citizens to follow. It’s also worth noting that no less
an organization than the Los Angeles Police Department discourages off-duty officers from taking
‘enforcement action’ unless the life of a member of the public is endangered.
CHASING AFTER THE END OF A CONFRONTATION
When a criminal confrontation ends and the criminal flees, there’s a strong instinct to chase the attacker
and continue the conflict. Armed Citizens need to recognize that this instinct exists and resist the urge to
chase. Instinctive as it might be, chasing and prolonging the confrontation can result in legal problems
and has the possibility of a tactical failure.

In November 2012, a Wisconsin man shot at two intruders as they fled after beating him in his
apartment. His nose and three ribs were broken in the attack. He managed to shoot each of the men in
the leg during the attack. They then left the apartment and ran across a nearby parking lot. He
continued to fire at them from the apartment doorway as they ran away. Although he missed the men,
two rounds hit a nearby hotel and another struck a nearby car.

As a result of shooting at the men after they broke off their attack and fled, the Wisconsin man was
charged with second-degree reckless endangerment, a Class G Felony in Wisconsin. He tried to invoke
the castle doctrine law, which allows homeowners to use deadly force to defend themselves against
intruders in their dwellings. But a trial judge ruled that the statute didn't apply in this case because he
continued to shoot after the men left his home.
In May of 2013, a jury ultimately found him guilty of the charges and he was sentenced to
two-and-a-half years in prison. A state appeals court rejected his appeal in October of 2014, agreeing
with the trial court that "The castle doctrine does not justify continued use of deadly force against an
intruder when that intruder is no longer in the actor's dwelling.”
In another incident, a California robbery victim got into his car and chased the robber or robbers in
December of 2014. While he was pursuing the suspect car, one of the possibly two suspects opened fire
on him but he was not hit by gunfire. The victim then discontinued the chase.
Although the California man stopped pursuing the other car when the robber shot at him, the suspect
then started pursuing the victim. Thus, the pursuit cycle reversed itself. Eventually, both cars crashed.
The victim and robber got into a fight but the robber or robbers fled the area. Police found one of the
robbery suspects nearby.

A short time later, a man came into a local hospital with a graze wound from a bullet. The man lived in a
nearby home and apparently was struck on his head by stray gunfire from the shooting during the chase.

Be aware the instinct to chase exists. Once you realize it exists, you can resolve, in advance, to not give
in to the instinct. Developing a plan for positive actions to replace the chase instinct gives a gunowner
something to do that can derail the chase instinct. It is much better to think about something to do
rather than thinking about what not to do. Focus on the objective, not on the obstacle. This is best
done in advance, rather than in the heat of the moment.

For example, in the home, plan to secure the outer doors immediately following an incident, if that is
possible. If not, then plan to retreat to an area in the home that can be secured and defended. Plan to
call 911 as quickly as possible, in lieu of giving chase.

The Wisconsin man also tried to invoke the sometimes taught tactical concept that ‘the assailants might
return and he wanted to protect himself from further attack.’ Both the trial and appeals courts found
this concept unpersuasive. Armed Citizens should be wary of the idea that this defense is likely to be
useful in court. Like several legal theories discussed in the gun community, it is only a ‘theory.’ One
aspect of ‘theories’ in science is that they can be disproven. Such is also the case with legal theories in
the courtroom.
UNDESIRABLE POLICE INVOLVEMENT
Undesirable POlice Involvement has two sub-categories; Being arrested by the police for unintentional
weapons violations and Being shot by police officers responding to a crime.

Gunowners are often unaware of the hodge-podge of laws regarding firearms and carrying weapons.
This is even true of non-firearm weapons. While driving laws are largely uniform throughout the United
States, the same CANNOT be said of laws regarding firearms. For instance, New York City does not even
recognize Licenses to Carry weapons from the balance of New York State. New York State requires a
License to possess a firearm, even to the point of touching a gun.

Various reciprocal agreements exist between States to recognize other States’ Licenses to Carry
weapons but they are by no means universal. Absent such an agreement or a specific recognition of
other States’ Licenses in State law, gunowners should assume that they cannot carry a weapon in a State
other than where they are Licensed to carry a firearm. Even Constitutional Carry can be problematic
because some of those laws only apply to residents of the State.

Especially for those having a License or Permit to carry a Weapon, it is critical to realize that, unlike your
driver’s license, your Weapons Carry License is NOT valid everywhere you go. Some jurisdictions, such as
New York State, do not even allow you to possess a firearm without a License issued by the State of New
York. An Ohio man was arrested by New York City police when he received room service at his hotel and
the employee spotted a revolver on the nightstand.

Even the protections of Federal law are no guarantee of getting off the radar of local laws. For instance,
gunowners are routinely arrested in New York airports for declaring their firearms before checking their
luggage. The US Attorney for the Southern District of New York refuses to interfere with New York’s
violation of Federal law protecting gunowners. Similar issues have been reported for people who drive
through Maryland when their license plates are tied to a License to Carry a weapon.
Legal gun owners from other states are regularly arrested for unintentionally violating weapons laws in
States such as New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Maryland, and California. Unfortunately, this can
even occur when simply traveling through at the airport. Presenting a pistol, in accordance with Federal
regulations, to be included in checked baggage at LaGuardia or Kennedy will result in immediate arrest
under New York City law.

When planning travel, it behooves gun owners to have a very clear understanding of what they are and
are not allowed to have and do when they travel. Even laws concerning self-defense can be radically
different from place to place.

Gunowners need to understand that the quilt of laws pertaining to guns is very different among
jurisdictions in the United States. Some places may have few restrictions while others may be extremely
restrictive to the point of being prohibitive.
The most publicized recent arrest for an unintentional weapon violation was a Pennsylvania woman who
was arrested in New Jersey. When she was stopped by a New Jersey State Trooper, she decided to
volunteer that she was licensed to carry a pistol in Pennsylvania and had it in her purse. He immediately
arrested her for violation of New Jersey’s strict weapons carry laws.

The Pennsylvania woman spent 40 days in the Atlantic County jail before posting bail on the charges.
She then endured an 18 month ordeal in New Jersey’s legal system. After being threatened with
spending years in prison, she was finally allowed to enter a Pre-Trial Intervention program. She was
sentenced to 25 hours of community service and had to surrender her handgun. Governor Christie
pardoned her in April of 2015. The pardon also expunges her record and allows her to become a gun
owner once again. At the time of the woman’s entrance into Pre-Trial Intervention, it was reported that
over 100 similar cases were pending in New Jersey.

In September of 2008, Police in Phoenix shot a homeowner who was holding an intruder at gunpoint.
The homeowner was shot six times and severely wounded. The Phoenix man is permanently crippled.
He sued the Phoenix Police Department for $5.75 million. Eventually, a $1.75 million settlement was
reached.

The Phoenix incident is a good example of one of the hazards of holding suspects at gunpoint.
Responding police officers have to sort out who is the good guy and who is the bad guy. The nature of
their profession leads them to assume that the person holding a gun is a bad guy. That’s just the way it
is. Police officers are shot by people with guns almost weekly in this country. Like it or not, they are
going to attempt to protect themselves, just as we would in their place.
An Alabama woman shot her estranged husband in self-defense in April of 2015. When police officers
arrived she was in the garage, her shotgun still in hand. When officers ordered her to drop her weapon,
she instead turned and pointed the gun in his direction. The officer then shot her in the hip. Whether
the hip shot was intentional is unclear. The Alabama woman and her husband recovered from their
wounds.

In May of 2015, a South Carolina sheriff’s deputy responding to a report of a home invasion shot the
homeowner. The man had refused to drop his gun after exchanging shots with the home invaders. The
South Carolina man was shot in the neck. He is paralyzed from the neck down and will never live a
normal life. He was 26 years old when he was shot.
In a reverse case, an Arkansas woman shot a Deputy Sheriff who responded to her 911 call for help. Her
son had shot her husband so she called 911. The son had left and returned one time, which made her
believe he was returning once again. When the Deputy arrived, she shot him once with her .38 revolver.
The Deputy recovered and she was not charged. The son was convicted of First Degree Murder and
sentenced to Life in Prison without the possibility of parole.

Getting shot by the police at the end of a confrontation we have otherwise managed successfully is a
terribly Negative Outcome. Accordingly, a skill that gunowners need to learn is how to interact with the
police. There are different opinions about how to handle this issue, each having varying points of view
about what to say. The variety of opinions is beyond the scope of this book. However, they all agree that
being visibly armed and/or failing to obey POlice commands can be hazardous to your health. The
important thing is for gunowners to do some research, have a plan, and practice it ahead of time.
Pre-conceived plans might have prevented the Phoenix and South Carolina men from being shot and
severely wounded by responding police officers.
 PART II
IMPRUDENT MISTAKES
IMPRUDENT
Not showing care for the consequences of an action; rash.
Even in the absence of Legal consequences, many Serious Mistakes still have Negative Outcomes. This
often is the result of failing to consider what the consequences of our actions could be.

One of the benefits of hands-on training and subsequent practice is that those things allow the
manipulation of a firearm to become an unconscious aspect of using the firearm. When manipulation of
the firearm is unconscious, i.e., not having to think about how to load it, hold it, shoot it, etc., it leaves
more of the conscious mind available for processing the context of the situation. Conversely, someone
who is unfamiliar with their firearm will tend to focus on the firearm itself and not the nuances of the
situation they are in.

When more of our cognitive powers are available, we are more likely to be able to understand the
situation and choose an appropriate solution from out range of options.
MISTAKEN IDENTITY SHOOTINGS
A ‘Mistaken Identity’ shooting is where a gunowner shoots, and perhaps kills, someone they thought
was a threat or intruder but instead turned out to be either a member of their household or an innocent
person.

The issue here is that very few gun owners ever expose themselves, or even think about, the fact that
any self-defense shooting involves making a DON’T SHOOT/SHOOT decision. The mindset of “I’m going
to shoot anyone [whom I think is an intruder] in my home” is far too common. This attitude is
irresponsible and mental rehearsal for a tragedy. Mistaken Identity shootings occur far more often than
the gun community. There are numerous examples of such incidents and they occur with shocking
regularity.

A Montana man shot a seminary student who was staying with him because the student ‘was being so
quiet.’
The night before their wedding, a Florida man shot his fiancée in their home. He said to the 911
operator "I thought I had an intruder in my house. ... I shot the intruder, but the intruder was my wife"
She was killed by a single .38 caliber round to the chest.
A sheriff's deputy in Virginia shot his 16-year-old daughter after she sneaked out and set off the home's
alarm when she came back home. Panic set in and he drove too fast while taking his wounded daughter
to the hospital. He crashed his car and both father and daughter had to be rescued by responding
paramedics. This is an example of the Bad Decision Cascade Effect, in which one Bad Decision is then
followed by others.
In Colorado, a man shot and killed his teenage stepdaughter around 6 a.m. as she was climbing back into
the house through a window.

A Florida grandmother mistook her 7 year old grandson for an intruder and shot him with a .22 caliber
revolver. The boy had moved a chair the grandmother had placed against the door. He was hospitalized
in critical condition.
As previously mentioned, an Arkansas woman’s husband was murdered by her son, who then left the
home. When deputies responded to the murder call to 911, the woman shot and wounded one of the
responding deputies. The deputies justifiably fired back when she shot at them, fortunately their
marksmanship was not equal to their courage and she was unhit. The woman was fortunate she wasn’t
killed that night, in addition to her husband being murdered.

A Georgia man shot and killed an elderly man with advanced Alzheimer’s disease who was wandering
around the shooter’s fiancée’s home. The elderly man had gotten out of his home and had wandered
miles away. His flashlight had died and he had his small dog on a leash. The shooter went outside to
confront him but the old man failed to respond to his commands, so he shot and killed him. A tragic
incident for everyone involved.

A father mistook his 14-year-old son for an intruder and shot him in the neck, killing him, when the boy
cut school and sneaked back into the house, according to Cincinnati police. The boy had crawled
through a window into the dark basement where he couldn’t be readily seen. Since the father had no
flashlight, he was unable to identify his son so he opened fire.
An off-duty Las Vegas Metro Police officer and her husband shot a relative who lives at the house after
mistaking her for an intruder.

A Florida man was sleeping when he heard noise coming from the kitchen at 11:30 p.m. He got his gun,
saw someone, and fired. His 16 year old younger brother was killed with one shot.
While in most cases, no charges are pressed, it is unlikely the family relationship will ever be the same.

Avoiding such tragedies requires preparation on both the physical and mental levels. Learning to
negotiate the obstacles inherent in Threat Management is something you don’t want to first learn at 3
a.m. when you hear that ‘bump in the night.’

Several common threads run through most Mistaken Identity shootings

• They occur during periods of limited visibility, i.e., darkness.

• There is no verbalization on the part of shooter before opening fire.
• The shooter has no means of illumination, such a flashlight.
• A stressful situation of unknown circumstances is occurring.
Any ‘bump in the night’ carries with it a set of competing probabilities. It could be an intruder, which is
the assumption most people make when they hear it, or it could be a member of their household. The
member of the household is the most likely scenario. Why is this true? Simply because they live in the
same house as you do and they are not constantly updating you on their location. Where teenagers are
present, the chances of them leaving the house and returning without informing their parents is
extremely high. This fact has to be figured into the home defense plan of any parent or adult in the
household. Nor will small children always let you know where they are going, as the Florida
grandmother incident painfully illustrated. There is a high likelihood the bump is caused by a family
member.

Learning to verbalize while holding a gun and preparing to shoot is a skill all gunowners need to have.
Always Challenge a suspect first. If the response is “Daddy, it’s me,” the FBI calls that a ‘clue.’
Verbalization is a learned skill that needs to be practiced. Ideally, it should be practiced at both the
shooting range and at home. Practicing at home requires following safety protocols to ensure that the
gun is not loaded. DO NOT practice pointing a pistol at people. Simply practice holding the pistol at a
Low Ready position and verbalizing some sort of Challenge; “Who’s there?” is probably the simplest.

At home, have a flashlight next to your gun. Pick up the flashlight first and the pistol second. Use the
flashlight to identify the suspect before making a SHOOT decision. A major problem is thinking the light
is a ‘lead magnet’ is. Decades ago, you would never see a picture in a gun magazine of someone
investigating a bump in the night without a flashlight. Now it is a rarity. That should not be the case.
Gunowners cannot afford to use deadly weapons without the means to identify friendlies from threats.

Using a hand-held light in conjunction with a handgun implies the need for two important skills. First of
all, you must be able to work the hands independently of one another to operate different controls. The
support hand needs to be able to operate the switch of the flashlight while the firing hand maintains
proper trigger finger discipline. This skill needs to be practiced at the gun range regularly. You should
take your flashlight with you to the range every time you go. Second, you must have the ability to shoot
one handed. This skill is totally under-emphasized in most gunowners’ practice. Like manipulating the
flashlight and pistol independently, practicing one handed shooting needs to be done every time you go
to the range.

The issues of flashlight technique and being able to coordinate the light with the handgun is probably far
less important than the ability to manipulate the light and pistol independently. Modern flashlights
throw more than enough light to identify a suspect in a home, whether they directly illuminate the
suspect or not.

Related to the flashlight issue is the selection of a long gun for home defense. Unless the long gun is
equipped with a weapon mounted light, there is no way of visually identifying a suspect in darkness
while holding a long gun. If the long gun is equipped with a weapon mounted light, then the gun itself
has to be pointed at the suspect to identify them. While law enforcement is okay with this concept, it is
not a good practice for those who do not regularly practice working the light and the trigger
independently.
LOST/STOLEN GUNS
Any time a firearm is left unattended, it is subject to loss or theft. Firearms need to always be accounted
for and secured. Unfortunately, that is frequently not the case. Numerous firearms are stolen from
homes and vehicles every year. The Bureau of Justice Statistics estimates that nearly a quarter million
guns are stolen annually. https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/press/fshbopc0510pr.cfm About
three-quarters of these are stolen in household burglaries, the rest in “other property crimes,” most
likely theft from cars. The POlice in even small US cities report that hundreds of guns are stolen from
vehicles, each year. Frequently, these vehicle are unlocked and parked in easily accessible locations.
https://www.wsls.com/news/hundreds-of-stolen-guns-are-ending-up-on-the-streets-in-virginia As the
late Pat Rogers, a noted firearms trainer, said “Your car is not a holster.”

Gunowners like to think that vehicle thefts are the result of the vehicle being broken into when a person
Licensed To Carry a firearm disarms prior to going into a Non-Permissive Environment (NPE). In actuality,
it appears that most thefts of guns from vehicles occur while the vehicle is parked near the gunowner’s
residence at night. It is very common for people to habitually leave guns in their cars. This is a Serious
Mistake, especially when it is compounded by not locking the car.

A typical method for criminals to steal from vehicles is to walk down a street at night trying the door
handles of cars parked on the street and in driveways to see which vehicles are unlocked. Often, they
don’t even bother breaking into the cars because, statistically speaking, many of the vehicles will not be
locked. Any vehicle that is found unlocked is then quickly searched for valuable property. When people
leave a gun in a vehicle, they usually put it in an easily accessible place, such as the door pocket, glove
box, under the driver’s seat, or between the driver’s seat and console. Unfortunately, it is not only
readily accessible to the owner, it’s readily accessible to a thief. In a matter of seconds, the gun is stolen
and the thief is gone.

Deciding to leave a gun in a vehicle on a habitual basis is a Bad Decision. Leaving a firearm overnight in a
parked vehicle is an even worse decision. This is true even when the vehicle is parked at home
overnight. Firearms should never be left unsecured in the passenger compartment of a vehicle. The
glove box or console, even when locked, do not count as secure places because they are so easy to
break in to.

Many times, the location in the vehicle is more convenient to unauthorized persons, such as children
and thieves, than it is to the gunowner. Under the driver’s seat is a particularly poor location to keep a
gun. Long guns in Law Enforcement vehicles are very vulnerable to vehicle theft, as numerous Law
Enforcement Officers find to their chagrin every year. Open Carry advocates who remove their pistols in
plain sight before going into an NPE are particular vulnerable to theft from vehicles. Since they are
unconcerned generally about anyone seeing their gun, they often remove their pistols in plain sight and
then store them unsecured in the vehicle.

For those who have to store a firearm in a vehicle while they go into an NPE, the gun should be kept in a
locked container attached to the vehicle and then the vehicle locked up. The trunk of the vehicle is the
best location if the vehicle has one. A lockbox will have a cable that can be attached to the hinge for the
trunk, thus attaching the gun and lockbox to the vehicle. Granted that this is not an utterly theft proof
solution but attaching the firearm to the vehicle and then locking the vehicle places two measures of
deterrence between the gun and a thief. Lockboxes that can be secured by a cable to the vehicle itself
are inexpensive, readily available, and a good investment. With a little bit of practice, they are easy and
quick to use.

Losing guns in public is a related but separate issue. While stolen guns are obviously the result of a
criminal’s actions, guns that are lost in public places are solely the responsibility of the gunowner. As the
number of Private Citizens who carry weapons increases, so has the number of incidents of losing guns
in public increased. Law Enforcement Officers also lose their guns in public periodically. Carrying a gun in
public requires some forethought and pre-planning because of basic human needs.

The most common way for a gun to be lost in public is in the restroom. Sometimes, this can even be a
family affair. In March of 2014, a Wisconsin woman left her Ruger pistol in the restroom of her church
during a Bible Study meeting. A custodian found the pistol in its holster and turned it in to the church.
No one was injured. The woman did not realize she had left the gun until 30 minutes after leaving the
church.

In August of 2014, her husband left his holstered Ruger pistol on the floor of the restroom at a family
fun park in an adjacent County. The pistol was turned into park management and no one was injured.
The man did not even realize the pistol was missing until he was contacted by the Sheriff’s department
several days later.

The woman’s pistol was seized as evidence. It is unclear whether it has yet been returned. In April 2014,
she was charged with negligently handing a weapon. A judge dismissed the charge in June. A few
months later, County prosecutors re-filed a new complaint against her charging disorderly conduct. The
second charge was also eventually dismissed in March of 2015. The woman had to spend a year going to
court several times and pay attorney’s fees for a quick moment of inattention to securing her pistol.
Although County prosecutors reviewed the husband’s incident, no charges were filed against the
husband. It is also unclear if his pistol has been returned.
Firearms have also been lost in other ways. A pistol was left in a rental vehicle and then found by the
subsequent renter’s small child. A pistol was found on a Little League field after the owner failed to
realize it had fallen out of his pocket. The janitor at a school gymnasium found a coat that had been left
behind with a revolver in the pocket. A pistol was left in a diaper bag when the child was dropped off at
daycare It was later found by a worker at the daycare facility. A diaper bag is an egregiously poor place
to store a firearm because it implies the gun is kept unsecured in close proximity to a small child.

Keeping weapons under control

There are various methods for controlling a firearm while in the restroom.

• The handgun can be placed in the underwear.

• The holstered pistol can remain on the belt with the belt kept at knee level.
• A pocket pistol can be left in the pocket.
• A holstered pistol that is small enough to be put in a pocket can be temporarily placed in the
pocket. This method is NOT recommended for Striker Fired Autoloaders since their trigger
guards need to always be covered.
• Shoulder holsters require no action on the part of the carrier at all.
Hanging the pistol on the stall’s coat hook should be strictly avoided. Placing the pistol on the toilet tank
seems to the most common method of forgetting it and so should also be avoided.
Another aspect of this situation is that Private Citizens who carry, unlike Police Officers, cannot take
their weapons with them everywhere they go. For instance, in most States, it is not legal for Private
Citizens to take a weapon into a courthouse. Leaving a pistol in a vehicle increases the possibility it will
be stolen.

Whenever we go and whatever we do, we need to make conscious decisions, in most cases before we
leave home, about how we are going to secure our firearms as we go about our daily business. Failing to
do so is a Serious Mistake that sets the stage for a Negative Outcome.
Poor judgement
Poor judgement covers a lot of ground. This is the category that includes:

• Endangering innocent people needlessly, such as Celebratory gunfire, shooting without a proper
backstop or around people, or pointing a gun at people for foolish reasons.
• Frightening innocent people around you.
• Shooting someone you really didn’t need to, even when it’s eventually found legally justified at
trial.
• Showing or telling people about having or carrying a gun.
• Intentionally giving someone more gun than they can handle or operate correctly.
• Unintentionally giving someone more gun than they can handle or operate correctly.
• Making choices that are obviously wrong, such as choosing a gun whose trigger you cannot pull.
• Being stupid – akin to ‘watch this.’

There are so many examples of real life occurrences that it’s hard to pick the worst. Here are a few:

Just 20 minutes into 2010, a 4-year-old boy was killed by a falling bullet from celebratory gunfire while
attending a New Year’s Eve church service in Georgia. A police spokesman said the bullet came through
the church’s roof and struck the child in the head. The local POlice instituted a program called Marquel’s
Pledge as a response, which has helped reduce the amount of celebratory gunfire in the County.
https://www.dekalbcountyga.gov/public-safety/marquels-pledge-stop-celebratory-gunfire The person
who killed the 4 year old boy was never identified. With a little luck, his soul will rot in Hell for all
eternity. Hopefully, he knows who he is and thinks about the child he killed for the rest of his life.
Lack of proper backstops for shooting in a related issue. A Minnesota man was riding his motorcycle on
a rural road when he realized he had been shot. POlice investigation determined that he had been
struck by a bullet fired from over a quarter mile away by a group of people who were target shooting
toward the road. As the Fourth Rule of Gun Safety says, be sure of what is beyond your target. A
backstop that will contain bullets is mandatory. A group of trees doesn’t count. Even the lowly .22 Long
Rifle cartridge has a range of one and a half miles.

A Georgia police Sergeant put an unloaded gun to an Academy recruit's head in November 2015 and
pulled the trigger. A reporting document stated: “A recruit asked if the Glock service weapon would fire
if it was placed against an object. The sergeant unholstered his weapon, unloaded it and showed it to a
recruit to verify it was unloaded. He then placed the muzzle of the weapon against the recruit's head
and pulled the trigger.” Fortunately, the gun had been correctly unloaded, which is not always the case.
As a result of this misadventure, the sergeant was demoted and lost his Academy instructor status, as
was appropriate. His decision to disregard the rule against Pointing a gun at something he was not
prepared to see shot was a Serious Mistake.

In a very recent 2019 incident, a Chattanooga POlice officer carried his rifle into his house near a
University. A neighbor saw him, became concerned, and called the POlice. A SWAT callout resulted for a
potential active shooter, and the very same officer was part of the callout. He eventually realized he was
searching for himself and put a stop to the foolishness. One person made an observation about the
incident:

"When you search for yourself, you discover that life is a journey, and sometimes when we look
for the impossible, we find an unexpected delight."
In this case, the impossible was trying to find his doppelganger and the delight was the
realization that he would not have to confront a hostile opponent with a rifle.

It should be noted in this incident that when the officer took the rifle into his home, he was in full
uniform but the neighbor didn’t see the uniform, only the rifle. The anti-gun Lame Stream Media has
whipped up an unprecedented level of hysteria about firearms, especially semi-automatic rifles. We
need to be conscious of that fact whenever we are transporting our firearms.

In October 2014, a Florida woman borrowed a .380 pistol from someone nearby and tried to shoot a
water moccasin on the practice football field of a local school campus. Children were about 20 to 50
yards away when the woman took a shot at the snake, missing it by a considerable margin. She was then
arrested for discharging a firearm on school property, a felony, and possession of a firearm on school
property. The man she borrowed the gun from was arrested for carrying a concealed weapon and
possession of a firearm on school property.
A Nevada man armed himself with two handguns in February 2014, and went to an unoccupied
apartment he owned to run off some squatters. A shooting ensued and one squatter was killed and the
other wounded. He was charged with First Degree Murder and Attempted Murder. In his interview with
the police he said: “What a stupid thing to have happened. I feel sorry and terrible about the whole
situation. I wish the whole thing didn’t happen, I wish that I didn’t go over there, and it didn’t happen. I
wouldn’t want this for anybody’s life.” After a 15 month legal ordeal and trial, he was finally found Not
Guilty.

In May of 2015, a Washington State woman fired her gun at her husband during an argument in their
house. She was angry he wasn't helping around the house but wasn't trying to shoot him. The husband
had recently returned from treatment in the hospital for an ongoing medical condition. The woman’s
lawyer said she was upset that he "hadn't been able to do anything around the house.” She was
arrested for attempted first degree murder. She was released on $250,000 bond.

As mentioned in the Brandishing section, even telling someone you have a weapon in a prohibited area
can be an issue. It is extremely poor judgement. You might find yourself in a situation where you have
unintentionally brought a weapon into a prohibited area. Don’t tell anyone if that happens, get it out of
there quietly.
Intentionally giving someone more gun than they can handle or operate correctly goes beyond poor
judgment to the point of being a jerk. YouTube is full of videos http://youtu.be/MhfF7ek_Jww showing
such Bad Behavior. We need to promote firearms responsibly to new shooters, not alienate them.
We also need to be conscious of unintentionally giving someone more gun than they can handle. A
tragic example is the Arizona instructor who had a nine year old girl fire an Uzi. When placed in the full
automatic mode, the submachinegun got away from her and killed the instructor.
https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2014/08/27/idesk-shooting-accident-claude-werner-intv.cnn

Guns are not toys, they are not noisemakers, and they are not prods. They are deadly weapons and
MUST be treated as such at all times.

It’s also important to realize the ramifications of using deadly force against another person. Deadly force
is a last resort. Remember that merely pointing a gun at someone is threatening to kill them. Shooting at
them is attempting to kill them, even if you miss. That’s easily interpreted by law enforcement and the
legal system as Attempted Murder, as the Washington woman found out.
Even if you can legally use deadly force, that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a good idea. As the Nevada
case illustrated, getting caught up in the legal system is a trip into Hell and a very expensive one. If you
can avoid that ride, doing so is always your best course of action. A good saying to keep in mind is “The
Process is the Punishment.” Even when someone is eventually found Not Guilty, they’ve been through
an experience that they wish they had never been involved in and possibly became bankrupt in the
process.
UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS
The phrase “Store weapons where they are not accessible to unauthorized persons” is now sometimes
being referred to as “Rule 5” of the Gun Handling rules. This doesn’t just mean at the end of the day; it is
a 24/7 task.
Unauthorized access is a heartbreaking topic. When the story makes the news, it’s almost always
because a child has shot himself, herself, another child, or a parent.

Anyone who is a parent knows that children are intensely inquisitive. They are also clever at getting into
and at things we adults don’t think they can. They are also mechanically very inventive because they
don’t know what isn’t supposed to work, so they find other workarounds. There is a confused notion on
the part of many adults that small children, even as young as two years old, cannot work the trigger of a
double action weapon. In fact, they can and frequently do. This is how they do it.

• The child will place the gun on the floor.

• Eventually, they want to look in the hole that the bore is. It’s natural curiosity.
• So they stand the gun up on the backstrap to look down the bore.
• While they’re holding the gun upright with both hands, they put both thumbs, one of each side, in
the other hole, the trigger guard.
• Then, they start pushing down on the trigger with both thumbs while they’re looking down the bore
or it is pointing at their chest.
• They’ll use their entire upper body strength and weight to reinforce what strength they have in their
hands and arms.
• The gun will eventually fire while it is pointed directly at their upper chest, neck, or head. That’s why
the wounds are so often instantly fatal.
• Children as young as two years old have been able to make even double action revolvers fire using
this method. Striker fired autoloaders are very easy for children to fire using two hands. Remember
that the child weighs much more than the gun’s trigger pull. If they get their body weight and
momentum into the effort, the gun is going to fire.

When young children find a gun and want to show it to someone, they don’t show it to the other
person’s feet. ‘Look at what I found’ means they show it to the eyes and face, which is why wounds to
other persons are so often deadly.
Incidents don’t just take place at home either. Regardless of where you are, you have to secure firearms
so that children can’t access them. Places that children have shot themselves or someone else with an
unsecured firearm include: At home, At someone else’s home (often grandparents), In motels, In cars,
and In public places
The plethora of incidents that take place are soul crushing because they are so preventable.

Home – Oklahoma, November 25, 2014. A 3-year-old boy accidentally shot his mother, an Army veteran,
as she changed her 1 year old baby’s diaper. The child found a handgun in the home and fired one shot.
The mother died just an hour after being shot in the head.

Another’s Home – Arizona, June 9, 2013. An ex-Green Beret’s four-year-old son accidentally shot him
with a gun he found at the home of one of his father’s friends. The man had not secured the gun
because he lives alone and hadn’t expected company. Within minutes of arrival, the father had been
shot. An ambulance transported him to the hospital where he later died. No charges were filed against
the friend because the father and son had only arrived minutes before the shooting.

Another’s Home – Texas, July 06, 2015. A 3-year-old boy accidentally shot himself in the face at his
grandparents' home. The boy was put him down for a nap around 3:30 p.m. and shot himself about 4
p.m. The gun was in the bedroom on or in the nightstand. The boy's grandfather was unsure exactly
where the gun had been. The boy died at a few hours after he shot himself.
Motel – January 31, 2015, New Mexico. A toddler shot both of his parents after finding a loaded
handgun in his mother’s purse. He was looking for her iPod. One shot was fired, which struck his father
in the buttocks and then hit the pregnant mother in the arm. A 2-year-old girl was also in the room, next
to the mother. A 9mm handgun was also found inside the motel room. Both New Mexico parents
survived. They were both charged with child abuse without great bodily harm, a third degree felony.
Each was booked into the county jail on $15,000 bail.

Car — May 15, 2015, Florida. A 3-year-old boy accidentally shot his 1-year-old sister in the face while
they were in a car outside a preschool. The children had been left alone in a car while their mother
talked to people in the parking lot. A gun was left inside the car with the children. The 3-year-old found
the gun and fired a round which struck the 1-year-old. The father later told detectives that he left his
handgun in the car when he went into a store to buy alcohol and then forgot about the gun. The girl was
flown to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries. The father was charged shortly afterward with one
felony count of culpable negligence for leaving a loaded firearm within easy reach of a child. The charges
were dropped five months later.

In another vehicle incident, a retired LAPD officer was paralyzed when his toddler son fired a handgun
kept in the family truck. He unsuccessfully attempted to sue the gun’s manufacturer.
Public place – December 31, 2014, Idaho. A 2-year-old boy accidentally shot his mother after he reached
into her purse at a Walmart and found her 9mm Smith & Wesson M&P Shield pistol. The boy was seated
in a shopping cart, along with the mother’s purse. The mother was struck in the head and killed
instantly.
Parents and caregivers are periodically criminally charged when their children are injured with firearms
they gain access to. In varying cases, the following charges have been brought: involuntary
manslaughter, felony child endangering, tampering with evidence, child abuse without great bodily
harm, felony abandoning or endangering a child, neglect of a child causing great bodily harm, and
culpable negligence for allowing a minor access to a weapon resulting in injury.

In several of these cases, the surviving parent will eventually have to tell their child, “You accidentally
killed your [father/mother] when you were still a little kid.” That’s not a task that any parent would ever
want to undertake. And how the child will react to such a revelation is anyone’s guess.

None of this is to say that children accidentally shooting themselves is a huge problem numerically
because it is not, statistically speaking. Drowning, suffocation, and motor vehicle crashes are all
significantly more likely to be the cause of a small child’s death.
https://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/pdf/leading_causes_of_injury_deaths_highlighting_unintentional_
2017-508.pdf But no parent or grandparent will ever forgive themselves if their gun is the cause of a
child or grandchild’s death.
Preventing unauthorized access requires thinking about what other people will do when they are in your
home, even if they are only visiting. The natural inquisitiveness of children makes that even more true
for them. Leaving guns in and on nightstands or other furniture is an invitation to disaster, as the Texas
incident showed.

Empty chambers are not enough to prevent children from operating firearms. In 2014, a 2-year-old Utah
boy was shot with a .22-caliber rifle by his 3-year-old sister. The rifle’s chamber was empty but there
was ammunition in the magazine. The three-year-old was able to chamber a live round and fired it. The
boy died.
Leaving guns unattended for even a minute can result in tragedy. A California Sheriff's deputy left his
service weapon on the bed with the magazine removed but a round in the chamber while he was getting
ready for work. His 10-year-old daughter came into the room and then unintentionally shot her
8-year-old sister with the pistol. She was struck in the lower torso but survived.

Guns in cars do not belong in the glove box, door pocket, or center console. The gun in the Florida
incident had been left in the glove box for several days. A gun in the car needs to be on the owner’s
body. If your gun is uncomfortable when you wear it in the car, then you need a different gun or holster.

There are varying opinions about purse carry in a tactical sense. One thing is clear, if a woman carries a
pistol in her purse, the purse needs to be on her body. If it is off her body, it needs to be locked, either
with a lock on the compartment with the gun or in a locked container.

A Georgia woman’s 2 year old son was able to get her pistol out of the zippered compartment in her
purse. The boy fired the pistol, which injured his 11 year old sister.

A specific problem associated with purse carry is not being able to take the gun with for stops into
places where guns are not allowed. Guns are not allowed to be taken into schools in many places. This
presents an issue that women who purse carry need to give thought to.
Trigger locks are unsatisfactory storage solutions for guns that are kept for personal protection. Lockable
containers are a much better answer. Any person, especially a parent or grandparent, who acquires a
gun without also acquiring some kind of lockable container to store it in is being irresponsible. Have a
container and use it regularly.
 PART III
MECHANICAL MISTAKES
DOWNRANGE FAILURES
The term ‘downrange failures’ refers to incidents where an innocent person who is downrange of the
shooter was hit by gunfire intended to stop an attack by a criminal or, in some cases, an animal attacker.
This occurs more frequently than is realized.

In July of 2015, an Ector County, Texas woman thwarted a home invasion. Two men with weapons
kicked in the door of the residence where the woman lived with two other women. The woman was in
her bedroom and retrieved her shotgun when she heard the front door being kicked in.

She went into the hallway and subsequently one or both of the men pointed their weapons at her. The
woman then fired a shot at them from her shotgun. Her shot missed both of the men and,
unfortunately, accidentally hit one of her roommates, who were in the living room. The roommate
sustained wounds to her neck, right hand and right side of her chest. The home invaders quickly
departed.
No charges were filed against the woman who did the shooting. However, it is unlikely her relationship
with the roommate she shot will ever be the same, regardless of how good friends they may have been
previously. Being shot is something that a person will always remember, along with whom it was that
shot them.
This incident has abundant lessons. The principal lesson is that, especially in the home, there is a distinct
possibility that not only will the criminals be downrange but innocent persons too. It is very common in
home invasions for the male member of the family to physically confront any home invaders. This
means that weapon retrieval and any subsequent shooting will be done by a different family member
while the male may be involved in a physical struggle with the home invaders.
Shotguns are very powerful weapons. Harry Whittington, the man accidently shot by then
Vice-President Dick Cheney in 2006 while bird hunting, was 30-40 yards away when he was shot. The
ammunition was birdshot, which is often denigrated by firearms trainers for home defense. Whittington
was in intensive care for two days after the shooting. While no firearm wound can be considered
‘minor,’ this is even truer with shotguns. Any shotgun, even the lowly .410 loaded with birdshot, will
punch a hole larger than the bore size completely through 2 inch thick lumber at a range of 10 feet. To
think that this will not result in an extremely serious wound, or death, is utterly ridiculous.

While most Mistakes in this book are not the result of marksmanship issues, downrange failures are
inevitably marksmanship failures. For this reason, those who keep firearms for home defense need to
have a very clear understanding of what they are and are not capable of hitting with their weapon.
Shotguns do, in fact, need to be aimed. If the woman had aimed her shotgun, the likelihood is that one
of the home invaders would be at room temperature instead of her friend being wounded. Hip shooting
is probably what occurred in the mentioned incident. The results were clearly unsatisfactory.
Generally speaking, closing with an adversary is not an advisable tactic for Armed Private Citizens. When
gunfire is necessary to prevent a crime in the home, an exception to this rule may be required.
Numerous examples of Armed Private Citizens closing the distance to a struggle between a loved one
and an intruder exist. The Citizen then found the distance they could make the shot without
endangering the innocent and successfully ended the struggle with accurately placed gunfire.
Especially when innocent parties are downrange, shooting without reference to sights or some other
visual index of the weapon is unconscionable and unacceptable. Shooting from the hip in such cases is
just as likely to hit an innocent as the criminal. The idea that all shootouts involve only two parties and
look like two gunslingers facing off on Main Street in a Western movie is simply not the case.

We have to be able to direct our gunfire accurately at the criminal without hitting innocent people who
may be downrange. The problem with the concept of ‘point shooting’ is that when it is necessary to use
aimed fire conscious thought is required. When point shooting has been ingrained as a training
technique this can be difficult because the conscious mind becomes largely unavailable during criminal
confrontations. As a result, shooters will tend to stick with point shooting, as the woman with the
shotgun most likely did. The results can be unhappy.

It’s also important to understand that it is not unusual for bullets to go completely through (perforate) a
criminal’s body. This is another reason to NOT use Full Metal Jacket ammunition for defensive purposes.
An example of this occurred in Texas when a woman shot at a dog attacking her husband. Although she
hit the dog, the bullets passed through its body, struck her husband who was on the other side of it, and
killed him. The dog, although wounded, survived. Shotgun slugs have even more penetration than pistol
bullets, which needs to be factored into decisions about ammunition selection.
Potential perforation issues mean that it may be necessary to alter the firing position to ensure that if
the bullet passes through the criminal, it does not then hit an innocent on the other side. Consider the
angle of the weapon in relation to both the attacker and other parties before assuming it is safe to fire.
Moving a step or two in one direction or another may solve this geometry problem.

Attacks by dogs and wild animals are more common than people realize. The nature of an animal attack
is that the party to be protected is in close contact with the animal. There will also most likely be
considerable movement on the part of the animal and the person being attacked. Because of this,
closing with the animal and picking the appropriate position and time to fire may be imperative. It was
recently discovered that a woman who was attacked by a bear was, in fact, killed by a bullet from her
husband’s rifle when he fired from a distance. There are several such tragedies on record.
UNINTENTIONAL DISCHARGES
The gun community commonly uses two terms for Unintentional Discharges; Accidental Discharges and
Negligent Discharges. However, Accidental is an inappropriate word because almost all such Discharges
are Preventable and therefore not really Accidents. Marty Hayes of the Armed Citizens Legal Defense
Network has pointed out that the word Negligent has specific parameters in the legal community that
most Unintentional Discharges don’t fall into. Accordingly, Negligent Discharge is not a term this book
will use, either. Unintentional means exactly what it says, so that term will be used here.

Gunhandling is just as important as marksmanship, probably more so, but many people are careless
about the way they handle firearms. Unless they are lucky, the result can be serious bodily injury or
death. Although unintentional discharges are commonly referred to as Accidental Discharges, they are
almost always the result of poor gunhandling.

Unintentional Discharges can fall into four subcategories

• A discharge that results in no injuries and no property damage

• A discharge that results in no injuries but causes property damage
• A discharge that results in injury to self (self-inflicted gunshot wound)
• A discharge that results in injury to others

A representative of Virginia Gun Safety Unintentionally discharged his personal weapon as he was
preparing to leave a gun show in March of 2015. According to a police spokesperson, "He was loading
his personal weapon in preparation to leave the facility ([because] loaded firearms are not allowed
inside) and the gun discharged as he was re-holstering it." The round fired into the floor, and no one was
injured. He was arrested on charges of reckless handling of a firearm and unlawful discharge of a firearm
inside city limits.
In January of 2014, a Kentucky State Representative Unintentionally fired her handgun while unloading
it in her office in the Capitol Annex. A Kentucky State Police spokesman said that most of the bullet
fragments were recovered and there was no sign that any fragment traveled outside the room. The
Representative declined to show reporters her office, so the likelihood that there was property damage
is high. No charges were filed against her.

Probably the most famous recent Unintentional Discharge was by retired baseball player Jose Canseco.
He shot himself in the hand while cleaning his 1911. Although the finger was nearly severed, he
reportedly has regained full use of his hand. Several surgeries were required, including replacing the
bone with bone taken from his hip. A less obvious aspect of not pointing your gun at things you don’t
want shot includes any part of your own body.

A Milwaukee man Unintentionally shot himself in the leg in August of 2015 with his Springfield .45
pistol. The gun discharged as he attempted to holster it. He died during surgery. A round had entered his
right groin and severed the femoral artery. Wounds to the femoral artery are almost always fatal.

In Texas in June of 2014, a man shot his father-in-law in a car after attending a gun show. The man was
handling a firearm that he had just reloaded when the gun fired, police said. The Police consider the
shooting unintentional and without criminal intent. Police say the father-in-law later died from the
single gunshot wound at the hospital.
The common thread of the above incidents is that they occurred during manipulation of a firearm. Guns
almost never ‘go off by themselves.’ They require operator contact to discharge. The more often the gun
is manipulated, the more it is likely to discharge. This has its basis not only in statistical reasons but also
in the natural human process of ‘familiarity breeds complacency.’ When complacency is combined with
incompetence and/or ignorance, the seeds of disaster have been sown.

To combat this, gun owners need to be consciously scrupulous about their gun handling practices and
pay particular attention to Rule 3, Keep your finger out of and above the trigger guard until the gun is
pointed at your target and you are ready for the gun to fire.
Observing this Rule is absolutely mandatory when re-holstering a handgun. In all likelihood, both the
Virginia and Milwaukee incidents can be attributed to having the trigger finger in the trigger guard
during the holstering process. In some cases, cheap poorly designed holsters contribute to the issue.
The Kentucky lawmaker was vigilant about observing Rule 2, Never let yourself point a gun at
something or someone you don’t want to be shot, which helped prevent the other lawmaker who was
in her office at the time from becoming a casualty. Remember that when handling a gun, YOU, and only
you, are TOTALLY responsible for where it is pointed. Be conscious of where the muzzle is pointed at all
times when you are handling a gun. Think about how you are going to move a gun before moving it. In
many cases, you will have to choose between pointing the gun at an inanimate object, such as the floor,
or pointing the gun at a person. Always choose the inanimate object, never point the gun at a person.

If the Texas man hadn’t had his pistol pointing at his Father-in-law while manipulating it, that incident
would have been confined to property damage. While damage to a vehicle can be expensive, it is far less
expensive than shooting or killing a person, both financially and emotionally.
Holsters that require the use of the trigger finger to release the gun from the holster have been
associated with numerous Unintentional Discharges during the drawing process. This is the reason they
are banned by many police training facilities and private sector firearms training classes and facilities.
CONCLUSION
Decision Making and firearms ownership are inextricably intertwined. Anyone who owns a firearm will
need to make decisions regularly about how to handle it, how to store it, and how to transport it. When
shooting, we need to be sure of our backstop, even in rural areas.

Firearms need to be a thinking person’s tool, not merely a talisman kept in a dresser drawer. When they
are necessary to prevent death or serious bodily injury, firearms are an absolute necessity. The rest of
the time, we need to be constantly aware of the fact that they are potentially deadly instruments to be
treated with utmost care and attention.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ayoob, Massad, In the Gravest Extreme: The Role of the Firearm in Personal Protection, Police Bookshelf;
1980
Ayoob, Massad, Deadly Force - Understanding Your Right To Self Defense, Gun Digest Books; 2014

Branca, Andrew, The Law of Self Defense: The Indispensable Guide to the Armed Citizen, LOSD
Publishing, 2016
https://lawofselfdefense.com/

Farnam, John, The Street Smart Gun Book, Police Bookshelf, 1986
Givens, Tom, Fighting Smarter: A Practical Guide for Surviving Violent Confrontation, Rangemaster, 2000
Hayes, Marty, What Every Gun Owner Needs to Know About Self-Defense Law, ACLDN, 2018
https://armedcitizensnetwork.org/learn/what-every-gun-owner-needs-to-know
PDF version
https://armedcitizensnetwork.org/images/stories/Hayes_SDLaw.pdf
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Claude Werner is The Tactical Professor. His background combines extensive work in the military, self
defense training, and white collar financial services communities. This eclectic experience base gives him
a view of self defense equipment and techniques that is more attuned to the needs of people with
median lifestyles than some segments of the industry.

His background includes:

• Retired Army Captain, with 10 years’ service in Special Operations

• Market Research Director for 3 commercial real estate firms
• National Director of Real Estate Research at a Big Four Accounting Firm
• Match Director, International Defensive Pistol Association Georgia State Championship; 2000,
2001, 2002
• IDPA Area Coordinator for Georgia and Alabama
IDPA Classifications are: Master – Stock Service Revolver (SSR), Stock Service Pistol, Enhanced Service
Pistol, Custom Defensive Pistol.

Numerous wins in pistol competition.

NRA Certified Instructor for Basic Pistol, Rifle, and Shotgun; Personal Protection In The Home; Personal
Protection Outside The Home, Refuse To Be A Victim; and Home Firearms Safety.

Former Chief Instructor at the elite Rogers Shooting School