They say if you live long enough you get a date with Jennifer Love Hewitt. By the same token, you’ll encounter a mainstream media report chronicling a defensive gun use where no shots are fired. Here comes one of those rare gems now (the DGU not JLH): “Their M.O. this time was almost identical. The driver pulled the car to the end of the car wash’s driveway, and the three men got out and approached Watson [not shown],” dallasobserver.com reports. “One of them gestured toward the man’s car and asked if it was his. Then, he pulled a black pistol from his waistband. What the robbers don’t seem to have realized was that the man, Charles Watson, is a retired Dallas cop. He’d been on alert since he first seen (sic) the car approaching and had watched carefully as the men walked toward him, spreading out for tactical advantage, and positioned himself accordingly. In other words, he was ready . . .
By the time the robber could get the gun from his waistband, Watson had drawn and had his no-longer-concealed handgun trained on him. The two accomplices, who were reaching for their guns, stopped dead.
This tableau — a former cop holding three would-be robbers at bay in the Easter morning predawn — lasted only for an instant. First the man who had pulled the gun, then his two friends, turned and sprinted back to the waiting Corolla, which sped away. They haven’t yet been caught, though Watson may have scared them straight for the rest of the holiday at least.
I doubt that. But it makes a great story, minus the happy ending.
Situational Awareness FTW! Shit can go down anytime, anywhere, and this dude was ready. Hat’s off to him and learn from his experience.
He waited for the guy to pull first too, pretty ballsy against three dudes. Excellent restraint on his part, since he pulled second he could have just put the guy down.
He should have dropped them all. Save the taxpayer and future victims some moneys.
At the expense of his own life’s normalcy, no doubt.
According to Ayoob, DGU’s without firing occur in about 93% of DGU’s.
Exactly. This isn’t a rare event, however, it is also probably the least reported. Gunfire always makes the news.
and are very rarely reported.
Yum!
The story of course.
Jennifer Love Hewitt drives me nuts, especially since the boob job. One of the sexiest women alive, at least to me.
+10
Happened to me personally. Scumbag sized me up for a carjacking and literally halted at the sight of my weapon.
I doubt the would be offender was in the service,but he broke a right face like a champ anyways.
We had an incident last night on an Arlington bike trail which demonstrates the effectiveness of SA. Two thugs set up a roadblock on a bike trail. The first biker saw what was up and managed to run the roadblock. He tried to get the attention of the guy in trail but failed. Biker #2 got robbed at gun point. If you have good SA you often never get to the DGU phase.
It’s been a long time since I have said this but I think that tactical courses for CCW should spend more time on learning how to avoid the threat than what to do when you encounter one.
SA == Situational Awareness
Spelling out acronyms helps you to reach your new audience.
tactical courses for CCW should spend more time on learning how to avoid the threat than what to do when you encounter one.
I’ve been saying the same for years. The problem is that so many of the tactical trainers fancy themselves ninjas, and their students want to be ninjas too.
Most tactical training course are geared toward LE and private security personnel so they focus on tactics for shooting. They are generally not useful for private self defense either because we won’t be encountering the covered tactical situations or the DGU Rules of Engagement don’t support our use of those tactics.
I don’t want to give aid and confort to the “enemy” but I have to say that the empirical evidence on citizen DGUs generally does not support the requiremnt for high volume fire even it a home invasion (usually just a misnamed hot burglar) scenario. Virtually all the DGU of Day posts for multiple attackers shows that once bad guy #1 gets shot bad guys 2..n beat feet. Thugs generally don’t live by the “no man left behind” rule.
Before I get jumped on for supporting magazine capcity limits I have to state for the audience that I am pretty much a Second Amendment absolutist. If you want to waste your money on a 100 round magazine for your AR have at it.
This site and our life experience supports your thoughts tdiinva. How many incidents has RF covered here with older people with small revolvers and pocket type pistols and in 1 case a .22 rifle and in another case a .410 shotgun and pick axe that have prevailed agasinst from 1 to 5 adversary’s. And no mention of any tacticool training sessions attended by the brave citizens.
Buy all the weapons you want and take all the hsld training you want. In 99.9% of the real world scenarios you are going to encounter the old school cop combo of a revolver and shotgun will handle it.
Nearly all DGUs are done with out a shot. its only the Hollywood hype that has shots fired every time a weapon clears leather.
BTW, thanks for fueling that LSM sterio type that we are all trigger happy by proclaiming that DGUs with out a shot fired are as rare as a date with Jennifer Loveless Hewitt. While I have confidence the SCOTUS will ultimately return sanity to the lawbooks, This will keep the liberals wetting themselves at the notion that we do shoot at the slightest provocation.
Read the post again. He said that MSM reports of no-shoot DGUs are rare. Not the DGUs. The reports. Which is true. The MSM likes blood. Hence the motto: if it bleeds, it leads.
To be fair, I updated that post for clarity. In other words, my bad.
As I admitted to Ralph, my bad. Text amended.
Thank you kind sir. I was certain you would. I’ve been a lurker long enough to know, and have linked to you for some time now so my readers can appreciate your wisdom and wit.
Hollywood hype also has you jacking the slide every time you approach a corner or doorway. By the time you get to the point where you actually need to fire you should be out of ammunition.
Cup-and-Saucer, JLH? Really?
Farago, you need to offer that young lady a refresher handling course.
I know, I’d rather see more cup and less saucer.
I know, right?
Glad I wasn’t the only one who saw this and went “uh… What?”
I was in out West near an Indian reservation years ago. My buddies from the area had warned me about the high crime in the area so we took turns using the restroom at the gas station leaving two guys behind to watch the trucks. I happened to be hanging out at the back to of the truck looking at our rifles for the prairie dog shooting we were going to do later that day. I happened to throw in a pistol for snakes though I didn’t have any snake shot so I had hollow points in it instead. One of my friends was sitting in the front drivers side seat with the door open. A few indians approached with one guy in the lead. He leans up against the truck hood and peers into the cab and says “this your truck?” My friend says “no, its my dad’s”. The lead guy looked off, drunk or something. He kept reaching behind the front right part of his vest with his hand while he talked to us. I got real cagey about the situation so I placed my hand on top of the case that held my pistol and unzipped it slowly. A stiff breeze came up and the lead indian’s vest fluttered revealing a hell of a big bowie knife with his hand on the handle. I thought, oh Lord, it’s getting serious. I slipped my hand over the handle and flipped the safety off on my pistol. As windy as it was outside it seemed like the loudest sound in the world to everyone standing around. It could have been the stare I was giving everyone. The hand came out of the indian’s vest and he backed away and walked off with his buds. No shots fired, but gun was clearly used to dissuade crime.
I admit it. I have a serious man-crush on Charles Watson. Don’t judge.
True story.
Twenty five years ago I took my 5 year old daughter to the local San Diego County Laguna Mountains on a weekday to play in some recently fallen snow. It was a mid week weekday and the place was deserted. We were the only ones in the pristine area I had chosen. There wasn’t ANY vehicle traffic that day.
We had a great time playing and sledding in the new snow.
As we were packing up to leave, I noticed a non-descript sedan pull off to the shoulder of the road about 100 feet or so behind our parked car; four young male Hispanics inside watched us as we loaded up. My SA was instantly on high alert. The occupants didn’t get out of their car as in we’re here to play in the snow; they just sat inside their vehicle watching us.
Without staring at them, I simply decided it was time to take off my jacket for the ride home and put it in the back along with the sled. In so doing I revealed that I was carrying my off-duty Baretta Cheetah holstered in my waistband.
Within a short few seconds, the non-descript vehicle driver started his car and the foursome pulled a u-turn and left the way they had come. I too had to leave the way they did but never saw them on the way down the mountain.
Was a criminal confrontation averted? I’ll never know for sure, but I certainly believe it was.
SA and preparedness will discourage most cowardly offenders when they see they are faced with competent resistance. They will beat feet and look for a vulnerable weakling they think won’t resist.
You do realize, of course, that the only reason the media reported on this DGU was because Charles Watson was a retired Dallas cop. He’s one of the anointed few who are legitimately allowed to have/carry/use a gun based on “conventional wisdom” or whatever you call it. That’s part of the implicit message.
That’s exactly what I was thinking. It’s a good story, but if it hadn’t been a retired cop, the story would’ve had a completely different spin…if it got reported at all.
+1
Only highly trained LEOs and military, current or retired, have any ability or valid reason to carry a gun for self defense. The rest of us are too dumb and incompetent to do so.
I agree.
Disagree. This is Texas. We LOVE our guns, women, and Shiner – the order varies from day to day.
Did he announce himself as a cop or did the bad guys simply see an armed citizen and beat feet? I know he’s retired but did he automatically announce himself or was it his actions alone that drove off the bad guys?
Not counting my military days I’ve had 3 dgu’s where shots were not fired in the last 30+ years. No conversation was passed in these 3 either. I have shot and killed a large dog that was part of a pack menacing me. That was with a .22. I have fired shots to drive off a second dog pack, with a colt 1903 .32 acp.
The .32 acp incident was a really bad night for me. Ditched my car in a snowstorm and was attempting to walk to help on a snowbound road at night in the country. Only to be confronted by an aggressive dog pack. I was not amused.
Just like my Daddy (former Green Beret) always says, “You want to see them before they see you”.