Why You Need to Have Rules of Engagement

On October 6, 2014 By Tom LindsayIn Planning, Self Defense, Training

In June of this year, two nutjobs walked into a pizza restaurant in Las Vegas, and shot the place up, and killed two police officers, Alyn Beck and Igor Soldo. (I will not use the names or likenesses of the killers, as you know.)

They then proceeded to Wal-Mart, and opened fire there as well. There, Joseph Wilcox, a licensed concealed firearms carrier, decided to intervene, and was killed.

Caleb Giddings posted an editorial on GunNuts shortly afterward about lessons we can learn from this shooting. In it, he points out that, while Wilcox is to be commended for making the tough decision to get involved, he had no moral duty to do so.

Later, Miguel at Gun Free Zone offered his view on incident:

The question remains: what would you do if you see an active shooting situation and you are not in immediate danger? Do you run to safety or do you engage? You decide, I can’t tell you what to do. I can only tell you what I will do: I will engage if I can.

Miguel likens an active shooter incident to a First Responder incident, where we should offer medical attention to anyone who is injured.

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Then, last week, armed robbers tried to hold up a bar in Texas at closing time, and 2 of them were shot dead by what everyone is calling a hero.

I can’t use this man’s name, as no one knows for sure who this hero was, because he left the scene. Why? Because, unlike in Georgia, carrying a gun in a bar in Texas, licensed or not, is a felony. And he, understandably, did not want to go to jail.

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These incidents highlight something we all need to give serious thought to: everyone who owns a gun, whether they carry or not, needs to have Rules of Engagement – a set of guidelines of what you would do when confronted by various situations. The scenarios need to range from home invasion to active shooters to civil unrest.

To me it isn’t enough to just vaguely think about these things. We ought to actually list them out, and write out what our response would be. Knowing and following these rules then becomes part of your training, so that you know what you are going to do, just like whether you will perform a tactical reload or not, or whether you will reholster or not.

I did this, several years ago, and I have shared this with my family. That way, if they happen to be with me when such an incident occurs, they will know how I am going to act, and they will know how to act themselves, in a way that doesn’t get them hurt.

For instance, everyone in my family knows that when we go out to dinner, I get a seat facing the door. If we are in a booth, I get to sit on the end. These should be obvious, but we discussed them nevertheless. Yes, they can become a humorous item at times, but they still get followed.

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This leads me to the real topic of this post, which is that my Rules of Engagement differ from Caleb’s and Miguel’s, because unless I or my family or those I am tasked to protect are threatened, I won’t engage. I am not here to be a hero, and if you are not my family or in my care, I am not here for you.

On the other hand, I am willing to do whatever it takes to protect my family. When it was illegal to carry in restaurants or bars in Georgia, that meant I was willing to go to jail to save them, if I had to.

I still am, because their lives are worth more to me that freedom. And, if by my actions I can show how silly some law is, and it gets changed, all the better. I hope lawmakers in Texas will see that the laws prohibiting carry in bars did nothing to dissuade the robbers, so they need to be changed.

I can list a myriad of reasons for my rules, but the best one, sadly, is the reason Joseph Wilcox died in Wal-Mart – Uncertainty. He engaged a target, not knowing there was another, and that target killed him.

I am going to limit my uncertainty. I am willing to allow it in order to defend myself or my family, but beyond that, no.

That, of course, is something you will need to decide for yourself.

“Guns Everywhere” Plus 3 Months – Where Is All The Blood?

On October 1, 2014December 29, 2015 By Tom LindsayIn CCW, Concealed Carry, Gun Free Zones, Gun Rights, RKBA, Self Defense1 Comment

On July 1, 2014, Georgia law HB60 went into effect. This law, termed the “Guns Everywhere” law, eased or removed the restrictions for a lawful holder of a Georgia Weapons Carry License, or a recognized reciprocal license from another state, to carry a concealed or open weapon into bars, nightclubs, and, most importantly, government buildings that lacked security devices to keep them out, such as metal detectors.

Above is a recent photo of H. Harper Station, recently rated among the best bars in Atlanta.

Above is a recent photo of the Kennesaw, Georgia City Hall.

Please note that neither photo has been retouched or edited in any way.

Also please note the distinct lack of blood flowing in the streets around either location.

To those who always claim that the easing of restrictions on lawful carry by law abiding citizens will lead to chaos, I present, instead, the facts. No increase in violence has been observed.

In fact, North Carolina today passes one year of allowing carry in bars, and they have seen the same distinct lack of the chaos predicted by the anti-gun factions.

I predict the same continued normalcy here in Georgia.

Now, will the anti-gunners use this as a learning moment? The next time we seek to improve the safety of every law abiding citizen by decreasing the number of Gun Free Victim Zones around us, will they consider rightly that history shows them to have been wrong, not only now, but many times in the past? After all, it has been over 4 years since we allowed lawful carry into restaurants, and the promised return to the Wild West never materialized then, either.

Time will tell.

Faux Gun Control

On September 12, 2014September 12, 2014 By Tom LindsayIn Self Defense1 Comment

To be honest, I originally entitled this post “Gun Control Masturbation,” but I didn’t want to deal with the search engine consequences of such a title.

Having said that, here is what I mean:

Recently, the anti-gun group Moms Demand Attention has made it its purpose in life to pressure retail companies that allow lawful carried weapons into their establishments. Some have inclined to acquiesce to their request, most notably Starbucks, Target, and most recently Panera.

In just about every instance, the companies involved have asked patrons not to bring guns into their stores. And Moms Demand Attention have raved and congratulated themselves on another victory against evil guns and their evil owners.

Note, though, that these companies have stopped at that action. None of them have gone so far as to post “No Guns” signs in their stores, or eject patrons who bring guns.

The reaction of some on the pro-gun side has been predictable, running from expressing their displeasure to vowing never to do business with them again.

I, on the other hand, see the truth: asking me not to bring my gun in to a store is the same as asking a robber not to rob you. It has zero legal force, and it does nothing to provide actual disincentive to me.

In fact, about all it does it placate the anti-gun factions, and infuriate some of the more extreme pro-gun factions, much to the delight of the same anti-gunners. Nothing they do has the force of law, or even of company policy, because they all express how the last thing they want is to make their employees have to confront armed customers and kick them out.

So, what we end up with is nothing, except for emotions. Nothing changes.

Are these places any safer or less safe? There is no way to know. I know the a lot of the foam at the mouth open carry gang vow never to return, which is probably not a bad thing even for the pro-gun cause.

The truth is that all this is, is smoke and mirrors. Marketing. Fluff.

It doesn’t change how I act. I still carry a gun concealed everywhere I can, even if it is posted not to allow guns.* I don’t boycott anyone, unless their policies affect their customer service, because that is why I shop somewhere. I don’t shoot at Target or Taco Mac, so I don’t care what they think of my guns.

I let the Moms have their hoopla, because in the end it affects nothing. No one is going to change concealed carry laws based on whether Kroger allows me to carry a gun, and that is what I go by, not a corporate policy or a sign on the door.

In the end, it has the same effect as masturbation: someone is satisfied, for a while, but nothing real happens.

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* DISCLAIMER – I live in the state of Georgia, and I am following Georgia law. You must follow the laws of the jurisdiction where you live. In Georgia, violating a carry prohibition on private property is not a crime, it is merely a violation of property rights, meaning the owner may ask you to leave, and if you refuse, charge you with trespassing. The only places where carry is prohibited are places like schools (and that is debatable), courthouses, post offices. BE SURE YOU KNOW THE LAWS OF THE JURISDICTION WHERE YOU LIVE.

Federal Judge Agrees – Gun Free Victim Zones Are Setups

On August 19, 2014 By Tom LindsayIn Gun Free Zones3 Comments

In a landmark ruling today in the lawsuit against Cinemark by victims of the Aurora, Colorado theater shooting, US District Court Judge R. Brooke Jackson ruled that because they are Gun Free Victim Zones,

“the patrons of a movie theater are, perhaps even more than students in a school or shoppers in a mall, ‘sitting ducks.'”

This means that the owners of the Century Aurora 16 Theater should have known its patrons faced a risk, and taken steps to protect them, which they did not.

Undoubtedly this opens the door for more lawsuits by anyone hurt by an attacker in a Gun Free Victim Zone. It certainly reinforces the message of this blog over the last few years.

Of course, the simplest precaution any business owner can take, and which the movie theaters where I live in Kennesaw espouse, is not to prohibit the carrying of guns by its patrons. That’s because shooters are known to pick venues where they know they will not be challenged, and a theater that allows guns represents an unknown. They pass it by in favor of easier pickings.