So I ended up sleeping all day, waking up every so often to read my email and pet the Wonder Beagle, who was methodically pushing me off the bed. In my periods of lucidity, I thought a lot about the London terror attack and what it can teach us. In truth, when a person gets knocked down by a car, the first thing that goes through that person's mind isn't likely to be that the car's drivers and going to jump out and attack with meat cleavers.
There are limits to situational awareness...nothing works all the time in every situation.
Make what you will about the Londoners who stood around watching. As one person noted in the previous post, after Gabby Giffords was shot, bystanders pounced on the shooter and subdued him. Honestly, I think that is a locational issue. Giffords was shot in Arizona...had the same shooting happened in NYC or the hell-hole of Chicago, I believe the reaction would be exactly the same as London. Had it happened in Detroit, the bystanders would have joined in the murders and helped out with the video.
What do we learn?
As I said yesterday, be armed all the time! We don't get to pick the time or the place or the circumstances.
Secondly, each of us who carries every day needs to IN ADVANCE make the decision as to what circumstances we will intervene if we or those we are responsible for are not DIRECTLY involved. This is a bigger issue that you might think. I have been very specific in DOWN RANGE Radio that our first responsibility is to those within our care. In a public situation, our responsibility is to get our loved one or our friends to safety. At what point do we intervene? I'm thinking that if two dude jump out of a car with cleavers and start wailing on someone, I'm going to shoot the blade-weilders a lot...but, again, I will not know for sure until that situation happens to me. Easy to write the words on the Internet; harder to perform the actions in the Real World.
I do think we ought to take the guy in the front page above at his word...despite what Glorious Leader says, we as a culture (and, increasingly, personally) in a battle to the death with radical Islamists. What "battle to the death" means is that we will die or they will die. Until we grasp that subtle point, there's a guy out there with cleaver with our name on it.
5 comments:
Good. Never bring a knife (or a cleaver) to a gun fight.
England is a lost cause for freedom and self-reliance. Don’t mourn for their people’s lost freedom to defend themselves. They are getting exactly the governing that they darn well want.
Good post Mr. Bane. Maybe not exactly what is a good check list for the responsibilities associated with CCW but while serving in the Chicago Fire Dept. we were taught to :
#1 Size up
#2 Call for help
#3 Save lives
#4 Cover exposures - limit the extent of damage
There are a few other steps before we actually extinguished the fire but I think you get my drift. Life safety comes first. Size up started on the day we woke up and reported to the firehouse for duty and changed accordingly during the day. Always trying to be alert to our surroundings was extremely important as well.
Think of your spouse as a partner who has a cell phone you might tell her to take cover and have her call the police while you try to stop the threat.
Keep up the excellent work you do.
as to being armed...went to a minor league baseball game tonight...haven't been to a game in years (as I have given up on baseball)...two good friends both have their conceal license...the park does not allow carry...both were shocked that I carried into the ball park. They don't get it.
As an LEO in Chicago, i can certainly attest to bystanders doing nothing when a crime goes down. Just recently,."viable" conceal carry bill has been the topic of discussion amongst my fellow pro gunners both LEO and non. It however bans any form of conceal carry in a park or on any form of public transit. Regardless; I'd urge any citizen to simply use common sense when deciding to carry. Once it's legal of course in idiotic Illinois. Mind you; it's the socialistic policies of Chicago politicians ruling the rest of Illinois.
Dan
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