One of the pro-criminal, anti-liberty movement’s fondest conceits about guns is that “nobody needs more than <fill in a number> rounds of ammunition for self-defense”.
These, of course, are people whose only background in self-defense is watching “Law And Order”, where firing one or two shots sends the perps flying head-over-heels backwards.
In real life, of course, things are much foggier. The average cop fires seventeen rounds for every hit they score – which is great, if you’ve got 18 rounds and you’re only facing one perp. And, movies notwithstanding, one shot doesn’t always take a perp down; with enough adrenaline, or drugs, perps have been known to kill the good guys even after they’ve been hit several times; it’s very rare for a shot to take someone down immediately – and adrenaline can carry someone up to the ragged edge of bleeding out.
Of course, some perps rely on the force of numbers. “Home Invasions” are a particularly scary form of robbery, where multiple people, usually armed, storm a house simultaneously. It’s usually pretty safe – for the robbers. The shock and numbers usually cow the homeowner – or make resistance a short,, sharp, ugly thing. Because when a homeowner only has six rounds, the only thing separating a living homeowner, a body on her kitchen floor and a couple of robbers high-tailing it across the lawn, and a dead homeowner in a ransacked house, is blind luck.
We’re written before about cases where civilians – including chidlren – have used the AR15 to defend themselves against violent home invasions.
Thirty Chances At Life: And I’m doing it again.
The Wagoner County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the triple homicide in the 9100 block of South Clearview Drive.
Wagoner County deputies said at about 12:30 p.m., three masked intruders entered the home, which was occupied by a father his 23-year-old son.
Deputies said the son shot and killed the three intruders with an AR-15. Police said two of the intruders were juveniles and another was an adult.
Deputies said Elizabeth Rodriguez, 21, was arrested after authorities said she drove the three intruders to the Broken Arrow residence. Rodriguez was arrested on three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of first-degree burglary.
No bond has been set for Rodriguez.
The father and son were unharmed.
As we’ve noted before in this space – the people who say there’s no legitimate self-defense use for 20+ rounds in a magazine really have only the most academic possible understanding of the topic.
18 shots per hit with a 15 round Glock sounds like a recipe for problems among the police, to be honest. I get it that it’s stressful, buck fever/criminal fever, and all that, but it strikes me that this is a recipe for getting innocent people (including officers) hurt or killed. Maybe a little more training/tighter standards would be in order.
Good on the young man who removed three criminals from the streets of Oklahoma, by the way. I don’t rejoice in death, but if someone has to be hurt, it might as well be the offenders.
I am sure the 18 shot number is heavily influenced by NY requirement for service Glocks to have 27lb triggers.
12 lbs, but yikes. I did a quick search and didn’t find any innocents killed due to being in the line of fire directed at someone else, but ….yikes.
That’s why every cop has a two-pouch mag holder on her belt and a round in the pipe, for a total of 16+15+15 = 46 rounds. A officer well-trained in mag changes can put an entire box of lead downrange in about a minute. Or down the streets of New York City:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Empire_State_Building_shooting
…and that’s why nine bystanders got shot. It would be interesting to see how that weighs against the likelihood of accidental discharge. The only one that comes to mind is a young woman who somehow was shot by an officer’s gun in Detroit in 2012. Even that is suspicious when you consider that the gun was theoretically in a holster, and Galco doesn’t make holsters that expose the trigger.
Bikebubba – the police shot at a gunman near the Empire State Building a few years ago. I think they missed the gunman completely but hit 9 bystanders behind the intended target. (IIRC – may be wrong on the people injured, but I know it was on the streets outside the ESB.)
That’s why every cop has a two-pouch mag holder on her belt and a round in the pipe, for a total of 16+15+15 = 46 rounds.
A retired mainland cop in Kona wrote a letter to the local rag. He was quite upset.
There was so some road construction on one of the main thoroughfares, and the construction company hired some cops to direct traffic. Our retired mainland cop was stopped in the construction zone when he noticed that the traffic-directing cop standing outside his car’s window was carrying his pistol empty. No magazine. So the retired cop lowers his window and tells the traffic cop he is a retired police sergeant, and that he has no business carrying an unloaded weapon. Cop smiles at him and says “No worry, brah, I got whan in da chambuh!”
NW–exactly what I’m noting. Who is the idiot that mandated a 12 lb trigger pull, knowing it’s going to pull rounds off target? They did eventually hit the perp, but I just can’t fathom an excuse for this. It’s like requiring dull knives in a kitchen, just asking for trouble.
I recall a story told by Col. Cooper many years back of on an encounter in which a three officers shot a man 56 times before he laid down and stopped being a problem, and they were almost out of ammo. The individual was of course doped to the gills and felt no pain. IIRC it took place in an emergency room in Chicago. This and similar incidents were what caused most departments to embrace automatics and hi-cap mags. The problem is most PD’s don’t have the budget or really a great need to train most of their rank & file to a high level of accuracy under stress.
PS…NYPD, aside from the Threat Response team members, is legendary for the poor shooting of most of it’s uniformed officers.
In the Empire State Building incident, they did finally kill the suspect. But yes, nine bystanders were wounded before that happened.
My cousin-in-law is on NYCPD. He takes umpteen hours of practice to be proficient with that insane trigger. I have no doubt his shots would be on target. But alas he is in a minority – umpteen hours are not mandatory.