Shoot to kill

[ratfortman]

If this already exists as a thread,my apologies.

Heard an ad today on the radio for a local training group. At the end, they said something like this:

"We don't train you to shoot to kill, we train you to shoot to survive"

so I thought of the safety rule " don't point the gun at anything you don't intend to destroy" .

It just left me scratching my head a bit(lice aside).

if I or my family are in fear for my life , I plan to unholster, and deploy deadly force .
Just wondering what point they were trying to drive home.

your thoughts, oh wise ones??

 

[24Carat]

I have never believed in half measures.

 

[wizardfitz]

Political correctness?

 

[1911ly]

When a friend of mine shot a guy in the leg that had shot at him (not wanting to kill the shooter) the cop said WTF? Now we have a desperate wounded man running around. They caught the guy 2 weeks later. Punk *** gang banger kid.

Dead guys don't shoot back and or hurt people. Just my

 

[snorko]

"We don't train you to shoot to kill, we train you to shoot to survive"

so I thought of the safety rule " don't point the gun at anything you don't intend to destroy" .

It just left me scratching my head a bit(lice aside).

if I or my family are in fear for my life , I plan to unholster, and deploy deadly force .
Just wondering what point they were trying to drive home.

your thoughts, oh wise ones??

I would think it speaks to motiv(ation). Your intent is not to kill someone per se. It is to stop them, to eliminate the threat of harm.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Something of a semantics game.

Timmy the bad guy is shooting at you because he thinks you slept with his cousin/girlfriend. He is shooting to kill, because his goal is just that. To kill you in retaliation.
You shoot back at Timmy. You are shooting to survive. Your goal is to not let Timmy murder you. If he gets killed, mission accomplished. If he turns and flees, mission accomplished. If he is hit and incapacitated to the point he is no longer a threat, mission accomplished.

Hence, Timmy is shooting to kill and you are shooting to survive.

 

[pudly]

Some of the comments above are precisely why you need to get training. Your goal is to stop the threat, not necessarily to kill. If the perp is running away, surrendered or otherwise no longer a threat, then continuing to shoot makes you an aggressor instead of a defender and can potentially turn a "good shoot" into a life-ruining encounter.

Oh and the safety rule: Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy.

 

[metaldog]

1. Be courteous to everyone, friendly to no one.
2. Decide to be aggressive enough, quickly enough
3. Have a plan.
4. Have a back-up plan, because the first one probably won’t work.
5. Be polite. Be professional, but, have a plan to kill everyone you meet.
6. Do not attend a gunfight with a handgun whose caliber does not start with a “4.”
7. Anything worth shooting is worth shooting twice. Ammo is cheap. Life is expensive.
8. Move away from your attacker. Distance is your friend. (Lateral & diagonal preferred.)
9. Use cover or concealment as much as possible.
10. Flank your adversary when possible. Protect yours.
11. Always win. There is no unfair fight.
12. In ten years nobody will remember the details of caliber, stance, or tactics. They will only remember who lived.
13. If you are not shooting, you should be communicating your intention to shoot.

 

[jwh20]

I'm going to guess that the emphasis of the course is how to survive an encounter with a bad-guy as opposed to how to kill someone. I know it's a fine line but in any self-defense scenario your #1 priority is to get yourself and those you care for out unscathed. If you can do that without killing anyone, then you have accomplished your objective.

Having a gun on your person does not require you to use it in order to survive. Often the best action you can take is to move to cover or concealment and let the threat pass you by. You may have un-holstered your weapon in the process of moving but you may not have aimed or fired it since the threat to you is not immediate.

 

[metaldog]

I'm going to guess that the emphasis of the course is how to survive an encounter with a bad-guy as opposed to how to kill someone.

Your assumption is correct. Under no circumstance do I condone killing someone, unless that someone is an imminent threat to ones (or another's life).

 

[nakinate]

Political correctness?

^^^yup

 

[Beemer]

I have always thought that if you shoot to wound you take a very great chance that the person you shoot will continue to come at you, right away or later.

 

[wizard_of_ahs]

2 taps to center mass and 1 to the head is "shooting to survive" to me

 

[wizard_of_ahs]

I'm going to guess that the emphasis of the course is how to survive an encounter with a bad-guy as opposed to how to kill someone. I know it's a fine line but in any self-defense scenario your #1 priority is to get yourself and those you care for out unscathed. If you can do that without killing anyone, then you have accomplished your objective.

Having a gun on your person does not require you to use it in order to survive. Often the best action you can take is to move to cover or concealment and let the threat pass you by. You may have un-holstered your weapon in the process of moving but you may not have aimed or fired it since the threat to you is not immediate.

IF you are at the point that you have "unholstered" your weapon, you better be shooting !!!

 

[ratfortman]

I know it's a fine line,but something about it just didn't set right. I don't plan to run down someone after a confrontation ends, but I also don't plan to stop short of killing them if that's what it takes to "stop the threat".
thank you all for your input, it's all very informative

 

[canterbc]

If I shoot at somebody, I'm shooting because my life or somebody else's life is in danger. That being the case I am shooting to stop the threat and the best way I know how to do that is center mass, aka "shoot to kill." People got on the OP

Some of the comments above are precisely why you need to get training. Your goal is to stop the threat, not necessarily to kill. If the perp is running away, surrendered or otherwise no longer a threat, then continuing to shoot makes you an aggressor instead of a defender and can potentially turn a "good shoot" into a life-ruining encounter.

for saying he would shoot to kill if there was a perceived life threatening event. He never said he would continue to shoot the attacker when he was running away or surrendering. If stuff is going down to where you need to shoot at another human being, it is bad enough to where you need to use lethal force, period.

 

[femurphy77]

Shoot to stop the threat, dead perps pose no threat.

 

[jwh20]

IF you are at the point that you have "unholstered" your weapon, you better be shooting !!!

I'm going to disagree. There are situations where having your weapon in the "ready" position makes sense vs. keeping it holstered. Obviously it depends on the situation.

 

[pudly]

If I shoot at somebody, I'm shooting because my life or somebody else's life is in danger. That being the case I am shooting to stop the threat and the best way I know how to do that is center mass, aka "shoot to kill." People got on the OP for saying he would shoot to kill if there was a perceived life threatening event. He never said he would continue to shoot the attacker when he was running away or surrendering. If stuff is going down to where you need to shoot at another human being, it is bad enough to where you need to use lethal force, period.

I'm glad to see you agree with "shoot to stop". In my post, I was commenting about the OP and a couple of later posts. Words have meaning and we should be aware of the difference. Lethal force is not the same thing as shoot to kill. When someone is shot, there is always the possibility that it will be fatal. If it happens in self-defense, so be it. What part of "shoot to kill" implies that you will shop short of the other person being dead? If you want to "shoot to kill", then why wouldn't you shoot them in the back as they ran away or if they are prone on the ground? That is why many have adopted alternate expressions like "shoot to survive" or "shoot to stop".

 

[canterbc]

I see what you are saying. I agree with you. I just mean that if I shoot, it will be to kill. I will not be shooting legs or arms or any silliness like that. When I say "shoot to kill" I stress the action of "shooting" and not so much the total event that is the "shooting." Maybe "pull the trigger to kill" is more appropriate. That may not make sense but hopefully it does.