srothstein wrote:This is really what we should be looking at. What lessons can be learned from this incident that can be applied to you in a self-defense role?
I think the first lesson is the one I mentioned earlier: mindset. Both your mindset and the BG's will play an important part in the fight.
+1 IMHO, when the time comes for emergency, live-or-die violence, your mindset switch is either on or off...there are no gradations along the dial.
I remember vividly one course I assisted with where the instructor asked the class, "Once you get to the point where you've decided you must pull the trigger, what is your objective?"
There were some predictable, and some not so predictable, responses: "Kill the bad guy"; "Stop the immediate threat"; "Win"; "Survive!"
The instructor didn't like any of the answers. We all know why response number one was wrong, but his rejoinders to the others went something like this (paraphrasing only; so I'll never tell the instructor's name in case I'm ruining his message

):
Stopping the immediate threat is a
task, not an
objective. If there are multiple assailants, or if you think one is stopped but he is only temporarily incapacitated, you may have to repeat that task more than once in more than one way. Viewing it as an objective can cause you to incorrectly relax after you see the bad guy in front of you hit the dirt. The battle may well not be over.
As to "win": This is not a game, not a sport. It's very wrong to think of it in that connotation. You aren't playing poker; not trying to up the ante or call anybody's bluff. It's not two drunken Neanderthals in a bar puffing out their chests and getting in each other's faces in a territorial display to see who can be the most fearsome. If the gangsta in front of you starts waving a P3AT, you don't start waving your Desert Eagle .50 hoping that it will make you the most intimidating buck in the pasture and forcing the little buck to back down. Doesn't work like that.
Nobody
wins a gunfight.
There is a level of probability that you will self-program to achieve the objective you set for yourself, and unlikely achieve anything more. Like most things in life, if you set your sights too low, then you will perform to less than your potential. If your objective is merely to survive, you
may be able to meet that objective. But at what cost to you or innocent people around you?
Once you're in a situation of deadly-force tactics, the way in which you manage risk changes. Up until the point of "Condition Black" (as the USMC added to Cooper's Color Code), you have choices about mitigating risk: situational awareness; diffusing a potential situation; not going to that bar at 1:00 a.m.; locking your doors. But once the decision is made that you must fire, there are no more good choices. By definition, only bad choices remain because you are now smack in the middle of risk. Your mindset must be not about taking the
least risk, but about taking the
best risk.
You don't want tunnel vision to lead you to think you only have to stop one, specific threat. You aren't merely hoping to come out alive; if that's your mindset, you're brain is liable to take you out of the fight if you get injured because you'll be suddenly afraid you might not survive. And there is absolutely nothing to win: no prizes, no accolades, no applause. All involved are going to lose something, regardless of the outcome.
So what did this instructor say was the correct objective?
Victory. Plain and simple. To overcome all obstacles and be victorious. That means knowing how to take the best risks to accomplish the objective, and not letting up until the objective is achieved.
There are no time-outs, no points awarded; you can't take a break or ask for a do-over. If it ever comes down to it, your entire life is going to be focused on that moment, probably only several seconds long, and if your mindset is not single-mindedly one of "victory," the outcome stands a good chance of being something else.