Know Your Enemy

From Active Response Training:

“If you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss.” Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu said this over 2000 years ago in his book The Art of War.  It’s hardly new advice.  Yet it is just as useful now as it was so many centuries ago.

Armed citizens spend countless hours trying to find the perfect weapon system, combining the best size, accuracy, reliability, and stopping power into one easy-to-carry package.  They try friends’ guns.  They read gun magazines.  They study every gun website on the internet.  They are truly taking Sun Tzu’s advice above as they attempt to “know themselves”.

But how much time does the average CCW permit holder spend on the other portion of that quote?  How many of you spend an equal amount of time studying criminal behavior in order to “know your enemy?”  Most of my students don’t study criminal behavior nearly as much as they should.

Read the Entire Article: http://www.activeresponsetraining.net/criminals-and-the-guns-they-carry

Conclusions:

To ensure victory against criminals, armed citizens and police officers need to be better equipped and better prepared than the attackers they face.  What does this research suggest as far as preparations?

1)      If the armed citizen is going to face a criminal attacker, the criminal is likely to be armed with a medium to large caliber handgun, most likely a 9mm auto pistol.  That tells me that I may not feel comfortable carrying a little pocket gun.  I really don’t want to be carrying a small .32 automatic when my attacker is likely to be armed with a full sized Ruger, S&W, or Glock pistol!  Carry enough gun!  On the other hand, you are quite unlikely to encounter criminals with military-style semi-automatic rifles.  Maybe it’s safe to leave the long guns and plate body armor at home on your next trip to the grocery store.

2)      Criminals often carry unloaded or poorly functioning weapons.  Make sure your weapon is loaded and functional!  Don’t carry with the chamber empty (that’s almost the same as being unloaded), buy a quality handgun and keep it both clean and well-lubricated.
2A) You must also understand the true danger you face when confronting an armed criminal.  Many victims comply with an armed criminal’s demands during the crime because they assume that the criminal’s gun is fully functional and loaded.  This study shows that more likely than not, that’s a false assumption. While I’m not advocating resistance in every instance of criminal violence, that course of action is likely to be more successful than the average person realizes.

3)      Criminals usually carry cheap and less effective FMJ and RNL ammunition in their guns.  The guns may have a mix of several ammunition types (each likely shooting to a different point of aim), or be only partially loaded.

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