Tactical Facepalm
During the Charlie Hebdo attack, gunmen forced a woman to open the door. They went in and shot up the lobby. Then went to an editorial meeting where, over the course of five to ten minutes, they executed people. As an interesting aside, they first went to the wrong business. Details here.
So, if one were to recreate what happened, they’d probably do something based on what happened. Or, instead, you could get some firearms trainers who know how to handle simunitions, let them strap on their gear and tell them to go practice a room-clearing exercise on random people you got to volunteer off the street to play CCW holder. Surprisingly, the firearms trainers manage to outperform the random people from the street.
Then, you could compound the error by inviting local media. Then, you get picked up by all the shitty, sensationalized listicle sites and are all over social media. And, boom, you got self-promotion. And since, based on my unscientific study of reviewing what stupid shit people put on facebook and twitter, roughly 95% of the population gets their news from shitty, sensationalized listicle sites, that was real helpful, guys.
I mean, I guess they could have had the random people on the street toting the terrorist rifles and peopled the room with Todd Jarrett, Jerry Miculek and Dave Sevigny to sway it the other way.
This was a stupid thing to do. And gave the other side simunition for years.
January 15th, 2015 at 9:58 pm
You said it better than I did 🙂
January 16th, 2015 at 10:58 am
The most important take away, and one we should be emphasizing, is this:
It didn’t make the situation worse.
I find that’s the most common argument against concealed carry against a mass shooter scenario. People talk online about additional casualties resulting from a crossfire, and I have to make the argument ad nauseum that a crossfire situation where the mass shooter has to engage someone resisting with a firearm can’t be as deadly as an unopposed shooter methodically slaughtering unarmed victims.
We should also emphasize that in roughly 17% of the cases, it helped at least somewhat with one of the two “terrorists” being killed. That’s actually a big help, as it cuts the number of murderers in half. Might not save you, but almost certainly it will effect the future actions of the one who survives, and even if it doesn’t, it still betters the odds for the potential victims that come after.
Also, we should point out that there had been a single gunman, that would have stopped the massacre right then and there.
I get that the media isn’t on our side on this, and we have to be somewhat cautious in how we present our side with things like this, but if we don’t occupy that space, they’re going to occupy it for us, and then we have even less control over the message:
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=7298996&page=1&singlePage=true
It certainly sounds like this experiment was more “fair” than the one 20/20 did:
January 16th, 2015 at 11:52 am
Brother Uncle (so to speak)…we will be modeling the Charlie Hebdo shootings next season on THE BEST DEFENSE, assuming of course we’re renewed. We’ve modeled the Zimmerman shooting, the Aurora movie theater active shooter and numerous other high-visibility violent events. Running a valid sim is hellishly complicated, specifically in overcoming “operator bias.”
We have done extensive modeling on workplace violence, and in our experience SITUATIONAL AWARENESS remains the defining factor in the ability to respond.
Michael B
January 16th, 2015 at 12:11 pm
The results are in. In six of the nine sims a good guy with a gun got a shot on a terrorist. Two of those were head shots. In one case, a defender was able to mount a successful retreat.
The shooters were not newbies off the street. They had various skills levels, including LEO and military trained defenders. We’ll publish ALL the details and variables in our next article on the sim. And we will be running it again for a better sample size and more accuracy.
Fair enough?
January 16th, 2015 at 12:59 pm
Just when people might have forgotten that TTAG is a bunch of f’ups ….
January 16th, 2015 at 2:04 pm
It probably stands to point out that the first THREE police these guys came across ended up dead. How many people are arguing that armed police are useless when dealing with armed terrorists?
January 16th, 2015 at 3:46 pm
Too bad the reporters you invited to you little publicity stunt didn’t show the same “restraint” you claim.
The stories have already been published, the anti-gun forces have already drawn conclusions and cited you as a reference.
You did a hack job for the sake of a publicity stunt.
You and all who work for you are scum.
January 16th, 2015 at 4:42 pm
1. I would rather die in a firefight than be executed.
2. I chuckled at the idea of a group of terrorists bursting into a room containing Jerry Miculek and a loaded firearm.
January 16th, 2015 at 5:26 pm
Didn’t somebody do something similar on the Virginia Tech massacre with the same unfair and unrealistic rules of engagement. If I am the only one here who remembers this, it will not be a long term problem.
January 16th, 2015 at 6:05 pm
I would still rather be killed in a shoot-out, than in a shoot-down.
January 16th, 2015 at 8:21 pm
Richard: I remember that. It was set up by one of the news networks, and was far more flawed than anything TTAG did here.
January 17th, 2015 at 10:39 am
Ahhh, TTAG… never one to shy away from proving how my disdain for them is well-earned and warranted.