Excaliber wrote:Good discussion of a difficult topic.
My suggestion is that you think through where your trigger lines are in the cold light of day long before an incident happens, and be as sure as you can be that your decisions reflect at least as much legal precedent as emotion.
Trying to work all that out while you've got a lot more going on and only seconds to decide has gotten a lot of folks into places they didn't want to be.
This.
There is much in Harris's essay that I disagree with, but one item I will agree with--though it's somewhat buried in the text--is what Excaliber said above in a different way: "You must install a trigger in your mind--to act explosively once a certain line has been crossed--and you must understand that your inclination will most likely be to freeze..."
In his seminar on deadly force and its aftermath, Charles Cotton strongly recommends we take the time, as soon as possible, to think about and create a personal threat checklist, to
make it concrete,
keep it simple, and to
write it down. What constitutes your own lines in the sand? At what points do you feel that you--morally and legally--will employ deadly force?
Don't worry about umpteen tacticool what-if scenarios; that isn't the purpose. In fact, the more complex your personal threat checklist, the less value it will be. We all understand that a potentially violent encounter is fluid and likely chaotic, that one situation can morph into a different one in a fraction of a second. But there are identifiable points in time, "trigger lines," that you should be able to isolate and explain, and then be prepared to act instantly upon.
I think everyone who gets a CHL thinks about this a bit, but in many cases--if not most--I believe it is a brief and unformed thought process that happens in and around the time of the CHL class, and little conscious analysis or planning follows it. Remember, the folks who participate on this Forum and actively talk about these things represent fewer than 3% of Texas CHL holders: you folks are the exception, not the rule. The choice to carry a firearm comes with an inherent responsibility that the average person doesn't burden himself or herself with. This is a way of sayin' I know I'm preaching to the choir, but I'm still gonna take up space and finish my thought, anyway.
The benefits of thinking about and writing down a personal threat checklist are threefold:
1. It helps set your personal framework for awareness and avoidance. And this can change through our lives, as can your checklist. In the linked essay, Harris mentioned that finding himself with a new family dramatically changed his view toward possible violence: a huge life-change that can alter your personal lines in the sand. Aging is another: LT, VOR, and I are less much less likely now to be able to accomplish a successful escape on foot than we might have been 30 years ago...or rather, we'd need about 10 minutes rather than 10 seconds.
Understanding your personal threat boundaries helps you better recognize potential risk in order to avoid risks that are unacceptable.
2. The two big drivers for your checklist are: a) Is the use of deadly force at this point legal and defensible? and, b) Is your use of deadly force at this point something that you, ethically and morally, are willing to accept?
The better you know and understand the legal ramifications of your checklist, the better and more accurately you can explain why the use of force was immediately necessary, should you ever find yourself in that situation. The Forum sees a lot of topics from time to time about what to tell responding officers in the event of a shooting. Most of those discussions revolve around the quantity of information and some sort of canned script to defer to your lawyer. That helps. But the truth is, the affect of the adrenaline dump isn't all that short-lived, and you may babble to an attorney, once you get one on the phone, and not realize you're failing to do a good job of describing the situation even then. If that's the case, you can be pretty certain the picture you painted for the responding peace officer may not have been one of the in-control, responsible, and reasonable citizen
you know yourself to be.
If you have thought about and ingrained your short, personal threat checklist, should the time ever come where you face the situation, you will understand exactly
why you acted as you did, and
how to express that decision in terms of the law. The value of that can't be underestimated.
3. Excaliber's and Harriss's use of the word "trigger" to express that point at which you have decided deadly force is immediately necessary is appropriate; it might look like a pun on a gun board like this, but I really can't think of a better term.
If you are at that moment of last resort and the use of deadly force becomes necessary, the switch has to be a binary thing: it's either off, or it's on. Just like bullseye shooting from benchrest: you can't
sort of fire the gun; the shot either breaks, or it doesn't.
In a violent encounter, hesitation probably follows only lack of awareness as the most dangerous condition. What John Farnam calls the Violent Criminal Actor, or VCA, is always the one on the offensive. His OODA Loop is already in motion, and the honest citizen will be in a reactive mode. Action is always faster than reaction. Indecision will cause hesitation; hesitation can absolutely get you killed.
Thinking carefully about and understanding the triggers in your personal threat checklist can help you make correct decisions in advance, allowing you the ability to immediately and fully commit if the time ever comes.
All of the above is intentionally somewhat abstract; no examples. We each have to make our own checklist.
Maybe a New Year's resolution?
) were to read just ONE article on this topic, I would definitely recommend this one.