Random violence stats I've compiled

[bbucking]

Great post, these statistics are interesting because they show just drawing your weapon with a single shot fired resolves 90 percent of situations. I have always wondered about empty chamber carry and statistics but there's really not enough data for a conclusion on that one. I think I'd rather empty chamber carry without a safety on my gun, then chamber carry with a safety. But that's just me. Ideally no safety, chamber carry with a good holster.

Amount of training in these situations is indespensible

 

[injb]

Great post, these statistics are interesting because they show just drawing your weapon with a single shot fired resolves 90 percent of situations. I have always wondered about empty chamber carry and statistics but there's really not enough data for a conclusion on that one. I think I'd rather empty chamber carry without a safety on my gun, then chamber carry with a safety. But that's just me. Ideally no safety, chamber carry with a good holster.

Amount of training in these situations is indespensible

I would definitely do the opposite if I had to choose between those two! You can always train to overcome the safety issue, at least theoretically. But there's no getting away from the fact that you need time and two hands to chamber a round. Also, bear in mind that in those situations where just pointing the gun did the trick (apparently a lot), the victim could have forgotten to disengage the safety, and they'd still be ok. But if they'd been fumbling with the slide instead of showing their attacker the business end, they could be dead now.

 

[SteveM4A1]

Great post, these statistics are interesting because they show just drawing your weapon with a single shot fired resolves 90 percent of situations. I have always wondered about empty chamber carry and statistics but there's really not enough data for a conclusion on that one. I think I'd rather empty chamber carry without a safety on my gun, then chamber carry with a safety. But that's just me. Ideally no safety, chamber carry with a good holster.

Amount of training in these situations is indespensible

Look at the small sample size we are dealing with here. Even with such a small sample, look at the number of losses due to extra manipulation required to operate the firearm. IMO, BBI's stats perfectly illustrate just how important simplicity is in a self defense situation. Draw, point, and shoot. Anything extra is not needed and could have fatal consequences.

 

[Gluemanz28]

If you are going to carry on an empty chamber is it really a gun or a club at that point?

If the DB wasn't going to shoot you and you pull your gun and try to rack and shoot they just went from rob you to kill you.

Anybody that doesn't feel comfortable carrying with one in the chamber needs MORE training.

 

[Gluemanz28]

Look at the small sample size we are dealing with here. Even with such a small sample, look at the number of losses due to extra manipulation required to operate the firearm. IMO, BBI's stats perfectly illustrate just how important simplicity is in a self defense situation. Draw, point, and shoot. Anything extra is not needed and could have fatal consequences.

I shoot a 1911 more accurately than any gun I own, but I carry a Glock daily. I want simple and reliable.

Combat accuracy is what I am concerned with.

 

[Cameramonkey]

So pawn shop dude has a friend?

Can I just get on the list now

Even without the details this is very thought provoking. Can't wait for the class...

Agreed with the above yahoos. SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!!!

Look at the small sample size we are dealing with here. Even with such a small sample, look at the number of losses due to extra manipulation required to operate the firearm. IMO, BBI's stats perfectly illustrate just how important simplicity is in a self defense situation. Draw, point, and shoot. Anything extra is not needed and could have fatal consequences.

I shoot a 1911 more accurately than any gun I own, but I carry a Glock daily. I want simple and reliable.

Combat accuracy is what I am concerned with.

Im in the same boat Glue. my Glock; Its not pretty but it just works. Every time. I cant screw it up. My 1911? I could forget a safety. If I forget the safety on my Glock I also forgot to pull the trigger.

 

[Gluemanz28]

It would be a pleasure to take Part 2 with you my friend.

 

[Bigtanker]

Great thread and thanks for the updates.

About the 19:7 record for resistance without a gun, what's the story there? they tried to mug Chuck Norris? Was is it "strong arm" robbery or did they have knives or clubs; did the defenders have weapons other than guns? Multiple assailants?

I know one.....tatical obesity...... real thing too!

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Great thread and thanks for the updates.

About the 19:7 record for resistance without a gun, what's the story there? they tried to mug Chuck Norris? Was is it "strong arm" robbery or did they have knives or clubs; did the defenders have weapons other than guns? Multiple assailants?

Resistance without a gun means the defender did not employ a firearm in any way, including display only.

Non-firearms resists included knives, golf clubs, empty hand techniques, a car door (yes, a car door), stun gun, and probably things I'm forgetting. They were sometimes against firearms, sometimes against other weapons. NONE of them were unarmed vs unarmed, I don't include simple bar fights, etc. As far as the Chuck Norris comment...well, kinda. Some people suck at victim selection. When you pull a knife on a taxi driver and his response is to break your nose and cause you a brief black out with a single punch...you chose unwisely.

Great post, these statistics are interesting because they show just drawing your weapon with a single shot fired resolves 90 percent of situations. I have always wondered about empty chamber carry and statistics but there's really not enough data for a conclusion on that one. I think I'd rather empty chamber carry without a safety on my gun, then chamber carry with a safety. But that's just me. Ideally no safety, chamber carry with a good holster.

Amount of training in these situations is indespensible

Well, keep in mind the subset that is being displayed. This is RANDOM violence only. In that context, I'm absolutely onboard with capacity is very very very seldom going to come in to play. Stats start to look different if you include specifically targeted crimes, such as domestics, LEO shootings, criminals eliminating rivals, etc. That's one reason I started keeping these was to cull and show the statistics that applied to the average person who's looking to protect themselves and has no specific threat.

As for empty chamber carry, more people shoot themselves then shoot a bad guy. However, few of them shoot themselves holstering. If you cannot bring yourself to carry with a round chambered or you are unable or unwilling to safely handle a firearm with a loaded chamber then you need to be a revolver guy. This is not you specifically, but generally speaking. Revolvers bring a lot to the table for the casual gun handler in terms of ease of administrative handling, being harder to accidentally discharge, and if you're super duper nervous the ability to leave a cylinder empty under the hammer but still have the gun fire with nothing more than a trigger pull.

I would definitely do the opposite if I had to choose between those two! You can always train to overcome the safety issue, at least theoretically. But there's no getting away from the fact that you need time and two hands to chamber a round. Also, bear in mind that in those situations where just pointing the gun did the trick (apparently a lot), the victim could have forgotten to disengage the safety, and they'd still be ok. But if they'd been fumbling with the slide instead of showing their attacker the business end, they could be dead now.

I largely agree. If you're going to carry a gun with a manual safety, you need to practice with it until you cannot get it wrong. You need to do it under time pressure, you need to do it with simulated injury, with a hasty draw, etc. If you're willing to put the reps in, you can do it. The problem is many people *think* they can do it under stress...but they can't. I was one of those guys when I bought my first semi-auto, a CZ. The first time I did scenario training I realized I couldn't consistently get the safety off, so I started carrying it hammer down. When I went to a 1911 after a lot of reps I could get the safety off 95% of the time, and after a metric butt ton of reps could do it 100% of the time. It was *work* though. Doing it adminstratively is easy. Doing it while a very muscular role-player with a stick is whacking at you...more difficult.

I shoot a 1911 more accurately than any gun I own, but I carry a Glock daily. I want simple and reliable.

Combat accuracy is what I am concerned with.

I concur. See above. If you shoot nothing but 1911s and put in the work, you can do it. Personally, I cannot bounce back and forth between 1911 and anything else for serious use, so my 1911 is relegated to range toy/safe space occupier.

I know one.....tatical obesity...... real thing too!

Organic body armor/tactical obesity/kidnap resistant. When you take a 7.62 through the belly (left/right, not front/back) and don't know it....

 

[jamil]

Thanks for the update BBI. You are providing a better service with these than even the FBI IMHO. Their stats are too damned generic. Yours are quite specific and eye opening. (especially the losses) Keep it up.

EDIT: Rep Nazis have my hands tied. Bueller? Bueller?

I'm not going to lie to you. I repped him for me.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Also, bear in mind that in those situations where just pointing the gun did the trick (apparently a lot), the victim could have forgotten to disengage the safety, and they'd still be ok.

Oh, and just to clarify "shots to resolution" can be to win OR to loss. Some of the "0 shots" are wins where the presentation of the firearm put the bad guy to flight or to surrender without a shot being necessary. Some are losses where the good guy didn't get a shot off before being killed, disarmed, or disabled.

 

[bbucking]

I would definitely do the opposite if I had to choose between those two! You can always train to overcome the safety issue, at least theoretically. But there's no getting away from the fact that you need time and two hands to chamber a round. Also, bear in mind that in those situations where just pointing the gun did the trick (apparently a lot), the victim could have forgotten to disengage the safety, and they'd still be ok. But if they'd been fumbling with the slide instead of showing their attacker the business end, they could be dead now.

I definitely would carry chambered. Safety are just so often forgotten that I don't like them on a carry gun. But I see your point. I do have to say with alot of practice you can get almost just as fast with an empty chamber. You even can rack the gun with one hand using your belt on the sights and do that fairly quickly. I do not know how well this can be done under pressure. So empty chamber is not ideal but learning a one hand rack could be useful should you ever need to change mags which these statistics seem to indicate would be extremely unlikely.

I'm still learning about concealed carry and these statistics are really helpful to help guide my efforts.

 

[jamil]

"Firearm vs multiple attacker
3 wins, 4 losses"

It's pretty easy to imagine what contributed to the losses. But what contributed to the wins? What made the 3 winners successful against multiple attackers? Is there something to learn from that?

 

[BehindBlueI's]

"Firearm vs multiple attacker
3 wins, 4 losses"

It's pretty easy to imagine what contributed to the losses. But what contributed to the wins? What made the 3 winners successful against multiple attackers? Is there something to learn from that?

Avoid conflict with multiple assailants whenever possible is the main lesson. Many of the factors are mostly or completely out of your control. How did they space themselves (ie 3 funneled in a door way vs 3 surrounding you), for example.

Remembering this is still a very small sample size, the people who won did so by surprise, speed, and ferocity of attack resulting in quickly killing or disabling one attacker, which generally put the others to flight. The people who lost, for the most part, failed to injure or kill any of their attackers. Vs a single attacker you have more margin of error. Vs multiple you need to be on top of your game. Only one of the losses was directly due to multiple attackers and the tactical superiority it provided. At least two may have went differently if the victim's weapon had been functional when presented or if the weapon could have been accessed faster.

 

[jamil]

So, what would it take to scale this project up? I think this data is very useful. How could it be collected on a larger scale?

 

[eldirector]

So, what would it take to scale this project up? I think this data is very useful. How could it be collected on a larger scale?

I'd love to have access to the raw data, as well.

Though, I'd still prefer to keep the data set small. Less data = fewer shootings.

 

[jamil]

I'd love to have access to the raw data, as well.

Though, I'd still prefer to keep the data set small. Less data = fewer shootings.

More data doesn't equal more shootings. It just means the statistics for more of the shootings that happened are compiled.

 

[eldirector]

More data doesn't equal more shootings. It just means the statistics for more of the shootings that happened are compiled.

Oh, you know what I mean.

 

[jamil]

Oh, you know what I mean.

Of course!

 

[BehindBlueI's]

So, what would it take to scale this project up? I think this data is very useful. How could it be collected on a larger scale?

Detectives in other jurisdictions keeping and reporting the same stats, culling out criminal-on-criminal, domestic, etc. to keep it apples to apples.

I include all the ones in Marion Co where I can talk to the detective and see what actually happened. If they are questionable they are not included. People lie and say they fought off a robber to explain the obviously self inflicted bullet wound, etc.