20/20- if i only had a gun

[bossy22]

i didnt get to watch the special but got to read some of the opinions. It seems like for the most part it was anti-gun....so im wondering what your opinions on it were

[doc03]

1. Didn't know about it being on. Just heard 60 minutes

is doing a report on the exploding gun and ammo sales Sunday.

[flvegan]

2. I watched it.

Most of it was shock-based, but not surprising. The part that's really going to be an issue is the "gun show loophole" that they really went after. Gave a really young looking guy 1 hour and $5000 and sent him in to see what he could buy. He had a pair of Glocks before he was in the door. He had a nicely sized arsenal (for an hours work) by the time he was done.

It wasn't (to me) so much anti-gun, it was anti "so you have a gun and think you can be Dirty Harry" in a good bit of what the show was about. I can see it being spun as anti-gun, though, if looking to use it as a tool that way.

[bossy22]

6. well through experience

ive noticed that....many gun owners believe ownership=competence.

in fact its most prevalent in young NYPD officers (the store i work for is a major law enforcement dealer)...it seems that many believe that since they got there basic training in the academy that now they are masters of the craft. Sorta like a kid just passing his road test and claiming he is the best driver the world has ever seen...

[flvegan]

7. The show did do a very good job touching on the pros and experience.

The show made a good point of making the point a number of times that cops go through training and retraining, and that even after a month of missed training, the body/mind isn't as sharp as it should be in a crisis situation.

Ownership is never = experience, and the show did do a good job of expressing that.

[bossy22]

9. i wouldnt lump all of them

into that scenario (cops that is)....there are probably many departments that have a rigorous training and continued firearm tactics education program but i can tell you that the NYPD does not have that. They have a 6 month requalification....which as one of my friends puts it (who is a sgt) "so easy Helen keller could do it"

[Statistical]

42. Most cops shoot less than gun enthusiasts do.

They go once a year to requal.

for some it is like this try, fail, try again, fail, try again fail, try again, pass. "See you next year".

The idea that LEO are a bastion of well training sharpshooters is sadly not true.

[Abq_Sarah]

10. And unfortunately

Most departments don't have requirements for anything other than a yearly or semi annual qual so they don't get enough range time to maintain full proficiency.

[krispos42]

14. The Republicans have the mentality about national security

They spend a shitload of money on the Pentagon, ergo they're strong on national security. And it follows that if you DON'T spend a shitload of money on the Pentagon, you're WEAK on national security.

[napi21]

3. I watched it. It was well done. There are a whole lot of really stupid

people in the US who don't or can't think! The one thing I got out of the show and knew already is that a lot of people think they are a lot more capable than they are. There's a lot of difference between having a gun and being able to shoot an assaulter without getting shot yourself.

[spag68]

4. guns

I presume you are a steeler fan, and as such it should be noted that Plexico will probably fall into that category.

[tularetom]

5. It should also be noted he ain't a Steeler anymore

Or a Giant either for that matter.

[aikoaiko]

8. I DVRed it. I'll watch it tomorrow.

I have low expectations.

[NewMoonTherian]

12. I DVRed as well, watching it now.

I'm commenting as I watch, so take my hotheaded remarks with a grain of salt.

The classroom experiment is interesting, but is set up a bit unrealistically. It seems obvious the key student(you'll see what I mean) is identified and targeted ahead of time. Still, it unintentionally points out important factors a responsible CCW holder should consider.

The garage experiment is about what you'd expect. Seems parents with an aversion to guns certainly don't take the time to educate their kids on the proper way to act around one. I could make a really distasteful comment here, but I'll hold it.

The piece on private sales seemed to violate the spirit of the whole presentation, as it was stated at the beginning that it wasn't a commentary on RKBA, and they snuck in a few jabs at assault weapons to boot.

After another fiasco in the classroom, they do impart a technique for actually surviving a mass shooting: lie down and play dead.

All in all, a dim view of concealed carry and gun ownership in general, but I managed to take away some valuable knowledge. Worth watching, maybe a couple of times.

[Endangered Specie]

11. I'm sorry, but that expirement was rigged

the 'shooter' is a well trained law enforcement officer... last I checked those aren't the ones that go on mass shootings. Rigged because an actual shooter would probably be equally 'untrained' and adrenaline pumped as the victim (being it probably his first attempted mass killing).
the 'shooter' also, after taking out the prof, went straight for the armed student... rigged as an actual shooter would not have psychic powers to know who to shoot first.

The victims were not allowed a good choice of holsters or clothes to conceal them.

Even if the odds are stacked against you, would you REALLY rather play dead (how fucking pathetic) and call 911, or try and stop the attack... you ARE going to get shot if you do nothing, you MAY get shot if you attempt to stop... I know which situation I'd rather be in.

Where I went to school, they said use tables/chairs as weapons... now they are saying a GUN is ineffective but the table/chairs/heavy objects thing isn't a bad idea?

Need I go on...

[napi21]

13. You may see it as rigged. and you may be right, but I will tell you

sbout a personal experience. My best griend at work, who parked in the same lot I did was raped when she went to her car one night. She of course was scared and upset and so was I. I decided to buy a gun for my own protection. I bought a S&W 38 snubnose. I carried it for about 2 months, but I realized that I wouldn't be able to cold kill anlther human being. I'd be the dum nut who would try to reason with an asailant or try to talk them out of hurting me. My hisband told me, if you aren't willing to shoot to kill, stop carrying it. He was right. I haven't carried it since. We all watch law & order and csi, but none of us are prepared to protect ourselves.

[spin]

19. You made a wise decision...

When people ask me if they should get a weapon for self defense, I ask them to seriously consider the question, "Could you kill another person if it was absolutely necessary."

If they say that they could, I tell them that talk is cheap and to take a few days to consider the question.

In most cases, a normal individual will hesitate in his first deadly encounter. Hesitation could get you killed. On the other hand firing too quickly could result in a tragic mistake.

Owning a gun for self defense is a extremely serious decision. A decision which might save your life, or ruin your life.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

38. I'm prepared to protect myself and any innocent person being attacked in my presence.

[X_Digger]

16. Very rigged..

Most CCW holders I know practice quite a lot with their choice of holsters, and learn to get to their weapon clear from a sitting position.. from a standing position, from a squat, etc.

[primavera]

22. It seems to me that you're missing the point

... which is that real life isn't like play-acting. I agree that the methodology of the experiment was sloppy and impeachable, but I'm not sure the conclusion is without merit nevertheless. I mean, I think about stressful incidents in my life, such as being in even a minor motor vehicle accident, and well do I recall how jarring the experience was and how rattled and disoriented I was in the initial seconds and minutes afterwards. If some shooter came bursting onto a room and began spontaneously firing, I think it's safe to assume that would be an even more rattling experience than a minor fender bender. And in such a diminished capacity, who among us possesses the training, skill, and cool-headedness to function the way we would like to? I suspect the only people who have a reasonable chance at functioning at a least a semi-normal level are going to be those with military training who have undergone training designed to simulate as realistically as possible the chaos and mayhem of battle. Shooting up paper targets in a safe and controlled environment is NOT going to adequately prepare most people for that sort of event.

[X_Digger]

24. No I get the point..

But it would have been fairer to ask a bunch of CCW holders how much training and what kind they went through, then replicate that with a bunch of folks interested in doing the same.

Or heck, repeat the experiment with some current CCW holders.

[primavera]

25. Fair enough

The 20/20 people are journalists, not social scientists, and they, like so much of their industry, favored a methodology that had entertainment and communicational value over sound research, that's in the nature of their profession. But the harm of that decision may be mitigated by the extent to which a more thoughtful study would have differed in its results from what they produced in their experiment. If a more elegant experiment would have produced essentially the same results, as I suspect it might very well have, ABC may perhaps be forgiven for their sloppiness.

[X_Digger]

26. Agreed..

And I do think it important for prospective CCW holders to understand that having a gun is not magic, and it only provides one the _opportunity_ to respond, not a _guarantee_.

I would have been happy to see them do a bit more research and present the reports (heck interviews) of folks like the ones Fire_Medic_Dave has posted.

[Euromutt]

34. That doesn't cut it

20/20 is supposed to be a serious current affairs program, not a sodding "reality show." The fact that "they, like so much of their industry, favored a methodology that had entertainment and communicational value over sound research" is an indictment of the state of American news broadcasting; it does not excuse 20/20 one iota. The BBC's Panorama has managed to go for 56 years without resorting to this kind of fluff masquerading as serious journalism.

[otohara]

18. Oh Brother

I suspect even if they used real bullets, real students, real dead people - gun enthusiasts would still claim it was "rigged".

Your post is similar to the hundreds posted on ABC site about the show. Damn liberal media is to blame, rigged scenerios, actors, blah, blah blah.

Blame the holster - that's the ticket.

[Endangered Specie]

20. You have not refuted any of the points I made...

therefor they are still valid, what point have you made?

The media IS to blame, they put this hit piece on, this isn't the first thing they've gotten wrong ya know(has nothing to do with being liberal, or conservative).

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

39. blah, blah, blah. Boy what an intelligent response.

[Taitertots]

45. Oh boy

A fair portion of the people managed to shoot a trained marksmen who surprised them and immediately targeted them. All the rest of them managed to save every other person in the room as they ran out while the shoot was engaging them. They saved everyone in the room, except the teacher and themselves.

[Furyataurus]

15. Omar only bought 1 handgun

as Virgina has a "1 handgun" purchase a month law. As for the class room experiment it SHOULD have been the other way around, plus they didn't have a person who had a CHL. Plus, I WOULDN'T have sat where those kids sat.

[X_Digger]

17. Breaking news: In VA, private sales still not illegal!

In other news, water is still wet.

[spin]

21. The 20/20 program was well worth watching, however...

while it deserves praise there are some points to criticize.

For reasons of space and time, I'll only express my opinions on the classroom shooting segment.

CRITICISM:

1) The student's concealed weapon was in a thumb break holster. In my opinion, a thumb break holster is better suited for law enforcement. A normal high quality holster will hold a weapon securely and is much makes accessing the weapon much easier.

The down side, however, to a holster with a thumb retention strap, especially for concealed carry applications, is that a thumb break adds an extra step to the draw. Thus, it can retain your weapon too well, and spell R.I.P. when you need to grab your weapon fast—not a good thing! Obviously, if you are going to wear this equipment, you have to practice drawing your unloaded gun from your holster so that it comes natural in a pinch. It's a muscle memory thing.
http://www.usconcealedcarry.com/public/177.cfm?sd=45

2) The student appeared to be wearing an ordinary belt. When carrying a full sized weapon, you should wear a gun belt. For more information visit: http://www.gun-belt.com/do-i-really-need-a-gunbelt.php

3) The student was wearing gloves. While this was obviously for safety in the segment, I believe it contributed to the difficulty with drawing the weapon.

4)It is true that even an armed person is at a disadvantage when a shooter enters a classroom firing a weapon. If the shooter continued to other classrooms he would lose the advantage of surprise and might be stopped by another armed student. This was never mentioned.

PRAISE:

1) Absolutely excellent discussion of the effects of stress on the body, including loss of motor skills and tunnel vision.

2) Pointing out that seeking cover is the possibly the most important part of surviving a gunfight. Because we train to shoot in a standing position, this is very difficult to remember when the shit hits the fan.

3) Demonstrating that proficiency on the range does not equate to proficiency in a real life gun fight.

Overall the program was one that I would recommend to anyone who owns a firearm for self defense. It did appear to me to have an anti-gun slant, but the information it delivered should be carefully considered especially by those who carry concealed.

[Furyataurus]

23. I agree but

they should have had the officer as the "student" and the kid as the school shooter and shown how well he could have done. Did you notice that they put in 2 shooters for the more "experienced" shooters :eyes:.

[primavera]

28. No, that would err on the other side

The point is to assess reaction times amongst ordinary people, not amongst highly trained people, so putting the policeman in the role of the ordinary person would produce as skewed a result as putting the policeman in the role of the shooter. I think the better experiment would have been to have students play the role of both shooter and victim, since that's how it would go down in real life - neither party would be a professional.

[spin]

30. Or possibly find a person with a carry permit...

who had training or military experience to put in the role of the student.

Of course, it's necessary to realize that individual people will react differently to stress.

One time at the range, I asked the range master who was a retired police officer how much difference target shooting ability made in real life police encounters. He told of two incidents. In the first, the officer who was a competitive target shooter fired his weapon and hit a front porch and a tree. In the second the officer, who always had a difficult time qualifying took out a bad guy who had a knife up against the throat of a victim with one head shot.

[primavera]

31. But most students won't have that

So if the object is to assess how the average student would respond in a Columbine/V-Tech/etc. style shooting, a person with military training isn't going to make a representative test subject.

[spin]

32. First let me say that I'm hesitant about the average college student...

carrying a concealed weapon at school.



However, many active duty and ex-military individuals do attend college as do many people in law enforcement since many agencies require college education.

In a college environment storing a firearm in a dorm room might lead to more tragedy than it would ever prevent. Allowing an off duty police officer to carry a weapon while in class makes common sense. Members of the college staff, perhaps professors, who had passed an extensive course to train for a college shooting incident might be excellent choices. Select students with the same training might also be allowed to carry.

Gun free zones are an attractive target for deranged individuals. Most people find a shooting gallery at the fair to be fun and that is what an unarmed campus looks like to a violent individual with a serious mental problem.



We have seen that even when the police respond quickly, they hesitate to make entry to a building with a shooter inside. Far better to have someone with training inside. First the fact that the shooter might run into someone who could shoot back might discourage him. If he did decide to carry out a murder spree, an armed individual with training could possibly stop him.

While I'm in favor of concealed carry, I realize that a college campus is a unique environment and might require those who carry to be held to a higher standard than the average CCW permit holder.

[primavera]

27. Are you sure you aren't splitting hairs?

Good morning, spin! Not to pooh pooh your remarks, but it looked to me like the difficulties encountered by the student test subjects were not primarily about getting their guns out of their holsters. Most managed to free their guns from their holsters, but one got the weapon caught in his shirt, another simply froze up and never even tried to reach for his gun, those that did draw their weapons fired but missed, one narrowly missed hitting a fleeing fellow student, another failed to notice the second shooter, etc. I dunno, it just didn't seem to me at least like the problems they encountered had much to do with getting their guns free of their holsters. Or do you perceive some correlation there?

I agree though with your observation that, in any subsequent encounters, students would have been alerted to the presence of the shooter by the shots fired and would therefore have had greater time to collect themselves, overcome their initial shock, and be better prepared. But that still doesn't help those who are in the immediate vicinity when the shooter first opens fire and isn't that typically where most of the victims are going to be killed? I mean, being forewarned by gun fire can give you time to ready a weapon, but it can also give you time to get the hell out of there, take cover, hide, etc. I remember seeing the school security camera footage of the Columbine shooters and, after their initial onslaught in the cafeteria, they mostly just wandered around looking for additional victims - unsuccessfully because everyone had fled by then. So how often does it really take place that, after those first initial minutes of the attack, the shooter will continue to prowl the halls and find additional victims alert to the presence of the shooter? And, of course, massacres are the extreme situations, where the attacks are perpetrated in crowded public places by persons intent upon killing as many people as possible. In the more common setting, the incident will only involve a couple of people and will be over and done in those first few seconds.

[spin]

29. Being unable to smoothly draw the weapon...

contributes to the stress of the situation.

Familiarity and practice with your equipment is essential in a life and death situation. Obviously, the students chosen did have the time to gain the skill necessary to be able to rapidly deploy their weapon. And the proper equipment is very important. A good quality gun belt can make a world of difference in drawing the weapon.

I actually prefer a ballistic nylon gun belt rather than a leather belt. the Wilderness Instructor Belt was originally designed for Fire and Rescue uses. It's reasonably priced and very comfortable and is my everyday belt.

As I pointed out, a thumb break holster is not the best choice for concealed carry.

However, generally speaking, because we are carrying concealed, a thumb break is not a necessary device to have in most situations. People shouldn't know you are carrying!

*****snip*****

The down side, however, to a holster with a thumb retention strap, especially for concealed carry applications, is that a thumb break adds an extra step to the draw. Thus, it can retain your weapon too well, and spell R.I.P. when you need to grab your weapon fast—not a good thing! Obviously, if you are going to wear this equipment, you have to practice drawing your unloaded gun from your holster so that it comes natural in a pinch. It's a muscle memory thing.
http://www.usconcealedcarry.com/public/177.cfm?sd=45

But as you point out, one student didn't seem to have a major problem getting the weapon out of the holster but snagged it in his shirt. When I carry a concealed weapon in a holster, I wear a tucked t-shirt with a unbuttoned untucked shirt over top of the holster.

Some companies such as 5.11 Tactical make shirts for concealed carry with velcro secured side vents that break away.


So am I nit picking. Yes, but the reason that the 20/20 segment was worth watching was that it showed what can go wrong. People who carry concealed need to understand how important the proper gear and practice is. If you can't get the gun on target quickly you will probably be a second place winner. Not a good thing in a real life gun fight.


Another vital and perhaps more important thing pointed out was that all the range training may come to little or nothing in a real gun fight. Individual people perform differently under stress. The problem is that the stress encountered in such a situation is difficult or impossible for the average person to train for.

The episode pointed out that the police receive training and would lead you to believe that they are excellently prepared for life and death encounters involving a firearm. Most departments can't afford the level of training necessary, and most police merely shoot at stationary paper targets for qualification on a yearly or biyearly schedule. But to be fair, police work can be very stressful and most officers are better prepared than those who carry concealed.

However, there are competitive shooting events such as those sponsored by the International Defensive Pistol Association (IPDA) that can prepare shooters. Schools also exist for those interested in self defense shooting. (This could have been pointed out on 20/20)

IDPA as a sport is quite simply the use of practical equipment including full charge service ammunition to solve simulated “real world” self-defense scenarios. Shooters competing in IDPA events are required to use practical handguns and holsters that are truly suitable for self-defense use. No “competition only” equipment is permitted in IDPA matches since the main goal is to test the skill and ability of an individual, not his equipment or gamesmanship.
http://www.idpa.com/dps_info.asp

It would have been interesting had 20/20 picked a couple of shooters who had competitive backgrounds in IPDA or had attended courses at Thunder Ranch to see how they could perform in the scenario.

Some of the students chosen had firearm experience but none had a concealed carry license. All were young and I don't believe any had a military or law enforcement background. You could argue that the outcome was predictable and was obviously designed to show that carrying a concealed weapon is useless and perhaps more dangerous than not.

While this is to some extent a valid argument, there have been incidents in which a person with a concealed weapon was able to halt a mass murder.

Recently there was the shooting in Winnemucca, Nevada:
http://www.ktvn.com/Global/story.asp?S=8378732

And the security guard that stopped a shooter in a church:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/12/10/colorado.shootings/index.html









http://www.ktvn.com/Global/story.asp?S=8378732

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

40. Couple of issues.

The highly trained "shooters" in this case were cops who were told the location of the armed "students" in the class. The "students" were required to wear gloves and clothes ill suited for concealed carry. Interesting that they failed to mention concealed carry permit holders that have stopped shootings in progress i.e. the New Mexico man who stopped a mass murder in progress. There's really no point I post them here constantly they are there for everyone to see that common, not highly trained people manage to defend themselves and others on a quite routine basis. Concealed carry permit holders are usually more highly trained than the average gun owner it only make sense that they would perform equal or better than the average gun owner and clearly better than the students that 20/20 picked for their "experiment". I'm sure they could have found a veteran with combat experience on that campus those are likely some of the few people even eligible to have a CCW permit and be in college. Everyone that I read here suggests lots of training, licensure and practice before people carry a concealed firearm in public.

David

[benEzra]

46. If you set up a scenario in which the active shooter is a firearms instructor,

the stand-ins for CHL holders are mostly Airsoft/paintball noobs who have never carried concealed before, much less drawn and fired from a concealed holster, AND you sit the "CHL holder" in the same chair each time so the "active shooter" knows where the armed person is, then yes, it won't often go the CHL holder's way.

But given the fact that the active shooter is usually the Airsoft noob and the CHL holder is usually pretty experienced with the firearm, and does NOT sit in a chair flagged "Shoot Me First," a real event would not be expected to play out the same way.

I think the Virginia Tech shootings are a scenario in which even a single CHL holder in a classroom would have had a very good chance of stopping the shooter. Plenty of prior warning for all but the first classroom, and a single point of entry to each room. Not a slam-dunk by any means, but the odds are with the defender in that scenario, IMO.

[Euromutt]

33. Finally heard about, and got to watch this

Specifically, the classroom shooter "experiment." It can be found on YouTube, part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MX3QtumSuE and part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxNRLMWkjc8

What an utter load of bilge from start to finish!

A number of the obvious points have already been addressed (please note I'm using masculine pronouns for general purpose throughout):
First, the armed student was always seated in the same place, and the shooter always went for the armed student immediately after shooting the instructor.
The student was also seated in just about the worst possible spot, right in the middle of the front row, with minimal room to maneuver. And how plausible do we think it is that an active shooter is going to know in advance who is going to be armed in a classroom? So that stacks the deck right there.
Second, the students were assigned sub-optimal clothing and equipment and inadequately instructed how to use it.
In spite of otohara's whinge above, this is far from trivial. Anyone who's actually tried to carry a large-caliber firearm on an unstiffened belt (and I have) soon discovers that the holstered gun flops all over the place, gets tangled up in clothing, and risks being exposed; at that point, said person decides to invest in a dedicated gun belt. And that's before he even tries to draw the weapon. Like spin, I wear a reinforced belt from The Wilderness, only I wear the metal-free "Frequent Flyer" model (http://store.thewilderness.com/product_info.php?cPath=43&products_id=196); and yes, I wear it almost all the time.
Positioning the holster for a comfortable draw is also something that the carrier has to decide for himself; you cannot have someone else put a holster on you and expect it work correctly for you. In this instance, the firearms instructors even appear to be deliberately placing the holsters badly, so far forward (at the two o'clock position) that it's guaranteed to make the draw more difficult than it needs to be.
The oversize white t-shirts given to the students are a pretty lousy choice for concealed carry as well; difficult to get out of the way, while being the perfect color and material for the gun to "print." No CCWer worth his salt would be likely to even wear such a shirt as a cover garment, but if he did, he'd at least practice sweeping it clear of the holster, which I don't see anyone doing in the video.
Next, gloves. As spin has pointed out, requiring gloves during the exercise made sense from a safety perspective, but if so, the test subjects should have been required to practice using the gun while wearing them. See anyone in the video wearing gloves during preliminary training? Me neither.
In combination, this stacks the deck even further.

Then I have some more criticisms:
Multiple shooters enter the room.
Very, very few school, mall or workplace mass shootings have involved more than one shooter; Columbine and Westside Middle School (in Jonesboro, AR) are the only two I can think of. It's not inconceivable, but it's highly unlikely; something Sawyer blithely glossed over.
Shooter has a accomplice pre-positioned in the room.
This has never happened in a school, mall or workplace shooting. It is a very real risk in armed robberies of stores or banks, but highly implausible in classrooms. And in robberies, they perpetrators typically don't start shooting people the moment they walk in the door (killing someone in the course of an armed robbery is an automatic first-degree murder charge for everyone involved). Whatever useful lesson about tunnel vision might be contained in this segment is drowned out by the overwhelming impression that the real reason this variable was introduced was to cause the one student who was most likely to perform effectively--in spite of the stacked deck--to also fail.

Like our other students, Jason makes mistakes, failing to take cover. Though he hits the intruder, it's not before he takes a hit in the chest.

Emphasis mine.
Slanted debriefings
Note the students are debriefed immediately after they've been pwned, and in a condition of shock and embarrassment; and, crucially, before they've had a chance to realize that the game was fixed.

INTERVIEWER: Was it realistic?
DANIELLE: It was very realistic, yeah. My heart's still pounding.

How would she know? Given the frequency of incidents in which a professional police firearms instructor goes on a shooting spree and unerringly homes in on the one person in the room with a firearm (i.e. never), ignoring all the other potential victims, I wouldn't call this "realistic." A game of paintball gets my heart pounding, but that doesn't make it a realistic simulation of small unit combat.
Emphasizing the test subjects' "failure to take cover"
Cover is anything that will stop incoming fire, and the students don't have any available; that paneling at the front may stop a Simunition FX round, but it won't stop a 9mm. At best the students have concealment, but if you can't hide yourself completely, it's useless, and it would be a mistake to rely on it. It would be an even greater mistake to compromise your effectiveness trying to stay behind a piece of paneling that isn't going to protect you from real bullets.
(Somehow, I have a sneaking suspicion that if any of the test subjects had made effective use of concealment, the shooter would have emptied his mag at the paneling and the test subject would have been declared "dead" because real bullets would have penetrated it. Heads, I win; tails, you lose.)
Looking at the video, moreover, it looks to me like the tendency of the test subjects to stand is the effect of their ill-fitted holsters; they need to stand to even be able to "clear leather."
Biased statements about training.

SAWYER: And you should know that our basic course is already more hands-on training than almost half the states in the country require to carry a concealed weapon.

Implication: a large number--possibly a majority--of CCWers have next to no training in the use of the weapons they carry. However, in actual fact, the amount of training required to get a CCW permit is not a reflection of much training a permit holder chooses to get. There are firearms training instructors all over the U.S. from the big names like Massad Ayoob's Lethal Force Institute, Gunsite, Thunder Ranch, and the Firearms Academy of Seattle, to current and former LEOs running training courses at every gun shop with an indoor range. There are two within half an hour's drive from my house. The fact that they stay in business is a good indication that somebody is getting more training than the law requires.
Oh, the kicker? The big schools typically require you to have a CCW permit before they let you take a class (certainly their more advanced classes). Why? Because it shows you've undergone a federal background check, don't have any felony convictions, and the FBI has your fingerprints. In other words, it's as good a guarantee as they can get that they're not providing training to career criminals.

POLICE INSTRUCTOR: Even police officers, through extensive training--if you don't continue with your training, ongoing training, it's a perishable skill. You'll lose it.
SAWYER: How long before you're going to lose it, even at your level of training?
INSTRUCTOR: If you go for a month to two months without training, you'll lose it.

Given that the national norm for a patrol officer consists of the training necessary to pass semiannual requalification, this would imply that a large number of American patrol officers and detectives are going about their duties with, in effect, no firearm skills for at least eight months of every year.
And how much training do we think the shooter will have, huh? Almost vvery mass shooting in recent years took place in an environment where nobody was able to return fire. Why should the typical spree shooter (as opposed to a police firearms instructor) keep his shit together when someone starts shooting back?
Overplaying the shooter's performance; underplaying the students'.
A persistent feature is the evaluation of the test subjects' performance only in terms of averting harm to themselves by use of the firearm without looking at the benefit to others present. Time after time, when the shooter homes in on the test subject, he ignores the rest of the class, allowing the majority of them manage to escape unharmed. Even if (and that's a big "if") the only effect a CCWing student has is to make himself a target and draw the shooter's fire, if in doing so he facilitates his classmates' escape, that's a net benefit.
Also, the effect of students' hits is downplayed; for example, the leg wound inflicted by Danielle would at the very least slow the shooter down, hampering his ability to rack up a body count before police arrived. At best, the shot might sever his femoral artery, which would really slow him down.
Unlike with Danielle and Ashley, no attention is given the location of Jason's hits on the shooter. Given the tendentiousness of the segment, I'm guessing that means they were in a location likely to stop the shooter. Okay, armed student takes two shots in the torso with likely incapacitating results, but if he's stopped the shooter, he's just saved a lot of people's lives, even if it is at the cost of his own.
It's emphasized that four of five of Ashley's shots don't hit the shooter. Not pointed out is that of the ten rounds the professional police instructor fired, four also went wide.

And while Ashley was firing at the intruder, she took six shots to the center of her body, including one to her abdomen.

Actually, I make it two shots to the center of mass; two more hit her abdomen (not guaranteed to incapacitate immediately), and the other two, well... they were grazes at worst, and one of them looked suspiciously like the Simunition bullet had snagged her oversize t-shirt and not impacted on her body.

I've belabored the point long enough, so I'll summarize: this piece was biased and tendentious, and was clearly made with the object to "show" that handguns are not an effective means of self-defense in spree shootings, even if the producers had to thoroughly stack the deck in the shooter's favor to achieve footage to illustrate that point. There were some useful bits of information hidden in the dross, but nothing you wouldn't get from a decent firearms training DVD, like the ones I have by Rob Pincus.

Parting shot: in part 1, check out Diane Sawyer at 6:13. She's waving the training weapon about with her finger on the trigger; I'd say she's violating at least three of Jeff Cooper's safety rules there, possibly four. Call me strange, but when somebody that incompetent with firearms tells me they're of no real use, I'm inclined to be skeptical, to put it mildly.

[spin]

36. Excellent summary. (n/t)

[Statistical]

43. Exactly CCW is CONCEALED for a reason.

A couple of other points to reinforce what you said:

1) The shooter KNEW there was only one CCW and where that student was located. I mean come on. All this proves is that if a mass shooter is given a map of all the CCWs in a room then they likely will have an advantage. CCW carry concealed weapons because that gives them the element of surprise. They can choose to draw when the shooter is facing away, reloading, clearing a jam etc. To give the shooter "magical knowledge" of the CCW is not based on any realistic expectation of events.

2) The shooter was a well trained LEO and most of the CCWs in the simulation were untrained. Wow. the trained shooter (with "bonus" knowledge from #1) was able to out shoot the untrained shooter. Really? Stop the presses.

3) They did no followup rooms. In a school shooting like VT the shooter went room to room. Now it is possible CCW in the first room would be caught unaware and killed. Most responsible gun owners know a gun isn't a magic chield. However CCW in the other rooms would here gunshots, and screams. They would have plenty of time to reposition themselves and cover the door.

As a soldier who has trained on room clearing, trying to get pas the door frame when one or more guns are focused on that is a very hard task. The military calls it the funnel of death because multiple shots will come from multiple angles all aimed at the doorway. 90% of room clearing casualties come from trying to clear the tunnel of death and that is even with the invading team using shock/bang grenades and substantial automatic fire to disrupt protection of the door frame.

20/20 went in with a conclusion and was sure to setup scenarios that supported that conclusion.

[Taitertots]

35. Totally lacking merit

The most biased possible.

Take one trained firearms instructor. Throw in people with ill fitting holsters, too long shirts, unfamiliar guns, and gloves. Have expert run in and immediately target the person. Seems about as unrealistic as it could be. The shooter ignores people running right by him to shoot the target.

Even with the BS, several of the people managed to shoot the firearms expert. When if anyone of them hadn't used a gun the shooter could have easily killed everyone in the whole room. They should show what would happen if there wasn't anyone for the shooter to engage while everyone ran. The shooter would have stood in the doorway and killed everyone in the room.


If anything you could change the audio on that and make it a pro-carry piece. Even with ill fitting garments, holsters, helmets, gloves, unfamiliar firearms, and little to no real training, you can still manage to stop a firearms expert bent on killing you some of the time. While the rest of the time everyone else has a chance to run while you die, you would probably have died without the gun anyway.

[Deadric Damodred]

41. Exactly

If they really wanted to make it unbiased, they should have divided the students up into two catagories: the shooters, and the victims. They should have made sure that both groups have never seen each other. That way each time the shooter came in, not only would they not be trained (because rarely are they ever trained), but they would also not magically know exactly who in the room has the concealed gun.

The way they did it, they were forcing an outcome by having a trained shooter, who knows which student has the concealed weapon, against untrained students. That's a hit job, not journalism.

[PavePusher]

37. This was a hit piece.

There was not even an attempt at "fair and balanced" or at anything resembling impartiality. They had an agenda and they manufactured the evidence to fit the desired conclusion.

The last shreds of Ms. Sawyers journalistic credibility evaporated like summer mist at the end, when she declared "We were not able to find any verifiable instances of succesful self-defense gun use by civilians." (Not an exact quote, but that was the message.) Apparently she did not take the time to tell a staffer to sit down with Google for 10 minutes. Dishonesty combined with laziness. The fail is almost unbelievable. Does anyone wonder at the death-spiral of the MSM?

John Stossel must have had a stroke. I hope he does a response piece, preferably for another network.

[aikoaiko]

44. I was dissappointed that much of the piece was set up to not be an even handed look at gun use

While the kernals of truth were valid (leaving guns in toy boxes is a bad idea, defending yourself when a surprise shooter targets you is difficult, guns can be bought without background checks from private sellers reasonably easily, etc), many of the segments were set up to make gun usage look bad.