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Aggressiveness

5K views 66 replies 26 participants last post by  Riverkilt 
#1 · (Edited)
So I'm reading Col. Cooper's book on Principles of Personal Defense and come to the chapter on aggressiveness.

My aging mind flashes back to some 50 years ago. I'm in college. Three friends and I decide to go target shooting at the river. I have a .303 Enfield, two friends have bolt action rifles, and one has the then new Remington Nylon 66 semi-auto .22 I guess no one worried about college students having rifles back then.

We're on a bluff some 30 feet above the left bank of the river plinking at drift. Great target practice - the river providing the moving targets.

Suddenly we hear bullets whiz by up overhead, and between us. The rounds are coming from our right, somewhere in the woods below the bluff.

So we holler that way and wave our arms that we're there. Then the gunfire at us heats up! What? Some nut! We were all ROTC guys back then so hit the ground behind a low berm at the edge of the bluff. Still the bullets whizzed over us.

The guy with the Remington had a box of .22 short tracer rounds and loaded his tube with them. When he was ready and the firing hadn't stopped yet all four of us opened up on the apparent source of the gunfire.

I don't know how much whoever it was firing at us was impressed by our three bolt action rifles, but I'm positive the incoming tracers made an impression on them because the firing stopped.

Seemed a good example of what Col. Cooper meant by aggressiveness, though he hadn't written his book yet.
 
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#32 ·
I wouldn't doubt the incoming fire was from some inbred who like to take target practice without using a back stop. Way too many thoughtless, slow thinking types never seem to care where bullets go after they fire them, they hang cans or bottles from branches or set targets on fences and shoot away. It sure would suck to be injured by some careless nut.
 
#33 ·
I mentioned earlier how it would have look really bad to the police & DA if you guys had shot the guy without any evidence of his shooting at you. Let me explain in more detail.

A homicide trial is an excruciatingly nit-picky process. There is zero "glossing over" of details. Plus all points are endlessly debated.

Fact: You did not SEE rounds coming at you (of course) You just HEARD bullets & just GUESSED they were close, because you had ZERO experience with getting shot at.

Your testimony that--to you-- they "sounded close" will be torn apart by the prosecutor.

Your buddies testifying, based on the same conjecture / guesswork will also be easily torn to shreds. They too have no experience getting shot at PLUS all of you had a boatload of time to collaborate statements.

That's why cops separate witnesses. But that didn't happen here.

So the jury would be stuck with ruling on the known, uncontested facts.

He may (or may not) have shot at you with intent, But you DEFINITELY shot him. That's what a jury would have to weigh.

Dude, Be glad this incident is behind you. Your collected geese could have been cooked.
 
#34 ·
Note on backstops: I went plinking with a neighbor & his kid in a rural area of San Diego County. They were fairly new to the shooting hobby. But that's okay. We shot with a mountain backstop.

But on the way back to their car the dad pointed at a bottle & told his boy to take a shot at it. The kid instantly dropped in a round and BANG.

I ran up and said "hey, there's no backstop!" Beyond the bottle was a grove of trees in a canyon.

Dad played it off with a "it's okay, nobody ever goes down there" but he knew it was a HUGE screwup. I've never gone with them again.
 
#35 ·
Right 19 year old boys do not have their frontal lobes fully grown in.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Riverkilt View Post
For sure. 19-year-old boys don't have their frontal lobes completely grown in yet - make poor decisions. We just knew we were shot at, warned the shooter, and the warning increased the shooters rate of fire.

My guess is, being in thick woods he had good cover, making it difficult to kill him even if we knew where to aim. Guessing if we had killed him he would have died with a well fired rifle and lots of brass around him.

And we'd have four guys telling the same true story.

Quote:
Sounds like a good reason to prevent anyone that does not have a fully grown in frontal lobe from having access to a firearm. And as you say this was decades ago. I am sure that the judge would have been very sympathetic to that argument. You guys really sound like you are a bunch of knuckleheads to me. And your access to firearms in general might be questionable as well. Anybody with any brains. That determined that rounds were coming their way from an indeterminate location. Without any previous determination that they were meant to kill you, as that is what firearms are intended for. Well it just plain says to me that I should with draw from the situation. Or I should neutralize the threat. Throwing rounds from firearms back and fourth between groups of people for no apparent reason. This just tells me one thing. That at least one or more of you idiots on either side of this alleged altercation are just plain idiots. Furthermore that firearms ownership by any one of you constitutes a clear and present danger to society as a whole, let alone the responsible gun owners that manage to live and breath amongst each other without partaking of "casual/recreational" gunfire going on amongst ourselves.
I agree completely with USMM guy and would only add that (1) from what's been described, you don't have to have "been there" to know that firing back blindly at an unknown "target" was a terrible idea, pregnant with the real possibility of begging for very bad consequences and (2) being young, though a possible mitigating argument, is no excuse; no excuse whatsoever.
 
#38 ·
Nothing like a good shoot out on a nice day, You might have just confessed to an unsolved murder
 
#42 ·
Some might say it is "stupid" to NOT return fire when being fired on. They lived to tell the tale, that is a fact.
 
#43 ·
Worse than stupid, slow bullet guy; possibly, if not likely, criminal. Being "fired upon" deliberately implies intent. From what the op reported, no one saw the shooter(s). No one knows who they were (drunks, kids?). No one knows why they were shooting. And no one in their right mind should be "returning fire" until the identity of the shooters and their motives are established. And if it takes until night fall before the matter can be reported to le, well, so be it.
 
#45 · (Edited)
Since I was not there, I am forced to give the OP the benefit of the doubt.

I have been shot at, and missed. I have a pretty good idea what it sounds like. I would recognize it again.

I have been shot at (bird shot, unintentionally) and hit. I have a very good recollection of it - but for the sound.

I would have to have been there in order to know whether or not I would have returned fire, or sneaked away (tactically, stealthily, silently, maybe even ran like hell)

Perhaps the OP's powers of description concerning the event may just be inadequate.

I probably would have investigated further. But maybe I'm just a troublemaker.

One just cannot say for sure and for certain... Unless one was there.
 
#46 ·
This is why I'm reluctant to use words like "stupid". The OP even stated that after yelling for the shooter to stop, the level of gunfire increased. Odd situation. It is reasonable from a self-preservation perspective to believe that your odds for survival go down with each round fired. Extreme situations require extreme solutions, which the OP supplied and is alive to tell. Had he had done nothing, or got up and tried to flee, chances are we wouldn't be having this discussion because his story would have gone to his grave with him. This brings to mind a great pearl of wisdom "A good plan, violently executed now, is better than the perfect plan next week" - Gen. Patton

IMHO "a good plan" = they lived
 
#47 ·
I have been shot at, and missed.
There's a big difference between being shot at deliberately and being shot at inadvertently in terms of how one might/should respond. The op's account of the incident is unclear as to the intent of the shooter(s). When in doubt it is advisable to hold your fire, both for reasons of legality and/or morality.
 
#49 ·
And I submit that we were NOT there to know - or to draw conclusions.
If you had been there, you might agree with him - but you were not there.
The OP was there. He came to a conclusion. Without more evidence - Who am I to say he was wrong?

All I can say is that, when people were trying to shoot me, I could tell, and they were just poor shots.

But The one who acctually did shoot me was, as you say, "inadvertant." and I didn't shoot back.
 
#48 ·
Ummm....I'm the OP and when the first rounds went over we all four stood up on the berm and hollered and waved our arms like trying to get a helicopter's attention and shouted there were people up here. After that the rate of fire from the woods INCREASED and came in lower - hence the need to hunker down behind the berm.

There is no doubt in my mind that the mysterious shooter intended to kill us - or could of trying to scare us. None. No doubt. That was our case. There of course may be others.
 
#52 ·
What made you think that their intention was to kill you?



What made you determine that it was not just some stupid kids shooting with no regard for safety. So instead of withdrawing out of their range. You just decided to return fire. And apparently the .22 short tracers were able to turn the tide on this engagement. And apparently as luck would have it, there were not only no KIAs but no WIAs as well. And certainly no LEO involvement as well. So tell us, how good was the windowpane that day, it sounds like it was really coming on strong.
 
#50 ·
WE REGRET TO INFORM YOU, OF THE DEATH OF YOUR SON, XXXX.
For the idiots who say they would have waited.
After yelling standing and or waving,there was another shot fired, before I hit the ground
a round would be in my chamber yelling did you see where it came from get down.
Are you sure it came from there, if another came and I thought I knew after checking my ammo I would send one round down range, wait and see, looking for a way out and get a cop.
 
#51 ·
We were a long long way from any law enforcement or telephone...and back then there were no cell phones.

The firing at us stopped thanks to our aggressiveness AFTER we warned the shooter we were there and he chose to open up on us.
 
#53 ·
Boy, the woods are full of snipers today...jeez Louise!

Okay, it may have been one stupid kid, or one malicious adult, but it was NOT "some stupid kids." That was easily determined by the rate of fire and the general sound of where the shots came from. Most anyone can determine the difference between a single shooter and a group of shooters.

The bluff above the river we were on was a long established "Unofficial gun range" used by many other's over a long long period of time. Anyone from the area knew that.

When we clearly and loudly and arm-wavingly warned that there were people where the unknown shooter was shooting the volume of fire did not cease, it resumed with a vengeance.

Application of Col. Cooper's principle of aggressiveness did cause a cease fire from the unknown shooter. The point of the original post.

Have a field day with the shoulda, woulda, coulda 50+ year quarterbacking and the "That's not what I would have done.

My intended point is that aggressiveness works against someone trying to kill you. Col. Cooper was right. Our group of four discovered that instinctively long before Col. Cooper put pen to paper on the subject.

I would guess any other shooter, put in the same situation of being - even accidently fired upon - who then clearly warned the offending shooter - and as a result of that warning received an increased volume of fire would not respond in a similar way.

Your mileage may vary...we lived through it.
 
#54 ·
Originally Posted by dgludwig View Post
There's a big difference between being shot at deliberately and being shot at inadvertently in terms of how one might/should respond. The op's account of the incident is unclear as to the intent of the shooter(s). When in doubt it is advisable to hold your fire, both for reasons of legality and/or morality.

And I submit that we were NOT there to know - or to draw conclusions.
I don't think you have a clue as to how foolish it is to shoot at or in the direction of other human beings of whom you have no sure evidence they intended any harm to you. Their being stupid and dangerous is not a license for you being stupid and dangerous. And, no, I don't have to have "been there" to draw this sane and reasonable conclusion: when in doubt it is wrong and stupid to shoot blindly toward people you can't be certain intended you harm.
 
#55 · (Edited)
I would guess any other shooter, put in the same situation of being - even accidently fired upon - who then clearly warned the offending shooter - and as a result of that warning received an increased volume of fire would not respond in a similar way.
Rest assured, you are not speaking for this shooter. There's nothing you have said that would compel me to shoot in the direction of other people, no matter how dangerous their actions were to me, if I wasn't absolutely certain they intended me harm. If "even accidentally fired upon" is evidence of a mind set that still hasn't grown up. If it required me to take cover and wait until dark before I notified le, so be it.
 
#56 · (Edited)
Hello??? Does anyone read?

When we heard bullets flying past us and low overhead we got up on the berm and waved and shouted in the direction of the fire. We were in a well known, common spot for shooting. After we waved and shouted in the direction of the fire the shooter opened up at us with a vengeance at a greatly increased rate of fire and a lower point of aim. There was NO accidental or stray shooting. Whomever it was intended to hit us for whatever crazy whacky reason.

We aggressively returned fire and the shooter ceased fire. Aggressiveness worked.

There was ABSOLUTELY no accidental or stay shooting involved. We were being shot at - gave clear signals to the shooter, and the shooters response was to increase the volume of fire. His rounds were coming right in at us. Anyone who's heard the sound of a bullet passing close by would have deduced the same thing.

Now, isn't there something on television you armchair quarterbacks would rather watch...it seems obvious that few are reading my original posts or clarifications...or have read Col. Cooper's suggestions for what to do when fired upon.

Just want to validate that IN MY OPINION Col. Cooper was right.

Back then we were deep in the woods with no cell phones or pay phones to call distant law enforcement. We INSTINCTIVELY let the shooter know there were four well armed folks up on that bluff that weren't gonna stand still and make easier targets for him.

The year was probably 1963...guessing long before some of you sucked air.
 
#57 ·
Just want to validate that IN MY OPINION Col. Cooper was right.

Back then we were deep in the woods with no cell phones or pay phones to call distant law enforcement. We INSTINCTIVELY let the shooter know there were four well armed folks up on that bluff that weren't gonna stand still and make easier targets for him.

The year was probably 1963...guessing long before some of you sucked air.
Col. Cooper never advised anyone to fire guns in the direction of unseen human beings having unknown motivations, even if they were being stupid and dangerous.

1963? Yeah, I remember now. I was serving in the US Air Force, stationed at Andersen AFB on the island of Guam; the same year President Kennedy was assassinated. Still wet behind the ears but still having enough sense to know that it is wrong and stupid to throw rounds downrange towards people I couldn't see nor know of their intentions.

As I opined earlier, time and circumstance is no excuse for being dumb and dangerous-no matter the size of your frontal lobes.
 
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