24 June 02

Shooting incident reported by an acquaintance (not a student) in South Africa:

"Last week, while traveling by car across the country, my girlfriend and I needed a place to overnight. The town where we stopped was in a remote area, and we had to make do with staying in a ‘cheap' motel.

It was cold in our room, and my partner suggested we go out for a drink or two. The only restaurant/bar in town was seedy and dilapidated, but there was nowhere else to go. When we entered, there were several other customers sitting at tables and two mouthy drunks standing at the bar. In retrospect, we should have turned around and departed without delay, as they looked us over thoroughly as we stood in the doorway. Instead, we went in and sat down at a table. I was armed with a concealed 38Spl revolver.

We ordered drinks and conversed quietly at our table. Suddenly, one of the drunks left the bar and staggered toward us. He began loudly accusing my partner of standing him up on a date. She replied that he had her mixed up with someone else and that she had never seen him before. I chimed in that all we wanted was for him to leave us alone. He would have none of it! He grabbed my partner's arm and jerked her out of her chair. She screamed. I yelled at him to let her go, but he just became more enraged. I forced his hands off of her and pushed him back. He grabbed a steak knife from an adjacent table and lunged at me.

Drawing my pistol, I shouted at him to stop. He hesitated momentarily, then resumed his forward motion toward me. I fired two shots, hitting him in the right arm and shoulder. With an astonished look on his face, he staggered backwards and fell. The range was less than two meters. Poor shooting on my part. His injuries were not life threatening. My friend and I were shaken but not hurt.

We called the police, and they arrived an hour later. The suspect never lost consciousness. He was still cursing us as they took him away. We spent a few agonizing hours in a cold police station. I will have to go back there for the hearing."

Lessons:

>Stay out of bars, especially sleazy ones. Bars have more fights per square meter than most other places one can think of being. Armed or not, bars are good places to stay away from.

>When things begin to go in the toilet, get up and leave immediately or don't go in in the first place. As drunk as he was, this thug would have had great difficulty following the couple out the door and down the street. At some point, he would surely have lost interest and returned to the bar.

>Carry OC any time you carry a gun. A face full of OC may have abruptly ended this episode before anyone got hurt. Fox is the best brand.

>When you decide to shoot, hold nothing back. This thug should have been stitched up the body midline with multiple shots. The immediate infliction of multiple, fatal bullet wounds is the only appropriate response to an imminent, deadly threat. To do less is to undervalue your life.

/John