Has anyone ever run a simulation to see if a pause for reload gives people a reasonable chance to interrupt the shooter? Nick, you thinking what I’m thinking?

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77 COMMENTS

  1. I remember seeing a recent YouTube video by a police chief/local sheriff about magazine capacity and they did indeed test whether a person can drop a magazine and reload before somone can reach them from a short distance away. It isn’t without criticism but did demonstrate that a reload won’t exactly give a person a chance to attak or get away.

    • The salient point, I believe, is that even if it were possible, how many people in that situation and close enough to effect the takedown, have the presence of mind to watch the shooter and react immediately when the mag is empty? It’s a good bet your average spree killer isn’t near as good at reloading as the guys in the YouTube videos, but the good guys in the crowd (who haven’t been shot yet) are not Steven Segal or Bruce Willis, either.

      • the only people IMO who would have that situational awareness are veterans or police who have been in a live fire situation. mainly what i got from the video (below) is: dont be near a mass shooter, even if they only have model 1911.

      • That’s something I always laugh at. On one hand the antis say that someone with a CCW won’t be able to react, yada, yada; but then they’ll say that someone in a panicked crowd is going to be able to run up to an active shooter and tackle them.

    • This is exactly the reason why people should have at least 20 round mags, because they could be attacked by 2 or more home invaders. He is making the point about not restricting home defense.

  3. Biden needs to pause and reload his brain before shooting his mouth off. Of course, that wouldn’t do much good, since he’s limited to a 10-neuron “clip”.

    • thats exactly what i was thinking. being for or against a mag capacity, you can not say that telling someone what they should or should not have to defend themselves is not infringing their right.

    • Is that a Virginia State Trooper? This is great. Everyone is getting a copy of this, whether they want it or not. I might send it again tomorrow.

    • I don’t want to be argumentative, but I wouldn’t use the term “well done” to describe that video. To give just one example, in the “try to interrupt the reload” segment, they had the runner running toward the camera, which gives a very poor idea of how far he got. They should have had the camera positioned quite a ways behind the shooter, so the runner was running left-to-right across the camera view. If they want to include a closeup of the reload, do it as a picture-in-picture.

      That video is better than nothing, but it could have been much more effectively in 1/3 the time. So as Mr. Farago hinted, it would be great if TTAG did their own video demo. But please, involve someone who actually knows something about video.

      • Until there’s a better video out there, I stand by my description of “very well done.” To my knowledge, this is the only video out there. And, any video that effectively refutes the anti-liberty gun-banner’s silly notions is a GOOD THING.

        But, yeah… I could be picky, too. I chose to be grateful. 🙂

      • If done that way, it would require the camera be positioned a LOT further away from the shooter. I can tell pretty well how far the guy gets, so what’s the issue?

    • Is Joe making a prediction? Does he know something Giffords doctors don’t? Maybe she should buy a double barrel. If I were her I would turn down any meetings with Blindfire Joe for sure.

      • Its because the shooter was supposed to kill Gabby. They weren’t counting on a CCW to save her and its thrown off the script they were supposed to follow. Joe keeps forgetting the story they gave the press to report had to be revised.

  7. Pulling ridiculous anecdotes from “Fightin Joe” is alarmingly similar to taking life lessons from the tooth fairy. The poor simple twot is beside himself when confronted by facts.

  8. The only “weapons of war” on “America’s streets” are those in the hands of the police.

  9. Robert I was thinking this last week. We need to run a simulation with 10 round heck load seven rounds, why not. I think we already know the answer don’t we.

  10. Military arms channel on YouTube did one. I think the difference between one 20rd mag and two ten rounds was just over a second for a change

    • It was 0.5 seconds but he had the mags taped side by side. I suppose a real killer could do that too.

  11. Technically, that seems to have happened in Tuscon. According to the various news reports I read, it only happened because a) one or more potential victims were on the ground at his feet and b) he dropped the fresh mag on the ground.

    • Yeah, broken mag spring and failure to engage an unwieldy mag because of failure to practice tactical reload wouldn’t have anything to do with it either, naw, lol.

      FT hood shooter had people all around his feet as well, he had practised though, and the 3 who attempted to attack him unarmed 2 were killed one crippled for life, the normal result of attacking an active shooter with something other than a gun!

  15. “Has anyone ever run a simulation to see if a pause for reload gives people a reasonable chance to interrupt the shooter? Nick, you thinking what I’m thinking?”

    I think so, Brain. But where are we going to get fishing waders and five hundred gallons of whey at this time of night?

    • Exactly. I thought one of the guys looked around like ” did she die????” He’s a heartbeat away from holding the most powerful office in the world……

      • Joe is Obama’s insurance against assassination. No matter how much people may dislike the President no one wants Biden in charge.

  20. in addition to this test, i would like to see it done from a shotgun. i bet one could get 50 milk jugs from a single shot in under 2 minutes.

  21. First off it’s a suicide mission to charge an armed person who is shooting people, much less considering whether anyone on the scene is even close enough. Because every situation is unique, it’s impossible to predict what percentage of the time it could be successful.

    I fear the anti’s are leading us off track, the reloading pause is not their real argument. They don’t have the right to impose those magazine restrictions on us, they are testing this right and the retention of that right is the fight we need to fight and win.

  22. If you can get close enough to a shooter to place your hands on them as they reload, doesn’t mean you have the ability to successfully win.

    There are many videos of people attempting to disarm someone with a gun using their hands, only to end up murdered. Some of those people were physically superior.

    You need physical strength and knowledge in disarming techniques. Even then that does not equate to 100% success. Depending on your environment, it is best to run if you are unarmed. Obviously, the best situation is to be armed in the first place.

  23. His gaffes are so frequent that its not even pleasurable making fun of the goon anymore. God forbid should anything happen to the almighty and annointed Barrack Hussein. We’d be screwed. Wait, we already are…Damn, I just messed with my own head.

  24. Ole Al must have seen into the future.

    Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.

    Albert Einstein

  26. As I recall, the reason the 68 year old woman was able to wrestle the magazine out of Jared Laughner’s hand was because it was a 30 round magazine and therefore much longer than a standard magazine. She’d have never done that with a 10 round mag.

  27. The anti-gunners have pretty much given up on society if they think our only chance to stop carnage is in a 2 second break while swapping magazines

  28. good ole tail gunner joe. I will give up my hi capacity clips and be fine with a 10 round clip, but I am keeping my High capacity magazines you dummy.

  29. I found the Sheriff’s video above lacking. Clearly Jim was sandbagging on the speed of his shots to compensate for the reload time..and overdid it. They also staged the mags on the barrel.

    That said, it is unmistakable to me that any good test will reach the desired conclusion. It is really simple and safe to do. Step 1: Test mag reload speed for various skill levels/mag locations/weapons, and determine a min/average/max time. Step 2: Have a runner attempt to move when given a particular stimulus like a flashlight going on/off. If, for example, the average reload takes 1.5 seconds, and if someone can only move 5′ in that time…then unless you’re within 5′ of the shooter when reloading…you ain’t gonna make it. Frankly, that’s about the furthest you’ll actually get.

    All people have a “perception-reaction” time, which won’t be much under 1 second. If at all. This is well tested ground. So, only a portion of the mag reload time is available for movement. Of that, some is probably going to be wasted if the mover was crouching and has to stand (as I would be). Lastly, I think the test is “conservative” in the sense that the stimulus give (flashlight) is crystal clear. It is going to be far less clear for a runner when someone is reloading. If they have their head down, they have to wait to hear the shots not going and perhaps look up. The uncertainty of when a reload starts is less clear than when a flashlight goes on…and will therefore take more time.

    Under any reasonable set of numbers for a mag reload time…you aren’t going to get far.

    • So prove that a 30 -40 second variance will change the real issue, the response time of the police.

      See it took almost 5 minutes for the first phone call to police from when Lanza started shooting. Same thing happens in ANY incident, 2-5 minutes before first call.

      Then the police were what 1.5 miles away and took 3 minutes to get there, so we are up to 8 minutes total. Then at 10 minutes after he started shooting, Lanza killed himself.

      Then after 21 minutes, the first responder had reached engagement range and confirmed Lanza had offed himself. 21 Minutes, and some of your are argueing about 30-40 seconds, uh get real!

      See if one measures the time needed to retrace Lanzas steps for distance, rooms entered, actions, shooting, reloads, he only technically needed 4 minutes to do everything he did, giving him right at 6 minutes to goof off, screw up and take his time. 30 -40 seconds difference doesnt’ mean didley!

      You cant even prove all shooters wont be as fast or slower.

      Review the logs of ANY active shooter response and you wil see the common time for response just to arrive on site is 10-12 minutes.

      Then a 30-40 second variance on smaller capacity magazines doesnt matter, response time by the police does, which using such timelines shows unless they have the pre-cog abilities of science fictional movies like Minority report, just aint happening.

      Of course you can review firearm discharge reports by the police and review how on avg. they hit their target 15% of the time.

      So lets see 30 round magazine x 15% = 4.5 rounds on avg. will hit their target.

      20 round magazine x 15% = 3 rounds on avg. will hit their target.

      The antis keep claiming we are so horribly trained, force them to make a choice, we are poor shots, or we are equally trained to the levels of the police! (they really hate this arguement). If we are worse shots, the hit % goes down, making the justification for such standard magazine sizes of 13, 15, 17, 20 & 30 all the more mathematically logical!

      Hmmm, how many shots are used to stop 1 attacker on avg.? Why does every single defensive course use the “shoot till they stop mantra”?

      Review of Guns Save Lives between 12/26/12 to 2/15/13 show 76 self defense incidents. 26 had 2 attackers, 8 had 3 to 5 attackers, or 47% of incidents was mutliple attackers. Anyone care to review police incidents to see how that compares?

      In fact would bet that civilian encounter a higer percentage of multiple attackers, like these self defense incidents with an AR-15 no less.

      http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/story/21202112/wild-shootout-at-inkster-tax-business-caught-on-camera

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_rz2wBYin4 Feb 17, 2009 AZ 3-4 bad

      Use that info, antis hate simple math that isn’t Kenyesian based!

    • The staging of the mags doesn’t concern me too much. Having them in mag pouches would be about as fast for someone who’s practiced a little and there are some fairly gigantic mag pouches out there, like this quad model from Blade-Tech: http://shop.blade-tech.com/product_info.php?cPath=38_60_66&products_id=214#.UU3wdofvvEJ

      With one mag in the gun, and four in the pouches and assuming no topping off, that’s fifty rounds, and with a bit of practice you can get those mags out of the pouches and oriented correctly by feel, which would speed up, not slow down the reload.

      Overall, the test isn’t perfect, but it’s a reasonable demonstration that the logic is flawed to begin with and the underlying premise is hopelessly optimistic. Unless the shooter experiences a significant equipment malfunction, such as the one Loughner did, the three seconds or so each mag change is not going to allow anyone to respond.

      Combining that with Jarhead’s point, that the important thing is how long does it take before someone with a realistic chance of stopping the attack arrives on scene. If we’re depending on the police, most of the time it’s going to be way too late. Unarmed people aren’t going to be able to effectively intervene 99.9% of the time. The most reliable response is to have the defenders be the people who are guaranteed to be there from minute zero, the intended targets.

  30. The weapon of war bit is classic misdirection. Just about every firearm is related to or descended from military firearms. Knives, swords, bows, crossbows, hands, feet, boiling water and rocks have been used in war. Come to think of it, certain pols wanted to ban the crossbow back in the Middle Ages. What these people really want is to turn us into rabbits.

    And another thing: the way the Dems get their panties in a wad over armed civilians, it makes them look like the gibbering, paranoid, black-helicopter nuts they try to claim the rest of us are.

    • Good point. This is especially true for today’s hunting rifles — how many soldiers died who were at the wrong end of bolt action rifle? And shotguns were considered so horrific that when the US announced they were going to arm doughboys with them during WWI, the Imperial German government announced that would shoot any American captured who was so-armed. http://www.m4carbine.net/showthread.php?t=61288. These weapons — devastating battlefield weapons or weapons considered too inhumane for the battlefield — however, are somehow inviolate to anti-2s, who swear they don’t want to take away hunters’ guns.

  31. Once again, due to defective gunpowder for brains, Joe’s double-barreled mouth misfires.

  32. Does anyone else find it offensive that Gabby has become an anti-gun sock puppet?

    I don’t mean any disrespect, but anyone who has heard her speak will attest she is not mentally capable of functioning without a guardian. But NPR, etc love the soundbites of Gabby “struggling to speak out against guns.”

    Makes me sick to my stomach every time I hear it.

  33. Why is it that the grabbers have no problem trotting out hypothetical situations involving a hero disarming a mad man while he pauses (for a half-second) to reload, but they can’t wrap their heads around the possibility that an armed civilian could do the same? When James Holmes’ rifle malfunctioned, did any of the people in the movie theater try to take him down? Nope. How different might that have been if someone actually had a chance to shoot back?

  34. Lead by example. Let’s see the politicians call for LE and the military to be the first to give up their 10+ round magazines.

  35. Lets ask these friggin idiots whether or not they would, or would not, prefer to have a CWC in the crowd if some psycho starts slinging lead and killing innocent civilians. Only an idiot would response in the negative. I guarantee I could and would drop their ass in a heartbeat. If you carry you need to be mentally prepared to act, and maintain situational awareness whenever you are in public if you are carrying.

  36. If weapons of war (aka AR 15s) have no business on America’s streets, then why do we see the very same weapons of war all over the news when they’re carried by police officers that are responding to mass shootings and similarly armed criminals wearing body armor?

    Mr. Biden, if you are going to spout hypocritical BS, then by all means, start your new campaign by relieving the the police and government agencies (FBI and CIA) that use weapons of war and lead by example.

    When we’re summarily overrun with the criminal element and the cartel, then the reasonably-minded militia will come to the rescue armed with the same “weapons of war” that you sought to ban. Read up on some history.

    Would you please stop forgetting that the law abiding citizen faces the same dangers from the very same criminals that the police do on America’s streets? We have thousands of DGUs every year. Why don’t you look up those stats while Obama is busy misconstruing others for his trite anti-2A campaign.

    The streets are where law-abiding citizens live, Mr. Vice President, are simply not the same as the streets you live on. Just because you live in a gated community with armed guards, doesn’t mean you get to project your narrow-minded view of the the world on the average citizen that doesn’t have the luxury of your amenities.

    The day you lost your war on the 2nd Amendment was the day you tried to legislate it away from your high point of view on Capitol Hill instead of familiarizing yourself with the average middle class American and where they live and educating yourselves on the common sense and practical reasons we have for owning firearms and exercising our 2nd Amendment rights.

    The average American lives in a world where the police aren’t there all the time and where we are responsible for our own lives and the lives of those we care about. Violence is very much a reality and self-defense is very much a natural right.

    So, with respect, FOAD.

  37. Let me see if I can follow the logic:

    People in a mass shooting will have the presence of mind to wait until a mass shooter shoots 7 to 10 other people standing next to them and then charge the shooter while he’s reloading —

    HOWEVER these same people will not have the presence of mind to effectively use a firearm of their own to shoot the murderer….

  40. What is the matter with you people. Read a dictionary, read a book, get some facts. Here’s Merriam-Webster’s definition: mor·tal·ly
    /ˈmôrtl-ē/
    Adverb

    In such a manner as to cause death.
    Very intensely or seriously.

    Gabby Gifford was mortally wounded. Joe Biden is smarter than you are.

  41. Seems I’m very late to this thread but I can’t help myself. This has been done over and over as a practical pistol match and the simple answer is NO! A sprinter with no hesitation or fear can’t close any reasonable distance during a mag change. Anyone close enough to attempt a take down is already way to close to avoid being shot in the first place. In the fog of an actual event anything is possible, but running down the shooter during a mag change is the stuff that the CMOH is awarded for, usually posthumously.

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