Oh, definitely. If I saw someone firing a Garand at a building like that, I'd wait for the ping and line up shots. A drunk or just violent attacker with a battle rifle is nothing to mess around with.
I know my thought was 'Garand, 16 shots, he had to reload once'.
Depending, I wouldn't even wait for the ping unless I felt that he wasn't targeting humans, and wasn't about to. Then I
might
try for a citizen's arrest with no shooting. 'DROP THE RIFLE. NOW!!!' when it's unloaded. If he goes for reload, shoot to stop(most likely kill).
Well, let's see. If I was in a parking lot and someone opened up with a higher caliber rifle,
I would immediately hit the ground behind a vehicle, obviously, because I don't know who they are shooting at. Since it was at
NIGHT, I would assume one might see a muzzleflash before doing so. Obviously, I'd not know what the hell they were shooting,
it could be anything from an AR-10 to a K-31 to sound like a thirty-caliber rifle's report. If I happened to hear the distinctive ping of a Garand's enbloc clip being ejected, a sound I know quite well, I would know they were temporarily out of ammunition. I would be surprised, as that'd be unexpected,
but I definitely know the sound.
So what makes more sense? Crouch behind a car and wait for someone to maybe reload, prowl around and shoot you if they saw you? Run, and get shot in the back as people tend to do in rampages? Or be proactive,
peek
when they're reloading, and shoot AT THEM to try to end the threat? There's a vast gulf between tacticool posing and just realizing "Hey, maybe I should do something to stop this guy from reloading, for my own good."
Because you know, that never works. Didn't work in the mall in SLC where the guy shot the guy rampaging with a shotgun as he was reloading. Didn't work for the lady in the church who shot the guy with an AK derivative. Nope. Returning fire never works.
Go ahead and forward whatever the hell you want. Nobody claimed to be tactically astute in some superhuman way, it just historically seems that crouching and hiding when someone starts a rampage never works that well. Neither does running, really. And that if something, whatever it is, cues you that they are currently reloading, it might be in your best interest and those of other innocent people to stop them from doing that.
i just bolded what i belieave to be the important bits that may have been missed. i believe that these types of newstories that get us thinking 'what would i do?' are an important part of training. its an 'if, then' type thing.
the point of the exercise is to know when you can do something and when you can't. scenario training is important. it helps you figure out all the diffrent situations you may be in and in danger.
what your missing is that it is an 'if, then' problem. i.e. if bad guy does this under these cercumstances, then i have these options and this one sounds best to me so..... if bad guy does this, then, i would do that" its all hypothetical. a thought exercise.
no we don't have a solid idea of 'this is what happened exactly', but i bet we have all been, at one time or another, in the parking lot of a club and can figure out a few diffrent ideas of how this played out and then place ourselves in that idea.
and i think we all agree that one option is to turn tail and try to get the hell out of dodge. but considering the club parking lots i have been in at closing, that option actually may be more difficult and more dangourous.
