Mugger Gets Gun Disarmed
This story out of lovely Philadelphia, PA where a 45 year old man is being mugged by an attacker holding a pistol.
You can see from the photo that they are at an ATM in the lobby of a larger store.
The mugger has the gun held low by the victim’s side.
If you notice there is another customer walking in the door.
This causes the mugger to become distracted and he looks towards the door.
Our victim takes the opportunity to disarm the gun from the attacker.
The attacker immediately turns and runs for the door… which I have noticed is a common response to bad guys who get their gun disarmed.
The victim then shoots the would-be mugger twice before running up to him and pistol whipping him once. He then backs off.
The would-be mugger then runs literally through the door to escape.
The mugger was later found dead from his wounds a couple of blocks away.
Lessons
ATMs = bad news
Seriously I would avoid ATMs if at all possible. If you HAVE TO use one then find a busy area and be aware that the mugging won’t happen when all of those people are around. It will happen when the mugger follows you to your car right as you are getting inside.
Decide When You Would Do a Gun Disarm
And when you would not.
If you have a spouse and kids you will want to consider the risk of getting injured or killed attempting to do a gun disarm against a mugger if all that you will lose is $50.
I know what my answer is, you must decide for yourself.
Wait for the Right Opportunity
If you are going to go for the gun disarm then what the guy in this video did was spot on.
He waited for the attacker to be distracted, look away, and lower his guard. Then he made is move.
I’m fairly certain that the victim was not trained in gun disarms so if you do regularly train realistic gun disarms you should be encouraged that your chances are even better.
Make Space After the Disarm
Normally I tell my students to move away from the mugger after they have done the gun disarm.
However if they are jammed against a wall I instruct them to shield the gun at their far lower ribs while shoving the attacker away.
In this case the mugger turned and ran so he created the space for the victim.
After the victim shot twice he ran up to the mugger and hit him once with the pistol.
Now that was a bad tactical move. Imagine if the mugger got a good punch in on the victim and knocked the gun out of his hands. Or if the mugger disarmed the victim.
Remember the strength of a firearm is distance and when you close distance with it you put yourself in a vulnerable position.
Keep that space!
Shot in the Back???
Now you might be thinking, “hey he shot the guy as he was trying to escape… won’t he get into trouble for that?”
You are right to think that way. Once you are no longer in danger if you attack it generally would not be considered self-defense legally.
However in this case time from the disarm to the shots fired happened in a second.
You can’t expect your brain to go into deep decision making mode due to the stress of the situation and the super brief amount of time. So doing a disarm and then immediately shooting is perfectly fine.
Now if he had chased the mugger out the door and down the street and kept firing at him… well that isn’t going to look too good from a legal perspective.
Conclusion
So once again this looks like a win for the good guys and a loss for the bad guys of the world.
If more people fought back it would be a dangerous place to be a bad guy.
If you want to make your personal bubble safer for you and your family then come train and join the warrior class.
Until next time,
Brian
