Retired Security Guard Charged In Park Shooting

[Raccoon]

Charges were filed against a retired security guard, and he now faces first degree manslaughter. Kenneth Gumm, 76 yrs old, claims that he acted in self defense to protect himself.


http://kotv.com/news/local/story/?id=136732

[VegasGeorge]

This is a sad situation. I noticed two parts of the article that I want to comment on:

"I pulled out my gun and pointed it at him and I thought that would deescalate the situation ..."

This illustrates a common and potentially devastating misconception about use of a firearm. Pulling out the gun ALWAYS escalates the situation. It never deescalates it. Drawing the weapon is a step up in the confrontational scenario. In fact, when you draw the gun, you completely lose control of the situation. From that point on, everything depends on what the other guy does. Once its out, you have to defend the gun. You cannot allow the other guy to get it. As in the reported case, if the other guy keeps coming at you, you have to shoot him. You have no other choice. But, it might not be a legally justified shooting.

"He could have shot him in the arm or the leg ..."

This illustrates a common misunderstanding about guns and shooting. The non-shooting public thinks its like the movies, where you can just shoot the gun out of the bad guy's hand. When, in reality, it's darn hard to even hit a man with a pistol shot in an emergency situation with the adrenaline pumping. I recall seeing a video of a police vehicle stop that turned into a gunfight. The cop was on one side of the stopped vehicle, and the bad guy was on the other side. They were shooting at each other across the hood of the car. They were separated by not more than 10 feet. They each emptied their gun without scoring a hit on the other man.

[Bill of Rights]

"He could have shot him in the arm or the leg ..."

This illustrates a common misunderstanding about guns and shooting. The non-shooting public thinks its like the movies, where you can just shoot the gun out of the bad guy's hand. When, in reality, it's darn hard to even hit a man with a pistol shot in an emergency situation with the adrenaline pumping. I recall seeing a video of a police vehicle stop that turned into a gunfight. The cop was on one side of the stopped vehicle, and the bad guy was on the other side. They were shooting at each other across the hood of the car. They were separated by not more than 10 feet. They each emptied their gun without scoring a hit on the other man.

Exactly correct, and if I may add another point, I recently was reading something about targeting, and the idea was proposed that only a hit between the eyes and the mouth could be expected to be instantly fatal, dropping the BG before he had time to react or get off a "shot from the grave". A hit in an arm or leg will NOT reliably stop the threat, and that is the goal; to stop the threat. If it is possible to do this by presenting the weapon, good, but don't count on this to be the case. If you have to rack the shotgun to "get their attention", but that succeeds in stopping the threat, you win, but the more likely scenario is that if the gun comes out, the firing pin's going to have to do it's job.

It is my sincere hope that this is never the case for anyone here.

Blessings,
M

[Stubob]

This is very sad indeed. I will be watching this one as it may have many simular things with the Duke DA.

This was emailed to us:

Tulsa's Mayor attended the Anti-Gun meetings and this may be a direct result of her wanting to flex her anti-gun position.

Interesting point. We will be watching the case, and it shows that even though you follow the law you may be a victim of a over aggressive DA that has a political hammer to throw.