Picking up a Dropped Gun (Essay Version mentioned in Ep #12)

[Rob Pincus]

Here is the written version that was referenced in Season 1, Episode 12 (which is re-running today):
http://www.downrange.tv/bestdefense/episode12.htm

Picking up a Dropped Gun….

-Rob Pincus, co-host The Best Defense

If you or someone you care about is trapped inside of an active shooting situation they are in an incredible amount of danger. If, during that incident they have an opportunity to protect themselves with a firearm that was found on the scene, we would certainly want them to have some knowledge of its use.
If you have someone in your family or workplace that you are interested in preparing to take advantage of an opportunity appropriately and safely and you aren’t able to convince them to get thorough training in the use of firearms, you still may be able to prepare them with a simple methodology for ensuring that any gun they find is ready to be used.

In developing this methodology and teaching it to “non-gun people”, we need to be sensitive to the fact that we are trying to make the best of an extremely bad situation. There are certainly situations where this may not help them, but this procedure is one that we believe will give them the best chance of being capable of using the most common firearms that they are likely to come across.

We know that the most common firearms carried by law enforcement or security are going to be so we can prepare a methodology for getting one into operation or finding out that it is not going to be of help. To have integrity, this method has to take into consider the fact that the person performing the task is not a “gun person,” they may never have shot or even held a pistol before. Our goal here is no small task: to prepare them to perform a set of complex fine motor skills, while in fear for their life, likely with at least one dead or dying person in close proximity and possibly after having witnessed the act of violence itself. The icing on the cake is that they are performing the task with a device that could kill them if they did it wrong. In fact, even if they do everything right with the firearm, their actions once they have it in their hand could get them killed by the criminal or even the responding police officers. Consider those last couple of sentences a reminder that this information is not to be taken lightly. In fact, you may come to the conclusion that encouraging someone trapped in an active shooter situation to pick up a gun is something that you don’t want to do. You may consider it foolish. Or, like us, you may think that being educated in how to take action to take control of your destiny puts the responsibility where it belongs: with the individual. You may feel that reasonable information delivered responsibly might empower someone to save themselves or others during a tragedy. You might even believe that this information could inspire someone to get even more information and become more capable of defending themselves. If you don’t agree with those last few sentences, please don’t distribute the information that follows. If someone tutored in these concepts were to hurt themselves or be hurt because of their attempt to act on the admittedly minimal education, we’re going to feel bad enough…. No need to drag you into it with a sense of doubt in the veracity of the reason we’re offering this information in the first place.

If you’ve come to the conclusion that after exhausting efforts to get someone to the range, to a proper training course or even to get them to a place where they can learn to operate the firearms themselves, you still feel it is worth the effort to give someone a guide to getting a gun working during these circumstances, you might photocopy the following page and hand it to those whom you wish to educate, and possibly empower, with this knowledge.


Picking up a dropped gun:

These Instructions are simple, in fact, as you read them prior to an event, they may seem ridiculously simple. During an active shooter situation, you are likely to be scared, confused and disoriented. “Break Glass in Case of Emergency” is also a simple instruction, but history has taught us that simple instructions are necessary if we expect tasks to be completed during extreme duress.

1. Keep the gun pointed away from your self and keep your fingers off the trigger.

2. Get a good grip on the gun as high as possible without interfering with the movement of the slide (top part of gun, which moves).

3. Pull the slide back fully and release.

4. If the slide won’t move, look for a lever to push out of the way.

5. After releasing the slide, look for levers on the slide with a red dot or an “F” for fire.

6. Keep gun pointed at floor, in front of you and stay where you are. If the threat appears in your area, extend the gun in and parallel with your line of sight. Focus on the threats high center chest. Touch and press the trigger repeatedly until the threat is no longer able to hurt you or others.

7. If you see law enforcement officers approaching or hear them close to you, put gun on ground and keep hands visible.