In Israel, south of Jerusalem, an Israeli Defense Force reservist (IDFer) was driving when he heard the sound of a crash behind him.  He looked in the mirror and saw a vehicle had driven into a bus stop.  He stopped his car and quickly exited and saw wounded people with blood on them. Then, he saw a man get out of the offending vehicle but he did not know if this was an attacker or an accident victim.  When someone shouted, ‘He has a knife,’ the IDFer drew his concealed pistol, chambered a round, held it in two hands at eye-level, and confronted the terrorist.  The IDFer shouted for the attacker to stop, in Arabic.  Instead, the attacker began what was described by the IDFer as “a frenzied run toward me.” The IDFer fired two shots at the attacker’s legs and the IDFer believes at least one of them hit.  But the attacker kept running so, while backpedaling, the IDFer shot him in the center of mass, and the attacker fell.

The IDFer added, “In my opinion, he was drugged. I shouted at him, and he continued advancing toward me. I shot him, and he fell. The word 'neutralized' is a euphemism; it has no place in this context. Terrorists must be killed.”

Perhaps the IDFer was initially following Joe Biden’s advice to shoot assailants, “in the leg instead of the heart.”  Or, at one time, Israelis were instructed to “shoot at the feet first.” Whichever the case, the IDFer was unwisely adhering to bad advice.

When one’s life is directly and imminently threatened, one needs to stop the threatening individual as quickly as possible. Most would agree that the best way to stop an individual is to inflict lethal wounds, preferably multiple lethal wounds!  And the best way to do that is shooting ‘center mass.’

A favorite feature of old westerns was for the ‘good guy’ to shoot the gun out of the hand of the ‘bad guy’, usually without wounding the ‘bad guy,’ just disarming him.  Unless you have a death wish, don’t try that in real life.

And even more menacing to your continued good health is to “shoot to wound.”  Attempting to use your pistol to inflict wounds intended to be “non-fatal” endangers your own life and needlessly prolongs the incident.

When someone gets a gun for protection, they need to realize that stopping a threatening individual almost always involves inflicting grievous wounds that will likely end the attacker’s life.  An unpleasant but necessary fact, to be considered. Before an incident happens, gun owners need to think about when to use lethal force.  It should be used as a last resort.