Riley Bowman: And welcome to the concealed carry podcast part of the concealed carry.com network
Riley Bowman: brought to you by hk today is
Riley Bowman: friday april 24th 2026 as of the recording of this episode we are recording
Riley Bowman: live as usual on youtube facebook but many of you listen to us on the podcast
Riley Bowman: feed we're glad to be with you regardless of how you're watching or listening
Riley Bowman: i'm your host riley bowman joined today by jacob paulson howdy
Riley Bowman: And we've got a great episode topic here lined up for you today.
Riley Bowman: We're kind of revisiting something we, well, we've probably talked about multiple
Riley Bowman: times over the years. We did a dedicated episode on this back in the first year of the podcast.
Riley Bowman: So we're bringing it back. The third option is the title of this.
Riley Bowman: Why shooting the killer wound is wrong.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah.
Riley Bowman: It's bad. Yeah, we're going to talk about that. So stick around.
Riley Bowman: You want to hear what our take is on this whole thing.
Riley Bowman: We're going to address a lot of the comments and phrases that get thrown around
Riley Bowman: about this particular topic.
Riley Bowman: We see it all the time. We want to make sure we set you straight.
Riley Bowman: But first, today's episode is sponsored by the 2026 Guardian Conference.
Riley Bowman: Hope to see you there. Jacob's sporting the shirt from last year's conference.
Jacob Paulsen: It is a good shirt. It's my favorite one.
Riley Bowman: Yeah. Yeah. Me too. I like it a lot too. Each year we have a new shirt,
Riley Bowman: a unique shirt for each year of the conference. So all attendees get a shirt.
Riley Bowman: That's why you should attend. You get a shirt. Yeah.
Jacob Paulsen: So people will do crazy things for shirts. I was at the NRA annual meeting last
Jacob Paulsen: week, and lots of these boots will give you shirts out if you do certain things.
Jacob Paulsen: Oh, yeah, yeah. You enter the raffle or buy a raffle ticket or whatever the thing is.
Jacob Paulsen: And people lose their minds over a free shirt. Right. It's crazy.
Riley Bowman: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, well, it's a thing.
Riley Bowman: So come to the conference to get a shirt, but also to get three days of awesome,
Riley Bowman: high-quality, world-class training with amazing instructors.
Riley Bowman: And we will feed you too while you're there yeah yeah food included yeah yeah lodging
Jacob Paulsen: Included as well if you don't mind sleeping in the dirt.
Riley Bowman: At the range right right yeah you can that is that's great point you can stay
Riley Bowman: right there on site if you'd like to do so if you bring
Jacob Paulsen: A tent then lodging is is on us.
Riley Bowman: Yeah there you go uh you can also bring a camper or rv and there's uh rv sites
Riley Bowman: and hookups uh that you can i think it's power and water i think that's yeah
Riley Bowman: i had i had power power and water on my RV last year.
Jacob Paulsen: It is $10 a night on that. So not included, but highly discounted.
Riley Bowman: Yeah, yeah. So in full disclosure, I don't recall anybody actually collecting any money for me.
Jacob Paulsen: Oh, Riley ripped off the gun range.
Riley Bowman: I asked, I was like, who do I get with? And I didn't get a response.
Jacob Paulsen: Okay, well, they may be less than good at enforcing the $10 a night.
Riley Bowman: I'm going to have to pay double next year to make up. So anyway,
Riley Bowman: lodging included, or maybe not, I don't know, anyway.
Riley Bowman: Guys, I hope to see you in Oklahoma City in September of this year.
Riley Bowman: So come join us. September, was it the 18th, 19th, and 20th at Oklahoma City
Riley Bowman: Gun Club, a fabulous range and facility.
Riley Bowman: We've got combatives courses, legal courses, medical courses,
Riley Bowman: shooting courses, all kinds of things that you're going to want to be a part of.
Riley Bowman: And the community is fantastic. The people are awesome.
Riley Bowman: The meals are excellent. And as we mentioned, pretty much every meal included
Riley Bowman: throughout the three days of the event. We got a basic continental breakfast each morning.
Riley Bowman: You know, it's pretty decent. We got muffins.
Jacob Paulsen: There's some orange juice.
Riley Bowman: Orange juice, milk, coffee is provided.
Jacob Paulsen: Some oranges, bananas.
Riley Bowman: Right, yeah. And then lunches are provided for sure are the three days of training.
Riley Bowman: Sandwiches and chips and, you know, things like that that you kind of expect.
Riley Bowman: And then we've got like a barbecue dinner at least
Riley Bowman: for VIP members but hey that you shouldn't be
Riley Bowman: at the Guardian Conference and not be a Guardian Nation member
Riley Bowman: that's true because you're saving money by being a Guardian Nation member and
Riley Bowman: buying a Guardian Conference ticket and then you're going to get access to the
Riley Bowman: VIP dinner which is barbecue dinner and then you're going to have a couple other
Riley Bowman: dinners provided by sponsors of the event on Friday and Sunday night and yeah so everybody's
Jacob Paulsen: He's gonna get three dinners, three breakfasts, and three lunches.
Jacob Paulsen: VIP members, Guardian Nation members, are gonna get four dinners instead of three.
Riley Bowman: That's where we're gonna change that. Yeah, because there's Thursday night.
Jacob Paulsen: Because we also feed dinner on Thursday night.
Riley Bowman: Thursday night, yeah. Which is usually pizza, if I recall. Yep.
Riley Bowman: So guys, come and join us. Train hard for three days, get fed,
Riley Bowman: get a free t-shirt, and we'll see you there.
Riley Bowman: Guardianconference.com. Today's episode also sponsored by the ReadyUpGear Dummy Rounds.
Riley Bowman: So, what do you want to tell folks about the dummy rounds?
Jacob Paulsen: They're amazing. Today, this morning, I had someone call me.
Jacob Paulsen: Someone whose name, someone who's been on this podcast as a guest.
Jacob Paulsen: And they called me up and they're like, hey, this company just sent me some sample dummy rounds.
Jacob Paulsen: And they're absolutely trash.
Jacob Paulsen: But people think they're good. And I was like, well, make some trash.
Jacob Paulsen: And like, well, I cut this thing in half, and it's got this weird,
Jacob Paulsen: like, they put in, like, a plug, a plastic plug into the brass shell casing.
Jacob Paulsen: And then they took another piece, and they shoved it into the primer pocket,
Jacob Paulsen: and they put, like, an epoxy, like a glue resin over that.
Jacob Paulsen: So what your firing pin is actually hitting in the primer pocket is a glue.
Jacob Paulsen: Okay. But then there's a bunch of hollow space in the middle.
Jacob Paulsen: It's like it took very little work to just take some pliers and pop the little plug out.
Jacob Paulsen: And the polymer itself wasn't a good quality. So the point I'm trying to make is what?
Jacob Paulsen: There's just tons of junk on the marketplace and dummy ammo is a thing that I find highly valuable.
Jacob Paulsen: The way I use it the most is to generate malfunctions in my live fire training
Jacob Paulsen: but there's other applications and the ReadyUp Gear dummy rounds are they're the Cadillac, man.
Jacob Paulsen: They're not priced like a Cadillac but they are truly, in my opinion,
Jacob Paulsen: they're the best dummy ammo you can get.
Riley Bowman: For sure. And available in more calibers now than what they used to be.
Riley Bowman: So we've got 9mm, .45, .40, .380, .38 Special, or .357 Magnum. It'll work in either.
Riley Bowman: And .223 or .556.
Jacob Paulsen: You did it. That's the list.
Riley Bowman: Yep. And we'll have .308 soon.
Jacob Paulsen: Yes, soon.
Riley Bowman: Yep. I mean, it's been developed, so it should be here hopefully soon.
Jacob Paulsen: Yep, just got to run the production run.
Riley Bowman: Yep, yep. It costs some money to do that, so we'll get to that hopefully soon.
Riley Bowman: So that's coming, and perhaps some other calibers down the road?
Jacob Paulsen: Perhaps.
Riley Bowman: Perhaps. We'll see. Awesome, guys. Where can you find ReadyUpGear dummy ammo or dummy rounds?
Riley Bowman: Go to ReadyUpGear.com. You'll find them right there. I'm not going to give a
Riley Bowman: specific link to that. Just go to ReadyUpGear.com, and you'll find them.
Jacob Paulsen: All right.
Riley Bowman: Before we get into the topic, though, what's new or upcoming or things that are, you know, just new.
Jacob Paulsen: We're a week away from the Girl and a Gun National Conference.
Jacob Paulsen: We'll be there on Thursday, which is the vendor day.
Jacob Paulsen: They kind of have what they call like Tent City. There's a bunch of vendors
Jacob Paulsen: set up there, and so we'll be there as well.
Jacob Paulsen: So if you're going to the Girl and a Gun National Conference,
Jacob Paulsen: which I think like 900 people show up to that event, including staff and instructors,
Jacob Paulsen: then we hope to see you there. We hope you swing by and say hi.
Jacob Paulsen: And we always see a lot of great folk there in addition to attendees and staff.
Jacob Paulsen: There's also the instructors.
Jacob Paulsen: And so it's just a great place to see some friends. So I hope to see you in,
Jacob Paulsen: you know, what is effectively Grand Junction, Colorado here in about a week.
Riley Bowman: Cool.
Jacob Paulsen: That's, that's one other thing is, you know, this morning,
Jacob Paulsen: we hit a kind of an important milestone to company. It's a little bit embarrassing
Jacob Paulsen: to admit it out loud, but just to be vulnerable for a second,
Jacob Paulsen: since the war broke out in Ukraine, we've struggled to stay up on medical orders
Jacob Paulsen: on mountainmedmedical.com and concealedcarry.com.
Jacob Paulsen: And there's been times when we were kind of in the green and then back in the
Jacob Paulsen: red and just in terms of backorder situation.
Jacob Paulsen: And it's tough because you don't want people that have to wait weeks to get
Jacob Paulsen: their order that they place on the website.
Jacob Paulsen: But this morning we hit an important milestone where nothing is backordered.
Jacob Paulsen: Like everything on the medical side is in stock and in stock at a level that is sustainable.
Jacob Paulsen: Not like, oh, we got one of these, you know, kind of thing.
Jacob Paulsen: So we're really excited right now. You could go to mountainmanmedical.com.
Jacob Paulsen: You can buy any med kit and it would be in stock and it would ship to you in
Jacob Paulsen: less than two business days.
Riley Bowman: Like we've shipped kits today that were bought.
Jacob Paulsen: This morning. Today. Yep.
Riley Bowman: So this is super exciting. I was going to, I was thinking, Jacob,
Riley Bowman: that you were actually going to go back and not just start with the Ukraine
Riley Bowman: war, but really, if you recall, Mountain Man Medical was launched in what, February, 2020?
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah, February, 2020.
Riley Bowman: And like a month later, the whole country shuts down. Yeah. And so it was actually
Riley Bowman: a challenge being in stock with things.
Jacob Paulsen: Gloves. Gloves were a nightmare for a while. Gauze and bandages were a huge problem.
Riley Bowman: Because worldwide, I mean, you had huge demand for medical supplies,
Riley Bowman: but then you also had production and supply chain issues.
Jacob Paulsen: It just got way more expensive, and those prices never came down.
Jacob Paulsen: But the Ukraine really, like that war really marked an issue with things like
Jacob Paulsen: chest seals and tourniquets.
Riley Bowman: And certain bandages.
Jacob Paulsen: Certain managers like Elias yeah so it yes it's just been and then Israel like,
Jacob Paulsen: to be just political for a second, like when we hand money out to these other
Jacob Paulsen: countries, we expect them to spend it here.
Jacob Paulsen: So like Biden, I don't know how many billions he gave to Ukraine,
Jacob Paulsen: but my guess is a significant percentage, like 80% of that came right back to the U.S., to U.S.
Jacob Paulsen: Companies who sold things because if the U.S. isn't at war, then we have a huge
Jacob Paulsen: industry, probably the second largest industry in our nation that is suffering.
Jacob Paulsen: So we need someone to be at war that's getting U.S. dollars They can turn around
Jacob Paulsen: and use it to buy stuff in America that they need for war.
Jacob Paulsen: And that's all good maybe on the political spectrum. But yeah,
Jacob Paulsen: it caused havoc with our supply chain. And so it's just nice to kind of get ahead of it.
Riley Bowman: So we are thrilled to be in the black, you know, with the inventory that we have. Yep. Yeah.
Jacob Paulsen: Good thing.
Riley Bowman: So mountainmedical.com, I guess, third sponsor of the episode. Aha.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah. Oops.
Riley Bowman: Yeah. I think we mentioned it last week, but I'm going to mention it again that,
Riley Bowman: you know, it's still a thing.
Riley Bowman: And that is the redesigned Guardian University platform.
Riley Bowman: That's a big deal. And continuing to ongoing, you know, with some work there.
Riley Bowman: But it's looking really slick right now.
Riley Bowman: And so we hope that you guys will check out Guardian University.
Riley Bowman: Go to concealedcarry.com, and there's a link right there in the top button.
Jacob Paulsen: If you're on your phone, then it's in the black menu. If you're on the desktop,
Jacob Paulsen: then you'll just see the word, Guardian University.
Riley Bowman: Yeah, yeah. So click on Guardian University, and let us know what you think
Riley Bowman: about the newly redesigned video layout and everything there.
Riley Bowman: And you did the math. There's like 2,000-something videos.
Jacob Paulsen: There's a little over 2,000 right now, and we're a little bit backlogged.
Jacob Paulsen: We're going to add in some older stuff. so once we get all that stuff added
Jacob Paulsen: they'll probably be in the ballpark of like 2200 videos.
Riley Bowman: It's tons man yeah it's crazy that represents like the last 10 years plus of
Riley Bowman: of work of filming yeah so and it's like shocking when you told me that number
Riley Bowman: i'm like wow like we've we've made a lot of videos over the years we've
Jacob Paulsen: Hit the record button on a camera many times.
Riley Bowman: Uh all past episodes of the podcast are in there and uh not all of
Jacob Paulsen: Them actually because we didn't start recording videos of the.
Riley Bowman: Podcast yeah yeah so
Jacob Paulsen: Any video anytime the podcast was filmed.
Riley Bowman: Right uh yes it's is in there it's like
Jacob Paulsen: 330 ish podcast video recordings out of the 700 or something.
Riley Bowman: Episodes we've done yeah and i was reminded too i saw
Riley Bowman: you know recently like like things like shop talk which was kind
Riley Bowman: of i i enjoyed doing the shop talk uh videos uh it was kind of a low key you
Riley Bowman: know just like what we're gonna talk about today and find something interesting
Riley Bowman: or unique maybe in the actual shop there you know a product to highlight and
Riley Bowman: be like hey we're gonna talk about dummy rounds today for instance speaking
Riley Bowman: of should just like redo that one because uh
Jacob Paulsen: We probably could redo all of them that's okay.
Riley Bowman: Yeah so anyway guys enough about that but uh we're excited to be with you uh
Riley Bowman: yeah so let's get into the topic the third option that's that's what we're here
Riley Bowman: to talk about. That's really where we want to focus.
Riley Bowman: But let's start with where we get in trouble. And so there's a couple of phrases,
Riley Bowman: I guess we'll call them, that get people in trouble.
Riley Bowman: And so we want to make sure we set the record straight on this.
Riley Bowman: What I'm referring to is things like shoot to kill, or why didn't you just shoot
Riley Bowman: to wound him? Shoot him in the leg.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah. And I think, I don't know
Jacob Paulsen: this because relatively I'm young in this community, in this industry.
Jacob Paulsen: But here's my hypothesis of how this started.
Jacob Paulsen: My hypothesis is that when...
Jacob Paulsen: Guns for self-defense started to become a bigger deal, which we're really talking like late 90s even.
Jacob Paulsen: But when guns for self-defense started to really kind of pick up,
Jacob Paulsen: concealed carry started to be a thing in various states.
Jacob Paulsen: Classes started to be a thing. We're teaching people. Yeah, what happens is
Jacob Paulsen: that you have a lot of students basically saying, like, can I just shoot them in the leg?
Jacob Paulsen: Like basically this, like, I don't want to kill someone, so can I just injure them kind of thing?
Jacob Paulsen: And so instructors, again, I'm making all this up. This is a hypothesis.
Jacob Paulsen: But instructors basically start to adapt this mantra of, no,
Jacob Paulsen: you need to shoot to kill.
Jacob Paulsen: And what they really intended, what they were trying to communicate at the time
Jacob Paulsen: was, we need to put bullets in the places of the body that are the vital areas
Jacob Paulsen: that are most likely to actually cause a physiological stop.
Jacob Paulsen: And we'll maybe come back to that.
Jacob Paulsen: But unfortunately, like a lot of these kind of cliche type phrases,
Jacob Paulsen: it took on a life of its own and it became a thing.
Riley Bowman: Yeah.
Jacob Paulsen: And at a literal level, unfortunately, if you don't understand maybe what was
Jacob Paulsen: intended in the communication, and again, it's a hypothesis.
Jacob Paulsen: I don't really know what was intended. I'm just guessing that's how it came to be.
Jacob Paulsen: But on its own, if you just see it on face value, that's literal sense.
Jacob Paulsen: But what it says is you're supposed to shoot in a way consistent with the objective of taking a life.
Riley Bowman: Right, right. I agree. That's my perception as well is that it became very popularized.
Riley Bowman: And who knows where it started or how far back it goes. But definitely it was
Riley Bowman: a cliche in 1970s, 1980s, even into the 90s, even somewhat today.
Riley Bowman: But especially like, I mean, you think of some of the great action films from
Riley Bowman: like the 80s and how many scenes that exist,
Riley Bowman: you know, where somebody, you know, shoots somebody in the hand or in the arm
Riley Bowman: or in the leg or something like that shoots a gun out of somebody's hand as
Riley Bowman: a viable, you know, defensive option.
Riley Bowman: And so then like the, the counter to that, well, we'll just shoot them in the
Riley Bowman: leg or arm thing is no, no, no, no, no, no. You must shoot to kill.
Riley Bowman: And as you described, you know, what we mean or what was intended by that is
Riley Bowman: you shoot in a, in a manner in which it very well likely end up resulting in death. Right.
Riley Bowman: But, but, but there's a mindset piece here that we've got to figure out.
Riley Bowman: That's really where the bulk of this discussion lies is,
Riley Bowman: Is there's a difference in me shooting with the intent to kill.
Riley Bowman: Like I want to kill you versus I want to shoot to prevent or stop or whatever.
Riley Bowman: The thing that you're doing to me or to somebody else. Right.
Riley Bowman: And, you know, ideally, like if I can shoot you, actually, I'd rather not shoot any shots at all.
Jacob Paulsen: That's not preferable.
Riley Bowman: Yeah, that would be the preference for sure. Right. The point here is that we
Riley Bowman: carry a gun in defense for defense,
Riley Bowman: and the whole point of that is to stop violent threats or attacks against people,
Riley Bowman: against good people, law-abiding people.
Jacob Paulsen: Absolutely. This mistaken cliche is still alive, and I think this is important
Jacob Paulsen: to recognize because I don't know who's listening or what you think when you hear this.
Jacob Paulsen: But like all the time, I have students come to my classes and we're talking
Jacob Paulsen: about the legal whatever and tactics, whatever the thing might be that comes up.
Jacob Paulsen: And it is common, very common for a student to say, well, I was told or my last
Jacob Paulsen: instructor told me, whatever, that, you know, if you're going to shoot,
Jacob Paulsen: like you need to shoot to kill.
Jacob Paulsen: I hear that still all the time. So it is a highly prevalent and still popularized concept.
Jacob Paulsen: And when they say it, when they raise their hand and say, well,
Jacob Paulsen: I was told if you shoot someone, you've got to shoot to kill,
Jacob Paulsen: their mind, the concept that they're holding their brain is not,
Jacob Paulsen: oh, we need to shoot vital areas.
Jacob Paulsen: The concept they're holding their brain is like, dead men tell no tells.
Jacob Paulsen: And that's a part of the problem. And if I can go here now, this is the first,
Jacob Paulsen: I think, thing that has to be addressed.
Jacob Paulsen: If you are of the opinion that you should be shooting to kill,
Jacob Paulsen: I think the first thing we have to address is this, I'll call it legal myth.
Jacob Paulsen: This idea that, well, if.
Jacob Paulsen: If we kill the person, if we take their life, then we reduce our risk of legal action.
Jacob Paulsen: Dead men tell no tales. If I'm the only one who's got a story,
Jacob Paulsen: no one can say otherwise.
Jacob Paulsen: Whatever the thinking is.
Jacob Paulsen: There's an obvious moral issue here, right? Massive moral issue.
Jacob Paulsen: You're more concerned with your potential legal consequences than you are with
Jacob Paulsen: taking the life of another human.
Jacob Paulsen: So that's its own little animal. But there's a legal misconception or a misunderstanding
Jacob Paulsen: here, which is this idea that dead people don't tell tales, which is ridiculous.
Jacob Paulsen: I mean, dead people tell tales all the time. And you might think,
Jacob Paulsen: yeah, but dead people can't sue you. Dead people sue people all the time.
Jacob Paulsen: It's a commonality. I have a brother who's an estate attorney,
Jacob Paulsen: and he gets sued on behalf of and sues other people on behalf of dead people all the time.
Jacob Paulsen: This is a common practice. You know, like wrongful death suits,
Jacob Paulsen: sound familiar? So dead people tell tales through evidence, through forensics
Jacob Paulsen: and ballistics, and dead people absolutely sue you through their estate.
Jacob Paulsen: Or their family members or whatever it might be.
Jacob Paulsen: So the first thing to understand is it's like, well, if there's only one story
Jacob Paulsen: to tell or they can't sue me, then I'm better off.
Jacob Paulsen: And that is highly immoral and just straight up just not true.
Jacob Paulsen: I don't think you reduce risk. In fact, I think you increase legal risk and
Jacob Paulsen: jeopardy by taking the life.
Jacob Paulsen: I really do. And mostly it's because of the potential consequences.
Jacob Paulsen: See, if the person survives, then yes, now two people get to tell a tell and
Jacob Paulsen: maybe there's an argument about what happened. But guess what's not on the table?
Jacob Paulsen: A wrongful death suit. And guess what else is not on the table?
Jacob Paulsen: Charges of potential homicide, manslaughter, and murder because no one died, right?
Jacob Paulsen: So your potential legal consequences drop significantly if the person doesn't die.
Jacob Paulsen: So that's the first, I think, nail that has to go into the coffin to put to
Jacob Paulsen: rest this idea of shoot to kill is this understanding of dead men do tell tales through evidence,
Jacob Paulsen: through forensics and ballistics, and dead people do sue you absolutely all the time.
Jacob Paulsen: And them living is better for you in a legal standpoint from almost every perspective.
Riley Bowman: Never mind the fact that when you talk about this dead men tell no tales,
Riley Bowman: evidence tells a tale oh
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah man forensics and ballistics.
Riley Bowman: You know so regardless of there's
Riley Bowman: a live man or a dead man or not like there's still this
Riley Bowman: thing called evidence yeah and forensics today are better
Riley Bowman: than they've ever been they're always getting better yeah right
Riley Bowman: and it's remarkable you know i follow some
Riley Bowman: cases here and there and including not even
Riley Bowman: necessarily self-defense ones but just sometimes things pop up on
Riley Bowman: the news feed about somebody on trial for you
Riley Bowman: know like there's one out of utah recently uh where
Riley Bowman: uh lady was found guilty for
Riley Bowman: a conspiracy to set up her son-in-law to
Riley Bowman: be murdered because you know they had
Riley Bowman: this big issue between him and and her
Riley Bowman: her daughter and and they're like let's just get rid of him and so the mom her
Riley Bowman: daughter and the uh that and mom's son so like basically these three members
Riley Bowman: of a family all conspire to set up and stage what would appear to be like a home invasion.
Riley Bowman: This estranged husband of her daughter is going to come in and he's going to
Riley Bowman: threaten them with a knife. And so
Riley Bowman: They set him up, you know, and, and they placed a knife in his hand after,
Riley Bowman: after he was dead, after they shot them, after they ambushed him.
Riley Bowman: And it's like, it just, yeah, I do think there's people that get away with crimes,
Riley Bowman: but there's so many people that think they can get away with crimes.
Riley Bowman: And the evidence tells a totally different story.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah. I mean, you know, detective is, is as good as, as they are willing to dig, but yeah.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah. Evidence does tell a story. And again, we're talking about moral things
Jacob Paulsen: here, but we're also talking about legal jeopardy. And legal jeopardy is higher when there's a death.
Jacob Paulsen: So that's the first, like I said, I think that's the first nail in the coffin.
Riley Bowman: I was going to try to find a recent social media post and just have some examples here.
Riley Bowman: But there was one that popped up a moment ago as I was scrolling through things
Riley Bowman: that basically said, come to my house, F-A-F-O, F around and find out.
Riley Bowman: You know like there's just a lot of tough talk online about what people would do
Jacob Paulsen: Well i'll give an example specific to this one because i'll never forget it
Jacob Paulsen: this was about 2016 we published an article on our site it's still there somewhere
Jacob Paulsen: it's very amateur i wrote it and i'm a little bit embarrassed if you went and
Jacob Paulsen: found it but it's something like three things gun people say that ticked me
Jacob Paulsen: off or something like that and one of those things in that article was this like shoot to kill.
Jacob Paulsen: And so at the time, a year or two later, our social media guy basically decides
Jacob Paulsen: to grab this article and share it on social media. It's probably like 2017, 2018.
Jacob Paulsen: And he drops the link and the headline just basically says, shoot to kill,
Jacob Paulsen: like don't ever shoot to kill or something like that.
Jacob Paulsen: And there was a comment, I'll never forget this comment from someone who basically,
Jacob Paulsen: I'm paraphrasing, but basically says, I'm a police officer and my sergeant's
Jacob Paulsen: standing right next to me right now.
Jacob Paulsen: And we're both laughing at your post at how ridiculous it is to suggest that
Jacob Paulsen: we shouldn't shoot to kill.
Jacob Paulsen: Of course we should shoot to kill. That's the only way it's done.
Jacob Paulsen: It's the only way we train people to do it and you're a moron.
Jacob Paulsen: Basically something like that.
Jacob Paulsen: And I remember responding to me like, can I please find out what city in which
Jacob Paulsen: you guys are law enforcement officers so I can let the local media outlet know
Jacob Paulsen: that your law enforcement agency is teaching cops that when they shoot people,
Jacob Paulsen: they should make sure that they die, that the intent is to kill them.
Jacob Paulsen: I think that your local media outlet deserves to know.
Jacob Paulsen: It went silent. And so there's an example of this kind of misunderstanding and ignorance.
Jacob Paulsen: And I don't know if those law enforcement officers might just like be following
Jacob Paulsen: the original intent of the statement, which is, hey, cops, like when you shoot
Jacob Paulsen: at bad guys, aim for vital areas.
Jacob Paulsen: Don't be shooting them in the leg or the arms and their hands,
Jacob Paulsen: you know, that's holding the knife.
Jacob Paulsen: Like go for the vital areas. Yeah. But unfortunately, we don't know.
Jacob Paulsen: For all we know, that police department who commented on this Facebook post,
Jacob Paulsen: to be assumed that they are who they said they were, they're actually telling
Jacob Paulsen: cops, like, hey, if you're getting
Jacob Paulsen: a shooting, make sure you put them down because that's better for us.
Jacob Paulsen: That's insane to me. And then these are cops in some agency somewhere who are
Jacob Paulsen: out there running around with this thought of, like, we got to put them down.
Riley Bowman: Yeah. Yeah.
Riley Bowman: Hey, a couple of comments I wanted to bring up real quick and just recognize.
Riley Bowman: First of all, appreciate Messy Rides on YouTube watching. He's thrilled to catch
Riley Bowman: another live episode. Glad to have you watching, buddy.
Riley Bowman: There's a comment actually here I wanted to address.
Riley Bowman: And this kind of is a similar topic here. And it's from Dale on Facebook.
Riley Bowman: He says, Masad Ayyub taught us as citizens to aim for the pelvis.
Riley Bowman: Pelvis uh and so like in other words a different
Riley Bowman: than you know a different area than high center
Riley Bowman: chest or or center mass um so not even necessarily like talking about arm or
Riley Bowman: leg or that kind of thing but uh you know a critical structure like the pelvis
Riley Bowman: and so i think it's important to to probably first of all point out dale that uh i've i've
Riley Bowman: I don't know Moss super well, but I've been in the same room with him.
Riley Bowman: I've been on the same firing line with him. In fact, a few weeks ago,
Riley Bowman: I was on the same firing line with him in a training class.
Riley Bowman: And I'm somewhat familiar with, you know, how he thinks and how he does things.
Riley Bowman: And I've read a lot of his works over the years, especially a lot of his articles.
Riley Bowman: And I think the correct thing here is to point out that he doesn't say you should
Riley Bowman: always shoot for the pelvis.
Jacob Paulsen: No.
Riley Bowman: But that that is an option when certain other options are not available to you
Riley Bowman: or are not working or are failing.
Riley Bowman: So if you had a threat that was wearing body armor or something,
Riley Bowman: that would be a viable reason to aim for the pelvis.
Riley Bowman: But as a standard practice, I don't think that that's what Masada Ayoub teaches.
Jacob Paulsen: Probably not. Though we do see law enforcement agencies now that are actually
Jacob Paulsen: using targets where their main target zone is the pelvis.
Jacob Paulsen: So there are certainly people out there who we're supposed to take seriously
Jacob Paulsen: who are advocating for that as a primary target area.
Jacob Paulsen: It's almost hilarious. There's videos on YouTube of news stories about how the
Jacob Paulsen: police agency is now training to shoot people in the pelvis. Mm-hmm.
Jacob Paulsen: Anyway, I think that maybe now we do need to kind of divert a little bit and
Jacob Paulsen: talk about tactical anatomy because that's a little bit at the core of this.
Riley Bowman: Right.
Jacob Paulsen: Right? So, and I've expanded the way I think about this because of some recent
Jacob Paulsen: instruction that I've received. We, not that long ago, had Steve Moses here on the podcast.
Jacob Paulsen: I wasn't part of that episode. You interviewed him. But it was,
Jacob Paulsen: I guess, I was begging to have that happen. I was like, I want Steve to come on and talk about this.
Jacob Paulsen: And so I've listened to that episode three times since then.
Jacob Paulsen: And then at TACCon a couple of weeks ago, I sat in on a two-hour presentation
Jacob Paulsen: by Andy Anderson, who's an MD doctor and basically a field medic.
Jacob Paulsen: And so he also discussed this. And so I'm just setting the stage that I'm not
Jacob Paulsen: a complete subject matter expert, but I recently received a lot more deeper
Jacob Paulsen: understanding education on this topic.
Jacob Paulsen: And I think you can kind of catalog or categorize better stopping threats in three categories.
Jacob Paulsen: And I don't know if I'll use the same words that some of these other subject
Jacob Paulsen: matter experts use, but this is how I think of it. The first one's a psychological stop.
Jacob Paulsen: We're getting the person to just basically decide it's not a good idea to continue the fight.
Jacob Paulsen: Ooh, this isn't good. I'm getting shot at. I think I'll run away now.
Jacob Paulsen: Or, ooh, I'm bleeding. That sucks. I think I'll put my knife down now.
Jacob Paulsen: Or whatever the thing. Like, there's just a psychological stop.
Riley Bowman: A psychological stop could also be classified as one where you draw your gun,
Riley Bowman: they see that and recognize they're about to get shot. And they're like, ooh, I don't like this.
Jacob Paulsen: Absolutely. Yep. And in fact, we see most of our horrendous news,
Jacob Paulsen: mass shooting stories that we hear,
Jacob Paulsen: the real newsworthy school shootings and dark night theater shooting,
Jacob Paulsen: these things, most of them tend to be psychological stops.
Jacob Paulsen: Most of the time, those are absolute cowards. The second they face any sort
Jacob Paulsen: of opposition, they just stop.
Jacob Paulsen: Sometimes they end their own lives and sometimes they don't.
Jacob Paulsen: But it's like, oh, I got an op for now. I'm done. I'm out. So we see a lot of that.
Jacob Paulsen: And I don't know on a percentage, like we'd be guesstimating like how many stops
Jacob Paulsen: are psychological, but I suspect it's more than half.
Jacob Paulsen: Then I used to think of this in two catalogs, like psychological and physical.
Jacob Paulsen: But I think now with more education, I think we could take a physical stop and
Jacob Paulsen: we could put it into two subcategories.
Jacob Paulsen: So if you want, we'd have three total.
Jacob Paulsen: Psychological, and then what we'll call sort of on a timer stop,
Jacob Paulsen: and then an immediate flip the switch stop.
Jacob Paulsen: So the on the timer stop is sort of this idea of like basically we've created
Jacob Paulsen: enough organ damage or blood loss that you're on a timer.
Jacob Paulsen: The clock starts running. Yeah, like there's a limited amount of time where
Jacob Paulsen: they're still going to be able to operate physically before the system says,
Jacob Paulsen: I need to shut down in order to maximize the potential of not dying here.
Jacob Paulsen: And so, you know, this is where we get like an arterial bleed,
Jacob Paulsen: you know, or something that's like, hey, you know, 30 seconds,
Jacob Paulsen: two minutes, like this person's going to be toast.
Jacob Paulsen: But 30 seconds, they can still stab you a lot of times or shoot you a lot of
Jacob Paulsen: times or charge at you or whatever the bad thing is.
Jacob Paulsen: So there's that. And then we have like the flip the switch. Like it's an instantaneous like boom.
Jacob Paulsen: Done you're over now like yep one second
Jacob Paulsen: one shot and done and that's obviously very
Jacob Paulsen: difficult thing to do and that that really like there's
Jacob Paulsen: two options one of them is really a not option and that's like right in
Jacob Paulsen: the brainstem uh kind of that you know triangular target zone between that makes
Jacob Paulsen: this made between the eyes and the nose and it's a very difficult not just because
Jacob Paulsen: it's a small target zone but also by the nature of the bone structure in that
Jacob Paulsen: part of your skull it's it's probably not going to happen i mean it could happen
Jacob Paulsen: it's just going to be a tough one And then, of course, we have the aortic arch, right?
Jacob Paulsen: That part kind of just like the big stem right above your heart.
Jacob Paulsen: So think like draw a line between your nipples and it's just a little bit off
Jacob Paulsen: center to the left side of center on that line.
Jacob Paulsen: And that's probably your best way to just flip the switch.
Jacob Paulsen: It's like, boom, you strike that and they're just going to be done because it's
Jacob Paulsen: the big pipe for the blood.
Jacob Paulsen: Or it's not only just the big pipe, but it's the big pipes coming in and out of the heart.
Jacob Paulsen: So that in mind, like understanding that now, we can understand why for all
Jacob Paulsen: this time, like we've been taught to shoot high center chest or the combat hit
Jacob Paulsen: zone or whatever we use to describe this thing of like, put bullets here,
Jacob Paulsen: like put holes in this zone, and we're going to cause enough damage and disruption
Jacob Paulsen: to hopefully stop the threat.
Jacob Paulsen: But most of the time, we don't get immediate stops. We just don't.
Jacob Paulsen: Most of the time, at best, we're getting ticking timer stops.
Jacob Paulsen: And so that changes things. And now I'm going to go back to what Masayoub is
Jacob Paulsen: quoted as having said, right?
Jacob Paulsen: And so, yeah, like if I'm putting holes in the chest and they're still coming,
Jacob Paulsen: maybe there's even squirting blood coming out of their neck it's like oh yep
Jacob Paulsen: that's an arterial bleed they're on a timer now but they're still charging or
Jacob Paulsen: they're still shooting they're still trying to hurt me okay something into the
Jacob Paulsen: pelvis is a is a disabler it may not prevent them from continuing to shoot me
Jacob Paulsen: but it's probably gonna put them on the ground such they can't charge and stab me.
Riley Bowman: Yeah there's been some from what i've seen i saw a i don't know if it was an
Riley Bowman: official research paper or not but there was some data that had been collected
Riley Bowman: and I found it to be quite interesting and it was
Riley Bowman: Basically explaining how the actual zones on the pelvis that
Riley Bowman: Would act with, you know, that would actually put somebody on the ground that
Riley Bowman: would actually disrupt them structurally to where they would not be able to stand.
Riley Bowman: And those targets are a lot smaller than you think. Like people think like,
Riley Bowman: ah, pelvis, you know, like it's down here.
Riley Bowman: And a lot of the target zones are, you know, where those are included are pretty generous, I would say.
Riley Bowman: Uh, and so, but the reality is what you actually need to hit to create the right
Riley Bowman: structural damage that causes somebody, you know, where you're,
Riley Bowman: you're busting the socket or,
Riley Bowman: you know, that kind of thing, um, is pretty small.
Riley Bowman: And the success rate of hitting somebody correctly in the pelvis that will get
Riley Bowman: their desired result is, is not as high as what people would probably imagine.
Riley Bowman: I would think I'm not saying it's not a viable option. I'm just saying that
Riley Bowman: like, I hear it, you know, drop pretty casually that, well, if it's not working,
Riley Bowman: you know, shooting in the chest, I'll just shoot him in the pelvis as if that's
Riley Bowman: going to be, you know, it's going to solve all your problems.
Riley Bowman: And it's just that simple.
Riley Bowman: And I don't think it's quite as simple as, as, you know, saying it, you know, it is.
Riley Bowman: So, so I just want to kind of bring that up just to, frankly,
Riley Bowman: we're, we're talking about handgun rounds when we're in a civilian defensive
Riley Bowman: based context and almost nothing is a sure thing when we're dealing with handgun
Riley Bowman: rounds and the human body. we're
Jacob Paulsen: Talking about really freaking small holes.
Riley Bowman: Yeah i mean really small and there's no temporary uh you know cavity that that
Riley Bowman: disrupts and shreds and blows apart tissue like what you see from high-powered
Riley Bowman: high-velocity rifle rounds right yeah uh you got to push a projectile
Riley Bowman: at the very least north of 2,000 feet per second, usually more like 2,200,
Riley Bowman: 2,400 feet per second before you see that.
Riley Bowman: And so you don't get that with handgun rounds.
Riley Bowman: So, you know, you're basically just punching holes, punching holes, punching holes.
Riley Bowman: And, you know, so you're reliant upon the right structures being included in
Riley Bowman: the diameter of those holes you're punching.
Riley Bowman: So we'll make sure that's clear.
Jacob Paulsen: So, so kind of coming back then now, and I diverted us, So I'm going to try
Jacob Paulsen: and bring us back to this idea of shoot to kill versus shoot to injure.
Jacob Paulsen: I think we have to look at this and say it's not binary.
Jacob Paulsen: And that's kind of the point of the headline of this episode,
Jacob Paulsen: right? Like it's not one or the other. It's not kill or injure.
Jacob Paulsen: The problem is in the language and the vernacular of the thing.
Jacob Paulsen: And that's where I think more and more firearm instructors today are understanding
Jacob Paulsen: that we have a problem if we're using those terms, those words,
Jacob Paulsen: because it's not binary.
Jacob Paulsen: And so I think that the educated class of professionals in the community are
Jacob Paulsen: pretty good at having moved to the comment or the vernacular of shoot to stop.
Jacob Paulsen: Shoot to stop. And I think that comes down to objective and mission and goal.
Jacob Paulsen: And I think that's the more relevant place to think about this.
Jacob Paulsen: Yes. And we did an episode –.
Jacob Paulsen: In the last year or two or and a half maybe uh
Jacob Paulsen: where i i said something like you're focused on the wrong person's outcome yeah
Jacob Paulsen: yep um and i think that has everything to
Jacob Paulsen: do with this because if if we're talking
Jacob Paulsen: about this topic like how i choose to shoot it at the bg then then we're or
Jacob Paulsen: like if we talk about it in terms of that what's going to happen to that person
Jacob Paulsen: that they're going to be injured or they're going to die or they're going to
Jacob Paulsen: whatever the thing is then i I got like,
Jacob Paulsen: why is that the thing we're talking about at all?
Jacob Paulsen: It's not even relevant. As long as your decisions are oriented around what's
Jacob Paulsen: going to happen to the BG, your decisions are probably immoral and illegal,
Jacob Paulsen: regardless of what it is.
Jacob Paulsen: Because you're not legally empowered to cause injury or death to someone else.
Jacob Paulsen: It's not within your legal limitations.
Jacob Paulsen: Your legal rights are to protect yourself or other innocent people.
Jacob Paulsen: And that's the switcheroo that we got to have here.
Riley Bowman: Yeah, absolutely. You know, one of the things that just popped into my head
Riley Bowman: recently, I saw a video on Mickey Shook's channel, Carry Trainer.
Riley Bowman: And it was a little clip he posted.
Riley Bowman: And I don't know where it came from. I don't know if it was,
Riley Bowman: i want to say it was in europe but a man
Riley Bowman: walks into it looks like a like a small coffee
Riley Bowman: shop or you know that kind of place man walks in there's a
Riley Bowman: single customer sitting there he's got his laptop out or his phone or a tablet
Riley Bowman: whatever and he's he's sipping his coffee man walks through the front door walks
Riley Bowman: right in and you just see a knife appear you know from his side and he just
Riley Bowman: goes and just just sticks like like no no prior confrontation no words said that we
Riley Bowman: tell, no anything, no clue this is coming.
Riley Bowman: He just casually walks up to this man sitting, sipping his coffee and just sticks
Riley Bowman: him right in the chest with a knife.
Riley Bowman: And what's cool about the video is this guy, he just got stabbed.
Riley Bowman: He's like, oh, geez, I just got stabbed. And he, instead of like kind of,
Riley Bowman: you know, freaking out, no, he just jumps up and goes into action.
Riley Bowman: And he gets up, he tackles the guy, he's wrestling for the knife.
Riley Bowman: He starts punching him in the face, in the head and all this stuff.
Riley Bowman: And, you know, it's a pretty violent encounter. They're going around the room
Riley Bowman: knocking stuff around and stuff as,
Riley Bowman: you know, the victim continues punching this guy in the head
Riley Bowman: just trying to gain control for him and eventually the knife is stripped out
Riley Bowman: of his hands i think by a worker and so
Riley Bowman: now the knife's gone now the knife's out of the question and the
Riley Bowman: attacker gives up his fight his attack he just he just stops and he actually
Riley Bowman: goes and sits down in the cafe he just sits down and and like okay all right
Riley Bowman: i'm here to be arrested and the comments in there people saying stuff well i
Riley Bowman: would i would have ended him.
Riley Bowman: I would have taken his knife and I would have stabbed him.
Riley Bowman: There were tons of comments of people saying what they would have done to the bad guy.
Riley Bowman: This is after he's no longer a threat.
Riley Bowman: And so I bring that up as an example because this is the sort of thing we're
Riley Bowman: talking about is like what you just said is this mindset shift of it's not about them.
Jacob Paulsen: No.
Riley Bowman: It's I want to do only what is necessary and the least amount of whatever it
Riley Bowman: is I need to do to get myself safe and removed from the situation that's occurring. That's it.
Jacob Paulsen: The focus has to be on my outcome or the outcome of the innocent people I'm trying to protect.
Jacob Paulsen: So if the outcome that I care about, I'm going to use the scenario. I didn't see the video.
Jacob Paulsen: But if the outcome has nothing to do with the guy stabbing me, it's about me.
Jacob Paulsen: I just want to live. And maybe I also am concerned about the other people in
Jacob Paulsen: this little cafe not getting stabbed.
Jacob Paulsen: So if that's my mindset, if that's where I'm at in my head, then it means that
Jacob Paulsen: my actions are congruent with that. I truly believe,
Jacob Paulsen: I truly believe that in these moments where you're operating on instinct almost,
Jacob Paulsen: like you're not taking time to stop and process information and say,
Jacob Paulsen: what is the best decision in this moment?
Jacob Paulsen: Like you're just, that's not what's happening here. Instead,
Jacob Paulsen: you are saying, hey, like now, like go.
Jacob Paulsen: Like it's just this instant thing, this thing. And I believe at a deep level
Jacob Paulsen: that we instinctively act congruent with our deepest held beliefs and passions and knowledge.
Jacob Paulsen: And so if that deepest held thing in you is focused on the bad guy, it's about justice.
Jacob Paulsen: It's like, this guy needs to die. He should not be allowed to stand trial.
Jacob Paulsen: He should not be able to get away from my house after coming in and assaulting me and my family.
Jacob Paulsen: He should stand justice now. I need to chase him and catch him.
Jacob Paulsen: This guy who's shooting these people in this church, he deserves to die.
Jacob Paulsen: Like if our whole mindset is surrounding what the other person deserves or what
Jacob Paulsen: justice they should receive, then our actions are going to be congruent with that.
Jacob Paulsen: That's going to cause us to chase them. It's going to cause us to shoot them in the back.
Jacob Paulsen: It's going to cause us to continue to engage even if they disengage, right?
Jacob Paulsen: So I think that we have to have that shift in mindset like, no,
Jacob Paulsen: like my objective, my mission, my core value here that drives me to choose to
Jacob Paulsen: carry the gun that's on me and maybe the knife or the pepper spray,
Jacob Paulsen: whatever the thing is, and to be in shape and whatever is about me living a
Jacob Paulsen: long, healthy and happy life.
Jacob Paulsen: And also doing that along with my wife and my children or loved ones or people
Jacob Paulsen: I care about, then that changes, right? Now, all of a sudden,
Jacob Paulsen: my actions shift, and they're congruent with that.
Jacob Paulsen: And that then means we shouldn't be saying shoot to kill or shoot to injure
Jacob Paulsen: because both are focused on the other person's outcome.
Jacob Paulsen: Now, shoot to stop starts to make sense because it's about me.
Jacob Paulsen: I'm stopping them from hurting me or from hurting someone else.
Riley Bowman: Yeah.
Riley Bowman: This is where it's appropriate, I think, for those of you watching or listening
Riley Bowman: to ask yourself the question then.
Riley Bowman: What is that deepest abiding principle or concept or moral that drives you,
Riley Bowman: that determines for you the difference between night and day or black and white or whatever?
Riley Bowman: Because this is really important. I think what you just explained,
Riley Bowman: Jacob, is super important that whatever – I mean, I understand the desire for justice.
Riley Bowman: I think we're all wired with that to some extent, right?
Riley Bowman: Oh, hardwired. You know, that, hey, this is a wrong and it needs to be corrected.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah, ask a two-year-old what's fair.
Riley Bowman: Right? And so it's understandable why people would be like that guy in the coffee
Riley Bowman: shop that just, you know, stabbed this guy. Like he deserves,
Riley Bowman: like he deserves justice right now.
Riley Bowman: Like I, I, I feel that I sense that, but what separates us as humans besides,
Riley Bowman: I mean, I'm not going to get, you know, too preachy or gospel oriented here,
Riley Bowman: but what separates us from the animals is that we actually have this logical part of our brain,
Riley Bowman: you know, This prefrontal cortex that allows us to evaluate things logically to make good, clear,
Riley Bowman: sane decisions and to be above and beyond just simple, you know,
Riley Bowman: vigilante type justice again i i can relate to this to the emotions of that
Riley Bowman: desire for justice it is wrong and those things will be dealt with in the in
Riley Bowman: their own due time and as the
Riley Bowman: legal process goes forth and i know that process takes time and sometimes it
Riley Bowman: sucks but like that's what we have like if we're going to be a civilized society
Riley Bowman: and not just turn into every man for himself and chaos out there,
Riley Bowman: then we have to live within this world of rules that we've created,
Riley Bowman: which is really what we're talking about is morality here.
Riley Bowman: Morality is rules.
Jacob Paulsen: Yes. Our rules are based on our societal average morality.
Riley Bowman: Yeah.
Jacob Paulsen: Right? Or the majority of society's morality. So, yes, I think that's really
Jacob Paulsen: well said. I think that we have to stop being focused on the justice.
Jacob Paulsen: Let me tell two examples of stories that we've seen.
Jacob Paulsen: One is actually quite old. This is, I'm not sure if it was the 90s or the 2000s.
Jacob Paulsen: But you have a pharmacy owner in Oklahoma City.
Jacob Paulsen: And he has some armed intruders, comes into the pharmacy, and he grabs his gun.
Jacob Paulsen: Gunfight ensues. Pop, pop, pop. Some of the bad guys run away,
Jacob Paulsen: but one of them is shot and goes down inside of the pharmacy.
Jacob Paulsen: And the pharmacy owner gets on the phone, 911, what's your emergency?
Jacob Paulsen: Oh, these guys came in to rob me. I shot at him. I think one of them's here
Jacob Paulsen: on the floor. I need help.
Jacob Paulsen: The 911 operator asks, is the man still alive?
Jacob Paulsen: This is all on camera, unfortunately, for the pharmacy owner.
Jacob Paulsen: And the pharmacy owner says, hold on, I'll check.
Jacob Paulsen: And he goes over to where this guy is on the floor bleeding,
Jacob Paulsen: and he shoots him again. And then he grabs the phone and says, nope, he's dead.
Riley Bowman: He's dead now.
Jacob Paulsen: He's dead now. I remember this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This was wild.
Jacob Paulsen: I didn't know about this at the time it happened, but Gary Eastridge was one
Jacob Paulsen: of the homicide detectives involved in this case, and he told us about it,
Jacob Paulsen: and I went and dug up the video and watched it.
Jacob Paulsen: You know, not that long ago, maybe like five years ago. So it was a hero to
Jacob Paulsen: zero moment where his initial instinct was to end the threat,
Jacob Paulsen: right? Like, I have a threat. I'm facing a threat.
Jacob Paulsen: Like, use the gun. Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. Oh, they ran away.
Jacob Paulsen: Oh, there's one down. I'm okay. I'm safe.
Jacob Paulsen: I'm going to go call 911, right? He disengaged from the confrontation,
Jacob Paulsen: and he went and called 911.
Jacob Paulsen: But somewhere deep in him, like, it wasn't enough. Like, somewhere,
Jacob Paulsen: like, there was something in his psyche that was like, if he's not dead, he needs to be dead.
Jacob Paulsen: Right? So, like, is he dead? Well, crap. Like, I imagine his internal conversation
Jacob Paulsen: is like, well, I better make sure.
Jacob Paulsen: Right, right. Well, crap, did I not kill him? I better go make sure he's dead.
Riley Bowman: Right. Right? As though the question from the dispatcher, you know,
Riley Bowman: is he still… Did you end him yet?
Riley Bowman: Yeah, it was like almost permission in a way. Yes, yes. Yeah.
Jacob Paulsen: Here's one more. and then we can discuss these. This is one of those wild surveillance
Jacob Paulsen: videos online I've ever seen of a shooting.
Jacob Paulsen: But what you have is this in Phoenix, Arizona, and you have this guy who's in
Jacob Paulsen: a white pickup truck, and he's at a drive-through ATM at a Wells Fargo.
Riley Bowman: I believe. Yeah, I remember this one as well, yeah.
Jacob Paulsen: So he pulls up to the ATM, window down, about to stick the card in the machine.
Jacob Paulsen: The bad guys come out of nowhere. They materialize. They say,
Jacob Paulsen: give us the cash kind of thing.
Jacob Paulsen: The guy goes John Wick. I mean, it is...
Jacob Paulsen: This guy is not your average American gun owner with no training.
Jacob Paulsen: This guy has received some education in the operation of a handgun.
Jacob Paulsen: I don't know his background, but it looks like a Hollywood movie.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah, yeah. I mean, it is legit shooting. Maybe some of the best shooting I've
Jacob Paulsen: ever seen with someone not in a uniform. It was unbelievable.
Riley Bowman: And he's in a confined space.
Jacob Paulsen: Yes. I mean, but he grabs that gun. He orients it, kind of pivots his body,
Jacob Paulsen: pop, pop, pop to one guy, turns or he's out
Jacob Paulsen: to the other direction pop pop pop to the the second and
Jacob Paulsen: third guys i mean it is like uh it really
Jacob Paulsen: looks like a hollywood movie it's like whoa whoa whoa whoa like he
Jacob Paulsen: just dropped like three guys with six shots in like two seconds and then he
Jacob Paulsen: takes off like after he's done like pop pop pop pop pop he like puts the car
Jacob Paulsen: in driving peels off yeah and you see a couple guys kind of wiggle on the ground
Jacob Paulsen: a little bit um and you think that
Jacob Paulsen: it's over yep and and again the natural instinct from this man was what?
Jacob Paulsen: Like solve the immediate threat with bullets and then get out.
Riley Bowman: Yeah.
Jacob Paulsen: Right. Like, okay, I think I've disengaged these guys to the degree they can't shoot me.
Jacob Paulsen: Now I'm going to create distance and amazing good instincts until about 60 seconds later, right?
Jacob Paulsen: When the video keeps on ticking along and you see him pull back into the drive
Jacob Paulsen: through and put a couple more shots into these dudes who are on the ground.
Riley Bowman: Yeah.
Jacob Paulsen: So here's an example where, you know, talk about mindset, right?
Jacob Paulsen: Where, where there's this, like this initial instinct is good,
Jacob Paulsen: but something in the moment like grabs like the, the, like the animal part of
Jacob Paulsen: our brain and says, like, we can't let them get away with this.
Jacob Paulsen: Like we have to, we have to, like, I don't know if it's about like victory,
Jacob Paulsen: like I must win, or if it's about justice, like They cannot get away.
Jacob Paulsen: This is not okay. But it is highly immoral and highly illegal.
Riley Bowman: Yeah.
Riley Bowman: So let's start summarizing this because you've got a hard stop coming up.
Riley Bowman: We're here to talk about shoot to kill, shoot to wound, or is there another
Riley Bowman: option here? And that's what I want to summarize here.
Riley Bowman: What are the problems with, we'll start actually with shooting to wound.
Riley Bowman: To summarize this, it's a tactical problem.
Jacob Paulsen: Yes.
Riley Bowman: Right? Because, first of all, it's not looked at in the court of law as being
Riley Bowman: less lethal to shoot somebody in an arm or a leg than it is just to shoot them
Riley Bowman: in the high center chest.
Riley Bowman: Use of lethal force is use of lethal force.
Riley Bowman: And if you're using a gun in defense, you're using a lethal force tool.
Riley Bowman: And so a round that's fired is equally as dangerous,
Riley Bowman: whether it's in the toe of your left foot or right in the center of the chest,
Riley Bowman: as far as how it's going to be viewed in terms of your use of force.
Riley Bowman: So, uh, and, and, and there's a tactical problem that shooting somebody to wound
Riley Bowman: them, number one, rarely works very well, especially in terms of stopping them. Um,
Riley Bowman: Yeah, I'll admit like sometimes what we see is people I think are probably trying
Riley Bowman: to hit people in the chest and because they have such a bad low left flinch
Riley Bowman: or whatever, they end up hitting them in the leg.
Riley Bowman: And yes, those situations exist and the attacker stops his attack or whatever
Riley Bowman: or the robbery or whatever.
Riley Bowman: That happens, okay? But it is not going to be a reliable way of stopping somebody
Riley Bowman: that is truly intent on hurting you.
Riley Bowman: The other problem with shooting to wound is that those targets are small and they're not very dense,
Riley Bowman: meaning that like it's hard to hit a hand, an arm, a leg relative to this torso that we have.
Riley Bowman: And also the meat and everything that's here and here is less than what's up
Riley Bowman: here as far as, you know, just bullets are going to most likely penetrate through an arm,
Riley Bowman: through a leg, and continue on somewhere downrange that presents a problem for
Riley Bowman: somebody else to be on the receiving end of that.
Riley Bowman: So it's a, it's a tactical problem to shoot to wound that also opens you up
Riley Bowman: for increased potential liability and not just with regards to the person you're shooting,
Riley Bowman: but because of other people that could be in play.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah. Problematic. It's, it's dysfunctional at best. Um, I think it's, it's,
Jacob Paulsen: It also, I think, we've got to think about it like escalation of force.
Jacob Paulsen: I think some people have this sense of like, well, I'll start by shooting to injure. Right.
Jacob Paulsen: And then if that doesn't work, then I'll escalate. Right?
Jacob Paulsen: Well, how much ammo and how much time have you, like, you're crippling your
Jacob Paulsen: capabilities by approaching it that way. So just another comment on that thinking.
Riley Bowman: Yeah. And for sure, shooting to wound somebody is a starting the timer type option.
Riley Bowman: And so when we talked about the problems with that, shooting to kill,
Riley Bowman: problem with that is it's a mindset problem.
Riley Bowman: It's that I am trying to kill this other person.
Riley Bowman: Instead of stopping, like it is also about stopping them, but it's also about I must end them.
Riley Bowman: I must enforce this justice that I have envisioned for the problem.
Riley Bowman: And I get, like, you didn't ask for the fight. You didn't ask for the threat.
Riley Bowman: But it's not up to you as far as what happens with them. It's up to you to take care of you.
Riley Bowman: And the best way to do that is to simply focus on that third option,
Riley Bowman: which is we only use the amount of force that's necessary to create a stop of
Riley Bowman: whatever is occurring to us.
Riley Bowman: No more and no less.
Riley Bowman: Okay, because less is not going to be enough, most likely, right?
Riley Bowman: So we got to use its proportional force, and it's only until a point where the
Riley Bowman: threat's no longer a threat.
Jacob Paulsen: I think of it this way for me.
Jacob Paulsen: I think my objective is for me to survive and for my loved ones to survive.
Jacob Paulsen: And so I maximize the odds of succeeding in my objective by putting lots of
Jacob Paulsen: holes quickly into the vital areas of their body,
Jacob Paulsen: hoping that I get a psychological stop,
Jacob Paulsen: that allows them to survive, but should that not work out, I've maximized my
Jacob Paulsen: odds of succeeding in my objective, which is my survival, none of my loved ones.
Riley Bowman: Comment on Facebook here as we're wrapping up, Jacob. It's from Sean.
Riley Bowman: He says, if I'm going to pull the trigger, there's only going to be one side
Riley Bowman: of the story available for police.
Riley Bowman: Sean, I don't know if you just are joining us now and you've missed the earlier
Riley Bowman: discussion that we've had here, But I really hope that you will re-evaluate your thinking on this.
Riley Bowman: And if you missed the earlier part of the episode, go back and listen to what
Riley Bowman: we already discussed about this.
Riley Bowman: But brother, like seriously, I don't know who you are, Sean,
Riley Bowman: but brother, like please just rethink that, okay?
Riley Bowman: You think there's only one side of the story, but as we talked about earlier,
Riley Bowman: evidence is also another side of the story. Yeah.
Jacob Paulsen: And wrongful death, homicide, murder, or manslaughter allegations aren't good for you either.
Riley Bowman: Yeah.
Jacob Paulsen: Go ask any attorney what they think about your statement you just made,
Jacob Paulsen: and they'll strongly recommend that you get it removed from the internet and
Jacob Paulsen: never think that way again.
Riley Bowman: 100%. Well, we're out of time. A reminder of today's episode sponsors were the
Riley Bowman: 2026 Guardian Conference.
Riley Bowman: This is one thing you can learn about, chances are, in some of the legal...
Riley Bowman: Part of the the class you know the classes we have the the course
Riley Bowman: blocks we have the conference uh this is probably something will
Riley Bowman: come up potentially or it's at least a question you could ask of
Riley Bowman: our legal experts that will be in attendance at the guardian conference but
Riley Bowman: in addition to that lots of great live fire training uh self-defense training
Riley Bowman: combatives training all that join us in september of this year go to guardianconference.com
Riley Bowman: and also the ready up ReadyUpGear Dummy Ammo, available at ReadyUpGear.com.
Riley Bowman: I hope you'll take a look at the, this is a newly revamped product for us.
Riley Bowman: We've sold dummy ammo for a few years, but they are redesigned.
Riley Bowman: They're made in a different way. They are much better than they used to be.
Riley Bowman: They were already great before, but they're even better now.
Riley Bowman: We frankly think these are the best dummy rounds on the market.
Riley Bowman: So for training purposes, dry fire purposes, we hope that you'll take a look
Riley Bowman: at ReadyUpGear Dummy Ammo at ReadyUpGear.com.
Riley Bowman: Last words?
Jacob Paulsen: That's it for me?
Riley Bowman: Okay well we'll bid you all adieu until next time a reminder to train right
Riley Bowman: train often and train safe
Jacob Paulsen: So you can fight hard fight fast and fight true.
Riley Bowman: A reminder that laws vary from place to place, and we encourage listeners to
Riley Bowman: seek local legal advice to understand applicable laws.
Riley Bowman: Concealed Carry, Inc., its brands and properties, and the Concealed Carry podcast
Riley Bowman: is not a legal service, nor are we attorneys at law.
Riley Bowman: We make our best faith effort to share Concealed Carry-related insights and
Riley Bowman: information about firearm-related incidents and the laws pertaining based on
Riley Bowman: our own understanding and experience.
Riley Bowman: But things can be different where you live, or laws may have changed by the
Riley Bowman: time you listen to this. We cannot be held liable for your actions based on
Riley Bowman: the information shared in this podcast.
Riley Bowman: Please exercise care with all things pertaining to firearm use,
Riley Bowman: Concealed Carry, and always practice following basic firearm safety rules.
Riley Bowman: More information about safety can be found at concealedcarry.com forward slash safety. Thank you.