More to the interview on the link below;



https://armedcitizensnetwork.org/defense-against-mobs

An Interview with Massad Ayoob

eJournal: I would like to ask about fleeing from ongoing danger after a shooting. I could understand feeling so alone and threatened by large numbers of violent protestors converging on the person who shot their comrade that running away to a safer location could look like a pretty good option. If you shoot to defend against attack by a member of a mob and decide to retreat to a safe place, how do you defuse the “flight equals guilt” perception you identified as part of the reason the woman in your real-life example was unable to convince a jury of her innocence?

Ayoob: Gila, I don’t know of a really good answer for that. If they had picked up the knife they said the Antifa guy dropped, someone who just heard the shot might see that just in time to conclude that they were planting a “drop knife” on an unarmed man. They’d be running with a knife in hand, and they’d be obscuring fingerprints and DNA evidence. Would they have time to pull out their smart phone and take a picture of the dropped knife? Probably not. You would have to assess the crowd. If they’re backing off, stand your ground and straddle the attacker’s dropped weapon.

Are there other people there who are on your side? In another case where a young man shot a protester-turned-rioter who was chasing him and trying to smash him in the head with a skateboard, a group of conservative sympathizers surrounded the shooter and protected him from the downed man’s compatriots until the police could get there to take control of the scene. Will that be possible in something like this that one of your readers could get caught up in? We just don’t know.

eJournal: What is the likely outcome for some poor, unfortunate person, maybe a businessman who is just walking home from work, not realizing what is building up around him, who just gets caught up in a riot and becomes a target for the violent members of the mob? Can he shoot to avoid having his head bashed in?

Ayoob: If it came upon you that quickly, you still have your innocence maintained. You are the victim, caught up in the maelstrom by fate. What I would suggest, though, if you are walking to work you would kind of notice, “Uh oh, something is kind of happening up ahead.” Now would be a really good time to go into some place that is safe, make some phone calls to get help and to find out what is happening, and stay there where it is safe.

If you are driving, there is an app called Waze which, so long as it knows where you are going, warns and alerts you to traffic jams and other problems ahead. If the streets are blocked by protesters, rioters, or just by construction workers, you are hopefully going to know in time to avoid it.

eJournal: What if bad luck strikes, your smart phone is dead so your app doesn’t help, or you can’t exit the freeway in time? Is it enough just to have a gun in the car? Just last week I corresponded with a man who drives over a bridge going to his office, and because he is going to work, has his gun in his briefcase. How he carries was not the focus of his question, but it made me wonder how well he would be able to take care of himself in a riot. What say you? Gun on body? Gun in bag?

Ayoob: Gun on body! If it is in the bag it is going to be much slower to get out. If you have to step out of the vehicle, you can’t reach the gun when you need it, and if you are separated from the vehicle, which is probably now unlocked with an open door, someone else is going to get it.

eJournal: The idea of getting out of the car at all is kind of chilling, but I’m not sure the popular suggestion to drive through a mass of protesters is going to work out well, either.

Ayoob: If you are in a car, I have a couple of suggestions. In every case we have seen of someone driving out of it, we are seeing again and again people being charged for doing so, even though the people were blocking them illegally and they had very articulatable reason to believe they might be dragged out of that car and beaten if they didn’t. There is one thing none of them did, and I hope all of our members and readers get this: if you have got to drive out of a mob turn on your damned flashers and lay on your damned horn! These are universal signals of emergency traffic coming through and let that be seen on all of those dozens of iPhone videos: you were in emergency mode, trying to get out of the way, telling people, “Get out of the way, I am afraid.”

eJournal: What speed? Just chugging through at five miles an hour or moving more quickly?

Ayoob: You have got to remember that different vehicles have different safety devices. Some airbags will only trigger with an impact of 14 miles an hour; some will trigger lighter. This brings us to the interesting case in Michigan of the lady in a parking lot dispute that was started by the other people. She got out of the car finally and pulled a gun, so everybody was saying, “Well, gee, why couldn’t she just back out and drive away?”

One, the primary assailant was at the back of the car pounding on it. Two, I spoke with John Correia who told me he had spoken with those folks (video posted at https://www.youtube.com/watch?...cs&feature=emb_title) and she said they had what she called the
nanny program on in the car. If the car senses a human being behind it, it will stop and you cannot override it. Apparently, that is what happened in that situation.

eJournal: Does a violent protester breaking a car’s side window or windshield pose such a threat to the car’s occupants as to justify use of deadly force to stop him or her?

Ayoob: In my opinion, you are justified although that might not be the opinion of the prosecutor. My opinion is based on the reason that they are trying to invade the passenger compartment. Why are they breaking the window? Why do you crack the walnut? You crack it to get what’s inside and consume it. It is not reasonable and prudent to believe anything else.

Many states have passed laws that said the Castle Doctrine that protects you inside your home extends to inside your vehicle. The car is treated like a domicile. Even in states where that is not the black letter law, the situation is clear.

Antifa are now carrying the emergency rescue glass breakers and that brings me to the other safety equipment I am now keeping my car: a pair of safety glasses for every passenger and I keep a pair of active hearing protectors in my vehicle. I know that cops shooting through their windshields in desperate situations do suffer some degree of permanent hearing loss. This, of course, would go to the power of 10 for the people with the short-barreled .223 AR pistols and such.

We have both participated in tactical vehicle penetration tests. You know when you shoot a windshield, some of the glass spall will come toward the direction of the shot, meaning that if you are shooting from the inside shooting out, you are still going to get some of the glass back in your face. That happens so quickly there is not time for the eyelids to blink and block it, and anyway eyelids will not block much.

If the rioters are throwing projectiles–rocks and such–into the car, the spall from the broken glass is going to come into the car. In a worst case scenario, injury from the glass could cause permanent blindness. Usually I don’t wear glasses, but you’ll notice I have been wearing glasses any time I am in a car. Even before I became a cop, I had seen car crashes where the windshield disintegrated. The theory is that if the windshield disintegrates into tiny pellets, you’re less likely to be decapitated by a large shard of glass. But those pellets come flying through the passenger compartment. The eye protection is for the threat from the outside or danger from the inside going out.

eJournal: I have a question. If we have established that breaking windows to reach people in a car’s passenger compartment poses a true, immediate danger to life…

Ayoob: In my opinion it does, but that might not be the opinion of the prosecutor who is an elected official. These things are tending to happen in the “Blue” cities that elect the “Blue” officials. If we have a district attorney who wants to keep getting his campaign donations for reelection from George Soros like the prosecutor in Saint Louis does, or from Michael Bloomberg, he is not going to see it as they are cracking the walnut to get at the meat inside and devour it, he is going to see it as, “Oh, you killed them for vandalizing your car.”

eJournal: If we are blocked in and unable to drive away and rioters are breaking into cars adjacent to ours, at what point do we perceive that threat as extending to the occupants of our car?

Ayoob: Well, when it turns toward you, it is coming to get you. If I see two guys who look a lot alike and one is breaking into the other guy’s car, I am not getting involved. I don’t know who is who! Most of us would jump to the conclusion that it is a rioter or a carjacker but know this: one thing we may be seeing in these riots, is gangbangers using all the tumult and absence of law enforcement to kill other gang bangers. If they are coming toward me and I am seeing them doing that to others, all the bets are off and I will do what I have to do.

eJournal: So, it becomes a question of “when?” Will you wait until they have begun striking the car?

Ayoob: If they are hitting the car, that may render escape impossible depending on the kinds of weapons they are using. If that is happening, I will engage. I was involved in one case in Florida, not a riot, that involved a group of hostile people who were attacking a young man in his car. One of them allegedly was hitting the vehicle with a baseball bat. The other, with a bare fist, punched through the safety glass of the side window and hit the driver in the head. The driver took his .38, shot him in the chest and killed him. He finally got his car in reverse and got out of there.

He was charged with manslaughter for killing an unarmed man. Our defense team won an acquittal for him on the manslaughter charge, but that case did not have the political overtones. There was no cross racial element and there was no political gain.

eJournal: A question about windows: windows up, windows down, windows open a tiny amount?

Ayoob: I would suggest windows very slightly down. Some people tell me that rolling the window down just an inch will actually give it a greater tensile strength and resistance, but it also lets you better hear what is going on outside. One problem with the windows being rolled up, particularly if you have the radio going, the air conditioning going or in the winter, the heater going, is that you end up in an almost silent bubble.

eJournal: Mas, this is such a big subject! I am worried that I have failed to ask you about important topics. What should be our biggest take away? What would help us be best prepared in this time of increased danger?

Ayoob: Follow the news and follow what is happening. Know what the trends are. Gila, my final advice, and I think the best advice I can find, comes from the poet and humorist Ogden Nash, “When called by a panther, don’t ‘anther.’”

eJournal: Stay away, run away, don’t engage! All good strategies, and seriously, you have outlined a lot of areas of risk that we may not have previously identified, offered options for defense that we might not have considered, and emphasized not answering that panther by not voluntarily going to where protests are underway. Thank you for all of your time and knowledge!
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greats comments

always enjoy reading Ayoob's opinions

stay alert - stay alive

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Good things to think about. One thing I'll add is if you are shooting through glass, close your mouth if you have a second to think about it. You'll thank me if you have to do it.