What happens if you draw and the other guy runs or surrenders? Certainly, if you can safely retreat you should do so, but I don't think that precludes drawing your weapon as well. Many things can happen between clearing leather and depressing the trigger.
Yes, and if he does any of those things, if I can stop myself from firing in that split second, of course I would.
The difference is subtle, but let me try to explain.
For some, the approach to engaging a weapon is:
1) Draw
2) Think about it, or give the attacker a moment to comply with instructions, back down, disengage, etc.
3) Fire if #2 fails.
My approach is:
1) Draw and fire.
As I mentioned previously, my approach to this is legalistic, moral, and operational.
Legalistic because if you yourself define a 'wait' moment in your own response to a deadly threat, then any attorney worth their salt is going to pounce on that. If you can wait one second, why not two? If you had time to wait, then were you really in life-threatening danger? Etc. I'm not going to open myself to those kinds of questions, ex post facto. Once I determine my life is in danger such that a reasonable man would agree I was entitled to use deadly force, I draw and fire. That is my stated standard. That is how I train. I will avoid engaging as long as possible, but if I do engage, there is no hesitation; there cannot be.
Moral because as mentioned above, if I truly do have time to think about things, then I am not in life-threatening danger, or alternatively, I'm foolish because I am delaying defending myself and putting myself in additional, unneeded danger. There is a moral notion about 'fair play' ingrained in the American psyche, based I suppose on Western quick-draw movies, but it's a false one. Unlike a movie western, the goal is merely to survive. By running away if possible. By avoiding getting into those kinds of confrontations if possible. Anything up to the point where death is immanent. But then it is survival. No fair play, no moment of reflection for good guy and bad guy. Bad guy made his choices; and if it was a poor one, he's potentially going to pay for that with his life.
I understand the philosophy of CCW's only drawing when they will need to shoot, but IMO that's somewhat different from "I will wait to draw till I HAVE to shoot".
Again, this goes to my philosophy that when you draw a weapon, you change the dynamics of the situation immediately and irrevocably. It may, as stated, cause the bad guy to back down. It may not. But no matter what happens after that, now that a firearm has been introduced - by either party - the situation has become hugely more serious. If it was not actually life-and-death, now it definitely is.
To draw a firearm is to announce intent to kill. I do not have any intent to kill unless I am reasonably in fear that I am about to be killed. In that case, and that case only, I will draw my weapon. Presuming things have gotten to that point, my training is that the very next thing that happens is that I aim and fire.
Most CCW classes I have seen teach that you draw only when you are "preparing" to protect yourself from a reasonably perceived deadly threat. Which is subtly different from only drawing when you are going to fire.
Subtle, yes. But I perceive that response as incorrect.
This also gets to the heart of something I have said before, which I firmly believe. Unlike any other self-defense weapon a person might choose to carry, a firearm is essentially different. It is not a close-range melee weapon that can only injure up close and personal. When I introduce a firearm to a self-defense situation, or the bad guy does, the dynamic of the confrontation immediately changes, and permanently so. First, it's now a deadly-force situation no matter how you look at it. With empty hands or a weapon other than a firearm it COULD be a deadly force situation, but it's not a given. With a firearm, there is no longer any doubt as to what kind of situation it is. Second, if the bad guy produces a firearm, he is now a deadly threat to me, from nearly any distance away. If he produces a baseball bat from 50 feet away, he's not a deadly threat to me - yet. He would have to get close enough to have the means to use it, or to take an action indicating that he was going to do that, like coming towards me in a threatening manner with it. With a firearm, his mere display of it puts me in reasonable fear of my life. And the same goes when I brandish a firearm at him. Although he is presumably breaking the law and not entitled to defend himself legally, the appearance of my firearm is going to inform him the same thing it informs me - that this is now a deadly confrontation. How he reacts, I cannot predict. But I did give him a heads up - and I'm not planning to do that.
