Dealing With The Aftermath

Folks can learn a lot from history if they will just take the time to study it a bit. Take, for instance, the Earp brothers adventures in Arizona. Most everyone knows about the street fight on October 26, 1881, that has been called the Gunfight at the OK Corral. A group of cow thieves and holdup artists, called The Cowboys, were running roughshod over the Tombstone area and they unwisely decided to shoot it out with City Marshal Virgil Earp and his brothers. Three of the outlaws paid the ultimate price for it.

However, not so many know the rest of the story. On December 28, 1881, Virgil Earp was walking home late at night and was ambushed by the gang, a load of buckshot crippling him for life. One has to wonder why one of his brothers or some of their friends were not accompanying him. A show of force might have caused the outlaws to cancel their ambush altogether.

On March 18, 1883 – some five months after the initial street fight – Morgan Earp was shot to death in a pool hall. That particular evening, an informant had told the Earps that the gang was planning some sort of further revenge. However, instead of going home, or taking other precautions, the brothers decided on a late-night pool game. A military tactician might say that the Earps sorely underestimated the enemy.

We often think of the aftermath of a defensive shooting as being the necessity to cooperate with the legal system while the incident is being examined and evaluated. And, while this is certainly true, it may only be part of the after-action situation. Street gangs, drug dealers and the like are just as capable of attempting to exact revenge as those Cowboys were back in the 1880s. I fear that we too often overlook this possibility.

For example, in the wake of a legal defensive shooting, your firearm may be collected as evidence in the investigation. Do you have another suitable defensive firearm to immediately take its place? It might even be a good idea to have an identical duplicate so that your familiarization doesn’t suffer.

One also might keep in mind that your name will likely be found in newspaper articles and broadcast on the TV news. You will probably not be hard to find if a person will just go to a little trouble. For that reason, this is not the time to relax. Instead, it might be a very good idea to put your personal defense plan into high gear, because friends of the dearly departed will probably be able to find you if that is their desire. And just remember that awareness is the greatest defensive skill.

I have not seen any data on revenge attacks, so I can’t comment on how likely this sort of criminal attack actually is. Suffice it to say it is certainly a possibility, and one that the armed citizen should be aware of, consider and have some plan for dealing with. The Earps didn’t take it seriously and didn’t plan for it. Don’t you make the same mistake.