What You Don’t See Can Get You Killed!

Duhhh...but what you should see, but don’t, is the real problem! When I was still on active duty with the Air Force, it was not that unusual to hear about fighter-bomber aircraft crashing on the bombing and gunnery range during training. Investigators often found that there was no mechanical problem that caused the aircraft to crash. As a result, the cause for the crash was often attributed to “pilot error”. Many times it was speculated—but couldn’t be proven because the pilot died in the crash—that “target fixation” was the problem. “Target fixation” occurs when the pilot becomes so focused on delivering a bomb, rocket, missile, or gunfire on a target that they don’t notice how close the aircraft is to the ground and just fly the plane into the ground in the immediate vicinity of the target they are attacking. The development and use of ground proximity warning systems has helped to reduce, but not entirely eliminate, this phenomenon.

“Target fixation” is not limited to just fighter pilots. Soldiers, law enforcement officials, armed citizens, hunters, and predators in nature often find themselves dealing with it as well. They become so focused on the target or threat—tunnel vision—that they don’t see or hear—auditory exclusion— anything else that is going on around them. In a life-or-death situation, this can have both positive and negative consequences. On the positive side, it focuses all of your efforts on dealing with the threat. On the negative side it can get you killed if you fail to notice another threat in the area that is working in concert with the threat that you are focused on.

An example of this occurred in 2014 in Las Vegas, NV. A man and his wife killed two police officers that were eating their lunch in a pizza parlor. The killers ran into a neighboring WalMart store. An armed citizen in the WalMart observed the male killer fire a shot into the air and scream out something. The citizen decided to confront the armed man and directed him to “drop the gun." However, he failed to realize the armed man was not alone. The man’s wife walked up behind the armed citizen and shot him fatally in the head with one of the handguns the couple had taken from the two police officers they had killed. Responding police officers arrived on the scene a few minutes later and killed the man, at which point the wife took her own life.

The armed citizen made several errors in judgement in this situation. He was not immediately being threatened by the armed man but felt it was “his duty” to intervene since he was carrying a concealed firearm. His lack of situational awareness cost him his life. What could he have done differently?

Since the armed citizen was not in imminent danger of being killed or seriously injured, he could have sought cover and waited to see how the situation developed. If he felt it was necessary to protect the life of some “innocent other” person, he could have confronted the killer from a position that offered him some protection of being approached by someone else. If he felt it was necessary to shoot, he could have done so without alerting the armed killer to his presence. REMEMBER: As an armed citizen you are not a law enforcement official. You are under no obligation to protect someone else. Indeed, carrying a concealed firearm is so you can protect yourself and any family members that are with you at the time you are threatened. Your focus should be on protecting yourself (priority 1), your family (priority 2), and only after they are safe should you focus on protecting some “innocent other” on the scene (priority 3)!

By the way, the reason ground proximity warning systems don’t prevent all “target fixation” situations for fighter pilots is that those physiological phenomena of “tunnel vision” and “auditory exclusion” can still come into play, preventing the pilot from seeing the warning lights flashing in his cockpit and hearing the computer voice shouting in his ear to “Pull Up!...Pull Up!” Don’t you become so fixated on the target/ threat that you end up getting killed by the unseen threat!

Gary Evens is a NRA-Certified Instructor and Range Safety Officer.