V. Defensive Use of Firearms

B. Reviews of Literature and Other Relevant Information

6. Physio-Psychological Effects of Violent Encounters

Physio-Psychological Aspects of Violent Encounters, Massad Ayoob, 120 minutes, LFI, $59.95

All these effects are expressions of body alarm reaction -- increased pulse, blood pressure, and respiration, plus the instant supercharge of adrenaline dump. Body alarm reaction finds its highest expression in the "fight or flight reflex." The latter was first quantified and systematically studied around the turn of the century by Dr. Walter Cannon (Harvard). Fight or flight reflex manifests in effects such as a period of superhuman strength (followed by a precipitous drop), imperviousness to pain, increased speed, gross decrease in fine motor skills, and trembling in the extremities. Ayoob advises his students to remember this: strength goes way up; dexterity goes way down.

What follows is a list of common physio-psychological effects that arise during life-or-death situations. Ayoob says that it's rare for them all to appear, but that it's equally rare for none of them to.

1. Tachypsychia (literally: the speed of the mind) -- the distortion of perceived time. In a life-or-death situation, the mind kicks into overdrive, perceiving orders of magnitude more information than is customary. This causes the perception that things are happening in slow motion, even though you -- and your opponent -- are probably moving faster than you ever have. Tachypsychia can also work in reverse ("it all happened so fast"). Ayoob's experiences lead him to observe that the more experienced and highly trained a person is, the more likely that person is to experience tachypsychia. That is, a person who knows that "trouble happens" is less likely to be surprised by it, and more likely to respond with super-heightened awareness. A concrete upshot of tachypsychia is that one should not speak with responding officers on the question of how long an encounter took. Rather, say "officer, he was trying to kill me, and I didn't have time to check my watch."

2. Tunnel Vision -- the mind focuses on the deadly threat to the exclusion of much of one's ordinary peripheral vision. It appears as if one is looking at the threat through a tube (or tunnel, precisely), and it requires conscious effort to see more than a few degrees to the right or left, or up or down. This can be a problem if you're dealing with multiple opponents.

3. Auditory Exclusion -- could also be called "tunnel hearing." Like tunnel vision, auditory exclusion is largely a function of the brain's cortex. That is, the brain has kicked into fight or flight reflex, focusing on the threat and screening out everything extraneous to immediate survival. One is still -- physically -- seeing and hearing as usual, but the brain is screening lots of things out. Tunnel vision and auditory exclus appears larger, therefore closer, often by as much as a 3-to-1 ratio. A man with a knife five yards away appears to be five feet away; .22s look like .44 magnums. You may not hear the officer behind you yelling "don't shoot;" you may not even hear your own shots (rest assured however that 'clickers' will the the loudest sounds you've ever heard). If you experience such physio-psychological aspects in a violent encounter -- and don't recognize them for what they are -- and recount your (distorted) perceptions to police, you can be in world of trouble when your case goes to court.

4. Precognition -- commonly called a "sixth sense" (a good phrase to avoid). Precognition has to do with having seen something so many times that you "see it coming" before the unthreatened observer -- such as a witness -- does. The connection with fight or flight reflex is that, in a deadly threat situation, the mind draws on memory resources that are not typically used. Precognition is a response to a subconsciously perceived queue, and has successfully been used in criminal defense (Miami policeman Luis Alvarez, 1982).

5. Denial Response -- On an otherwise normal day, you get a call out of the blue telling you that your mother has died. Your first response? "No! Mother can't be dead!" Another common example is people yelling "no" at a car that's about to hit them, or hit someone else. Again citing Officer Alvarez, within 30 seconds he went from thinking it was about time for a coffee break, to having blown a person's brains out. His first radio transmission was "my gun went off," not "someone tried to kill me, and I shot him." The implications for the armed citizen are obvious...

6. Amaurosis Fugax (temporary blindness) -- while "visual white out" is relatively rare, what is commonly called "hysterical blindness" is less so. The eyes have seen something so terrifying, the brain refuses to see it anymore. Ayoob observes that this is more likely to happen to the untrained, to those unprepared to deal with potential violence. One concrete upshot of this is that amaurosis fugax often translates into fleeing the scene of the shooting. In almost every court, flight equals guilt. The legal theory is that the person who did right will stand his or her ground to explain as need be; the person who flees does so because there is culpability involved. Again, the implications for the armed citizen are obvious...

7. Psychological Splitting -- the more highly trained a person is, the apt more he or she is to experience this (happened to Ayoob in 1971). When you have trained something to the point that you can do it on autopilot -- coupled with something that triggers fight or flight -- the body moves so fast that the conscious mind can't keep up. This can result in the perception of watching oneself do something. Ayoob counsels that if one experiences this, one is well served not to mention it in the initial debrief to local law enforcement; they may think you're crazy.

8. Excorporation -- out of body experience, the highest manifestation of psychological splitting. This is most commonly seen on operating tables after clinical death, and is often combined with a white tunnel of light (see items 2 and 6 above). It is also seen in gunfights with persons who think they are about to die. Its cause is that survival instinct is taking all the senses into overdrive, into hyper-perception one might say. In this state, the mind can generate 3-D images from sounds and recollected sights. Even when the body is unconscious, the ears still hear and -- if they are open -- the eyes can still see. Even at clinical death, the brain lives for another 8-10 minutes (ask any EMT).

9. State of Fugue -- somnambulant, zombie-like state. Seen occasionally.

10. Cognitive Dissonance -- or confusion, is more common. Common manifestations include remembering things out of sequence, trivial things looming large in the mind immediately after the incident, and important things being lost to short-term memory immediately after the incident. For example, after a shooting, a thing that really sticks in your mind is that you ripped a hole in your clothes in drawing your pistol. You mention this to the police ("damn, I tore my slacks" [and somebody else is laying there dead]). Certain sub-humans with dorsal fins under their pinstripes might bring such a thing up in court as a "proof" of your cold-heartedness (Ayoob recounts a case where it did). In reality what you've manifested is a type of denial response, a proof of innocence in its own right. Cognitive dissonance can be one of the mind's ways of saying "no, I didn't just come within 5 seconds of being dead, that didn't happen to me." EMTs see this when they witness colleagues telling jokes and laughing at the site of a gruesome traffic accident. They're not hard-hearted; they are crushed by what they've had to look at.