Two thugs thought they had an easy score when they saw a single man eating in his car in a Whataburger parking lot in Dallas, Texas. They were very, very wrong.

Two armed robbers picked the wrong victim in northwest Dallas.

Police said they approached a man eating his dinner in the parking lot of Whataburger at Inwood Road and Lemmon Avenue and tried to rob him around 1 a.m.Thursday morning.

The man was an off-duty, but armed security guard. He shot and killed one of the robbers. The other ran away.

Armed robbers fully expect compliance. If a trained victim with a plan of action feigns compliance before suddenly and smoothly responding, they quite often overwhelm the criminals both physically and mentally.

In this instance, the security guard got shots on target quickly and killed one robber with accurate fire, forcing the other to flee for his life. A man believed to be the second suspect was quickly apprehended by police nearby.

Similar robbery attempts are something that we trained for during the Defense Against Street Crimes class at Gunsite Academy last week. We learned how criminals think from two highly-experienced veteran police officers (Bob Whaley and John Hutchison), and how to respond to them in different scenarios. I’ll be discussing more about the class (and showing some video from the training) later today.

If you have good training, have a plan in place, and practice realistically, criminals with little or no training will typically end up on the short end of the stick, even if they have the initial advantage.

Train to live.