Close Quarters

[RX-79G]

I don't think either of you understood my point:


If you have two weapons to choose from, you have to spend time choosing.

You don't have time for choosing, so you shouldn't add a time wasting decision step to the process of reacting to a threat.

One weapon and only one weapon has to be the thing you're primed to draw.

You may have a knife or other secondary weapon, but that's for when the first weapon is no longer available.

 

[Trent]

Takes just as long to draw a knife as it does a gun. Why would you go for a knife first?

After that incident I had, I am now a vocal proponent of carrying something on my off side (knife).

The logic being if the encounter starts out with my strong side arm otherwise useless (hit, grabbed, tackled and that side is pinned, whatever) I have another option open to me on my left side.

Rather than carry two guns I'd rather carry a gun and a knife. Knife is useful all the time, for all sorts of tasks. Just makes sense to keep it on my off side so I can pull it with my off hand.

I wouldn't waste any time "choosing", in any event. If someone is doing something that makes them worth hurting, and I can employ the gun, that's what I'm doing.

Chances are it won't work out that way, though.

Chances are I'll need to buy time or space (and in doing so may not have one arm free anymore)... so I keep something useful on both sides of the body.

Make sense?

ETA: Also, the point that I was trying to make is that gun, knife, whatever really shouldn't be your first thought in a close quarters engagement, which is what this thread is about. "What do I draw to defend myself" is irrelevant, to that extent. You can't use a tool that you have to "deploy" in most cases, without first defending yourself physically, as you need to buy yourself the time and space to do so. To that extent there's really no time for thought, as you really only have your own reactions to buy you that time. HOW you react depends on what skills you've developed. What tools you have at your disposal. What training you've done with partners to develop timing and distance to deliver the techniques you've learned effectively against an aggressor.

You can't really get ANY of that through thought exercises like this. To develop those tools, to learn technique, to understand timing and distance so you can employ those techniques, well, you need to physically show up somewhere that teaches them and put in the hours it takes to learn them, and absorb it all in to muscle memory, so it's all natural response.

Once you've learned (whatever style) of techniques and spent enough time practicing them to commit them soundly to muscle memory, those will be useful as a reaction. Without any thought. This takes quite a bit of time and personal commitment for folks, not just to learn techniques and have them "become part of you" but to do enough partner training to understand and learn timing and distance so you can effectively utilize them.

In short, the point I'm trying to drive home, is any and all close quarters fights start as a hand to hand encounter and will only end up with you being able to use a gun or knife if you are either lucky enough**, or skilled enough, to deploy them, as there is not enough response time to deploy them initially, if it is truly a close quarters encounter. To be able to deploy them means overcoming the initial physical assault, buying space and time to draw, and doing so in a manner that allows you to retain control of them.

** Personally I don't want to ever rely on "luck", when it comes to defending my life.

 

[RX-79G]

I wouldn't go for a knife first. I'd train to go for the gun and only the gun, because of the two a gun can be used at long, short and contact ranges.

 

[Trent]

I wouldn't go for a knife first. I'd train to go for the gun and only the gun, because of the two a gun can be used at long, short and contact ranges.

I agree with this. Make sure you read the edit, I made, I expanded on the point I was trying to make in the post previous to this one.

Make sure you have training that will ALLOW you to go for the gun. (This does not involve training with a gun, but rather, something else entirely)

 

[Trent]

And just to iterate - I'm not singling anyone out or calling anyone out.

My perception, in general, from years of instruction, is that the vast majority of gun owners who carry concealed, go through the most minimal of training that their state proscribes, and rarely practice. The vast majority of ALL gun owners, even those who do go through extensive training with firearms, lack any sort of conventional hand to hand training.

This puts those folks at a SEVERE disadvantage for any encounters that start at a distance closer than 7 or 8 yards - and if you are targeted for a violent assault you can be damn sure the attack is going to be initiated within that range. Folks are unlikely to even be able to use their gun if they find themselves in a defense situation where they are the target and the attack happens suddenly.

(Guns are far more useful if you are NOT the initial target - e.g. intervention on a violent attack against someone else, or if have some forewarning, such as a window breaking downstairs while you sleep)

The point again, is a gun is just one tool in your toolkit, and in a large number of self defense scenarios (I'd argue, the majority), it's not a particularly useful tool.

Your hands, feet, elbows, knees, forehead, teeth, etc.. your very BODY.. that's the most useful tool you have for close distance encounters. If you know how to use your body properly, then you have a much higher probability of being able to use a firearm, or knife, or other device, if the encounter warrants lethal force.

 

[RX-79G]

The problem isn't that people don't receive enough different kinds of training. The problem is that regular people don't have the time to take up multiple self defense training hobbies. The whole point of a gun is that it makes a 90 pound woman just as potentially lethal as Hulk Hogan. Carrying a gun doesn't mean that you are signing up to be... Steven Segal.

Ideally, everyone could drive a stick shift, run an 8 minute mile, stitch a torn artery, read Morse code and survive in Alaska with a knife and trash bag. The reality is that most people carrying guns have no pressing need to do so and that a CCW is probably one of the very few things they've ever done to insure their survival in an emergency, and probably not one of the most important ones.


Yes, it would be great if we all had the time to be ninjas, but that is a fantasy life a few people are paid to have and a lot of other people like to pretend.

 

[Trent]

It does take time and effort to acquire proficiency sufficient for application in hand to hand, however, there are many rudimentary but effective basics to fighting, that one can learn in relative short order, which work just fine without putting in years of practice. Or, perhaps more significantly, without a great deal of cost.

That 90 pound woman wouldn't be ABLE to employ a gun if an attacker rushed her while she was pushing her shopping cart out to her car. She wouldn't have time before the aggressor was on her.

This is the specific subject that I was talking about, which you are (for whatever reason) trying to rebut.

In close quarters combat a firearm can be more of a liability than an asset. Period.

The only way you can even realistically bring a firearm in to play when an attack starts close in, is if you know how to gain time and distance while avoiding serious, incapacitating injury to yourself - and THAT involves having at least some rudimentary skill in hand to hand combat.

This is the point I was trying to make. The vast majority of gun owners put a gun on and play mental games in their head which are a "perfect dreamland scenario" where they are the hero that rescues the princess, or the anonymous guy who stops a shooting rampage, or valiantly defends their home.

Life isn't a perfect dreamland scenario where you get time and space and have the comfort of making good decisions.

You might get your very first warning that you are in a fight, when you suddenly feel the impact of someone tackling you, and find yourself under a larger, more powerful man with a knife in his hand, and one or both of your arms pinned.

Up until I had that happen to me, I was like most other gun owners. Every scenario I played in my head, all of the static range training, the IDPA courses of fire, and so on, tens of thousands of rounds sent downrange, were utterly worthless to what I needed RIGHT THEN.

Aside from being an concealed carry instructor, and long before I ever picked up my first firearm, I was involved with martial arts. Over 30 years of my life has been spent in the dojo, training, and teaching.

Training matters, man. Doesn't take 30 years of training to be proficient, of course. Doesn't take THAT long at all. Just need to put in the time and effort.

Every day you spend training, might give you just enough edge to get another 30 or 40 years of lifespan.

I'm alive today *because* of it.

So, again, are guns a worthy tool? Sure, of course they are. That's why I carry one every day.

But I also know how to use the tools I was born with.

 

[strambo]

The problem isn't that people don't receive enough different kinds of training. The problem is that regular people don't have the time to take up multiple self defense training hobbies.

Except this is not correct. It is only correct if one decides to go down the traditional "training silo" route and learn multiple (inefficient) martial arts while attending firearms training. As someone going through a LEAN project improvement certification process, it pains me just to type that. So much wasted time...

I just started with a new training partner. At 5x 1hr sessions, he was stepping in without hesitation and striking vulnerable body parts with all his weight behind it. As a test, I came at him full speed to stab the snot out of him prison shanking style (the hardest, yet most realistic, knife attack to deal with), he immediately drove in and gave me an open hand to the trachea. I had to get out of the way fast to avoid getting injured, no time for me to change course or block as I was fully committed to stabbing him. A 90lb woman would have had the same outcome. That was after slightly more than a 1/2 day's training.

However, it was training in an extremely efficient and effective manner. Zero time learning mat/dojo etiquette. Zero time on how to wear a uniform or tie a belt. Zero time memorizing useless self-defense techniques. Zero time spent memorizing forms. 100% time spent practicing striking vulnerable parts of the body with all body weight behind the strike.

If the average CCW holder attended a 2 day defensive handgun course and a 1-2 day H2H course (in the right thing) they would be light-years ahead and 4 days training time/cost is not at all unreasonable or un-attainable.

In all my years of training and teaching, I have found that most gun owners vastly over-estimate their ability to use a gun in a fight, they think any gun will do and they don't need to train "like a commando" 'cause they aren't clearing houses in Iraq.

On the H2H side, they vastly over-estimate how much training is needed and under-estimate themselves (too old, young, weak, handicapped etc.)

Having a gun with little to no training only makes you equal if the criminal decides to run (thankfully, most of them do!) If they stay and fight, the gun in and of itself means little without the skill to use it effectively in a dynamic close quarter fight that may involve shooting, striking and stabbing, sometimes simultaneously.

Again, I do understand your point about the gun/knife decision. My point is there is no decision in my process of what tool to grab. It doesn't matter if I'm carrying 10 different weapons. If one of them isn't already in my hand when a close quarter fight starts, I'm not deciding to grab anything. I don't need a magic tool in my hand 1-2 seconds from now. I need to injure them RIGHT NOW! Then...maybe grab a tool to make getting the next injury easier if that fits the situation.

 

[jeepnik]

Several of the comments seem to put credence to the old saying, "never start a fight with an old guy, he'll just kill you".

I used to think that was silly. Now that I'm the old guy I realize I can't go toe to toe with younger, stronger, faster men. So...

 

[shafter]

Just because you feel you're too old to fight, doesn't mean you get to go for your gun. You might get into a physical confrontation and by the time it rises to the point where deadly force is justified it might be too late. A little training might be enough to keep you alive. Maybe not, but I like to keep putting training pennies in the bank and hope that when the time comes it will be enough to pay the bill on the street.

 

[Good Ol' Boy]

I want to thank Trent for taking the time to write out those great informative replies. Several others have been helpful as well.


I pity those who rely solely on their sidearm and have no other tactics in place. I don't think anyone here is claiming to be, or that you should be, Bruce Lee or something. There are basic techniques that are blind to gender, size or age. It would behoove everyone who is not already familiar to check into them.

 

[X-Rap]

I believe that one must be able to come back from an initial attack. As Trent pointed out his "real life" example took seconds and he had to react from a position that was not ideal.
I firmly believe that most of us who will face violence will do so much in the way Trent did.
How you react after that first contact will determine the outcome much of the time. Cooper's Principals of Personal Defense are still valid today and probably his most enduring work.

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

 

[jeepnik]

Just because you feel you're too old to fight, doesn't mean you get to go for your gun. You might get into a physical confrontation and by the time it rises to the point where deadly force is justified it might be too late. A little training might be enough to keep you alive. Maybe not, but I like to keep putting training pennies in the bank and hope that when the time comes it will be enough to pay the bill on the street.

So, I'm sitting in my wheelchair, or leaning on my walker and I should first engage hand to hand before I engage with a firearm.

Gee, when that happens to you, give me your address and I'll send flowers.

You can never make blanket statements. And my response, at least the first part, was tongue in cheek.

My point is, older or physically impaired folks can't afford the luxury of "tactics" of escalating response. Of course, I learned that lesson when the US Government taught it to me forty odd years ago.

 

[shafter]

Of course not, and I didn't think what I wrote came across as a blanket statement. If it did, my apologies. The use of force continuum allows for skipping steps if necessary. Age and infirmities are factors to be considered under the totality of the circumstances, but they aren't everything. You still have to articulate that you were in imminent fear of great bodily harm or death.

 

[jeepnik]

Of course not, and I didn't think what I wrote came across as a blanket statement. If it did, my apologies. The use of force continuum allows for skipping steps if necessary. Age and infirmities are factors to be considered under the totality of the circumstances, but they aren't everything. You still have to articulate that you were in imminent fear of great bodily harm or death.

At my age push me down and I'll likely break something important.

 

[bubba in ca]

Some people make everything so complicated.

If I need to buy time I'll do a knuckle jab to the throat or an eye jab, or both, then draw and shoot him 3 times in the face.
If I don't need to buy time, I'll shoot him 3 times in the face.

I like the quote above "don't fight with an old guy, he'll just kill you". Profound wisdom.

If you do indeed have the moral and legal right to use deadly force, to it fast and thorough. Then stop and call 911

 

[Trent]

Several of the comments seem to put credence to the old saying, "never start a fight with an old guy, he'll just kill you".

I used to think that was silly. Now that I'm the old guy I realize I can't go toe to toe with younger, stronger, faster men. So...

At my age push me down and I'll likely break something important.

Over half of my concealed carry students are over the age of 55. Over 40% are over 65.

If you are walking on two legs it's possible to learn simple things that can buy you time and space. Like sidestepping someone who is rushing you at the last possible moment, and leaving your foot out. While they trip and eat pavement you can draw your gun.

That walker could be a useful obstacle to an attacker, that gives you space and time. Or at the very least, a useful distraction so they don't see you draw.

The use of force continuum allows for skipping steps if necessary. Age and infirmities are factors to be considered under the totality of the circumstances, but they aren't everything. You still have to articulate that you were in imminent fear of great bodily harm or death.

These three sentences are worth elaborating on. FAR too many gun owners don't have as good of a grip on this as they should.

Yes, in both the "90 pound female vs. a 300 pound bodybuilder" and an "80 year old man vs. a 21 year old athlete", a reasonable person (by the legal definition thereof) would consider that a single blow from the aggressor could indeed cause death or serious bodily injury.

In neither case do you have to wait to be struck by them. If you reasonably believe an attack is imminent (they've said they are going to attack you, or "give me all your money or I'll beat you old man", etc) then escalation to lethal force may very well be justified even if they are unarmed, and even if they have not yet made physical contact.

The key is do YOU have the belief that an attack is imminent, cannot be avoided (de-escalated), that such an attack could kill or seriously injure you, etc.

And if the jury doesn't buy it, or there's any question, guess what? YOUR statements, no matter how well articulated, will get tossed out and a "reasonable man" virtual substitute will get brought in to their deliberations. "Would a reasonable man think that, given this situation, they would be in fear of death or serious bodily injury?"

And even then, they'll adjust that accordingly to fit you, specifically. A "reasonable man" of your training and background.

"Am I completely out of options here, and would I survive a hit from that juggernaut."

I can't offer legal advice nor would I as case law and legal definitions of justified use of force vary widely across jurisdictions (ask a local attorney who is familiar with them), and specific locale (self defense rights may be different in your home, vs. in public), but in general the basic principals are fairly universally established at this point in time.

A 90 pound female or a 90 year old man can "go to the gun" against an opponent that I would reasonably be expected to handle without escalating to lethal force. To THEM, it is already a lethal force event, they are not escalating it. To ME.. I can't. Not unless there's multiple attackers, they draw a weapon, they find and go for MY weapon, or I am in a fist fight and end up on the losing end to the point I feel I'm likely to die (they're bashing my head in to the pavement, sort of thing.)

Until that blurry line is crossed, I'd have to tough it out.

So for a close quarters fight against one or two unarmed aggressors I would have no choice but to fight it out. I'd be on horrible legal footing if I drew a gun. Whereas most healthy males might be able to draw if it was 2 on 1, they aren't likely to get out of that without serious injury. Whereas a jury who has watched too many movies might think "this guy has been in martial arts for 30 years and taught classes for the last 20, he should be able to handle two on one."

What would a reasonable man think? That's different depending on who you are. What would a reasonable 80 year old man using a walker think? What would a reasonable 40 year old martial arts instructor think?

(Whether I could actually defend against two attackers is irrelevant, because if it goes to trial the jury decides where the line in that big gray area resides, and they're just normal folks who know what they know. And most of what they know is wrong, learned by watching too many hollywood movies and TV shows.)

I'm just tossing the above out to give some idea of how murky the water becomes.

The reason I'm going down that path, is folks naturally draw conclusions and form ideas based on "perfect mental scenarios" that play by the rules they decide in their own head. This shapes their perception of reality, and skews that reality.

"I can't ever envision myself shooting someone in a fashion which would be deemed questionable, there's no way I'd end up in front of a jury."

--- Said by every student who ever walked through my door.

What happens if you shoot and kill an unarmed person, alone, there are no witnesses? (Or the "weapon" is questionable. See Harold Fish.)

What happens if an attacker starts to run away WHILE pointing a gun at you, gangbanger style, and you shoot them? The only penetrating wound is through their back? It'd look like you shot someone running away through the back. If they hadn't shot their gun, but were POINTING it at you, you would still feel justified in shooting them; they were still a threat. However, there'd be no physical evidence indicating they were a threat; the physical evidence would show that person was running away. It wouldn't show they had a gun pointed back at you at the time you pulled the trigger.

What happens if you get a through & through or a miss on an otherwise good shoot, and wound or kill an innocent bystander?

What happens if you shoot the person TWICE through the head? You might not have been able to react quickly enough to stop pulling the trigger. Might appear as though you went BEYOND stopping the threat, and executed them. (As an example I have split times of .12-.14 on my 9mm, but human reaction time is around .20...)

What happens if you shoot someone who you had prior personal contact with, and that contact was known not to be positive? Can a witness show up with damaging testimony during the shoot investigation and say "yeah, those two were always arguing", etc..

There's plenty of ways a person could end up in front of a jury.

By the time folks leave my classroom they have a solid newfound respect for "murky water", and some ideas on how to steer well clear of them.

(Don't intervene, escape if possible, etc, etc)

What folks fail to realize is you have ZERO seconds to decide life or death, do I go to lethal force, or not. And when you suddenly discover you are in a fight, you might not even know if it's a fight for your life or not.

Meanwhile a jury has perfect 20/20 hindsight and weeks to form an opinion and pick apart the 2 tenths of a second that you had, to make that decision.

These things are best to work out ahead of time.

And everything you can reasonably do to avoid drawing a gun, is a good thing.... Including learning how to deal with someone in hand to hand.

I mean, seriously - you are not very likely to need to defend yourself with lethal force in your lifetime. MOST violent encounters folks have do NOT qualify to use lethal force - they're plain old bad-breath down in the dirt fist fights.

Even then, you're only likely to experience a violent assault in this country (statistically) once out of every 2 lifetimes. And a lethal force encounter is much more rare, closer to one in 10 lifetimes.

But think on that a minute. Are you married or have a significant other? Because "once out of every 2 lifetimes" means statistically ONE of you is going to face a violent assault in your life. Probably not a lethal force encounter, unless you're real unlucky, but at some point you, or someone close to you, WILL face an attack of some nature.

This is a nationwide statistical average using FBI crime stats - obviously some areas are more safe, others not so much. Risks are much different in a rural small town, than in, say, the south side of Chicago.

Guns are a great equalizer, sure. But you can't bring a gun to a fist fight. Not legally, anyway, in most cases.

And by the time the fist fight you are in turns significantly against you to the point you're at risk of death, probably can't GET to your gun anyway.

(Gramps against The Mountain might be one exception.. 90 pound woman might be another, if she's facing a bodybuilder, and not another 90 pound woman, anyway. )

Just food for thought.

 

[RX-79G]

The 1 in 2 victim stat is a little skewed by the fact that so many violent crimes are domestic or others where the victim knew the perpetrator. Those aren't the violent crimes people generally can or do arm themselves against. One doesn't generally carry a weapon at home in case their spouse becomes violent.

 

[Trent]

Those are still cases where you should know how to defend yourself. Especially so. The more skilled you are the more likely you can end it without seriously damaging someone else, which is pretty important for family members, I'd think.

One in 2 lifetimes is the composite; it took in the 'violent offenses' on the FBI charts reported annually (rape, robbery, assault, murder, etc; but not property crimes).

Of course plenty of fights go unreported, too. So your chances may go up a little.

Complicating figuring out stats on likelihood of being in a lethal force event is also jurisdictional issues. There's wide differences in what you could justifiably do between say, Florida and Texas, versus a state where you have a legal obligation to retreat (even in your own home; in some states you have to be cornered before you can go to lethal force).

 

[RX-79G]

Do you think fights that go unreported are really lethal force encounters?

 

[strambo]

Do you think fights that go unreported are really lethal force encounters?

No, they'd be from the "assaults" in the list of violent crimes he compiled. Probably a decent number of physical assaults go un-reported, especially if both parties are at fault (most times that's the case) or it is minor.

Trent was just acknowledging the limits of crime statistics. There is always an unknown element of un-reported crime and in some cases/categories it can be huge. Another popular source is the NCVS, National Crime Victimization Survey. As a survey, it can be predictive of all crime as it asks about reported or unreported data. It also captures a lot more details. Its limitation however, is a huge one, it is just a projection based on survey response.

The FBI UCR and the NCVS taken together give a decent sense of violent crime and statistical chances as well as what the primary threats are, but there will never be perfect data.

That is also just general data, an individual's exposure can vary wildly from that. A female in a big city who is clueless about situational awareness and likes to get smashed in public will have a very high personal risk. A somewhat fit male in a small town with good situational awareness, calm demeanor (won't get sucked into ego-driven "fights"), and who does not make the same poor life choices will have an exposure rate of near zero.

 

[RX-79G]

There are definitely limits on how much stats can tell us.

But if you are going to reference stats, at least reference the appropriate ones for the subject. Armed self defense is pretty much exclusive to life threatening violent attacks by strangers. So you need to ignore domestic violence and bar fight kind of stuff if you actually want to get down to what it is your are arming yourself against.

At that point it is appropriate to figure out what isn't being reported, but if lethal force was involved, it is almost impossible for it not to get reported because of the aftermath.

The obvious exception is rape, but I'll bet that the most under-reported rape cases are date rape and other kinds that involve a violation of trust, rather than a simple attack. Date rape mostly falls outside the armed defense paradigm.

 

[strambo]

So, the odds of getting punched in the face by some jerk don't concern you? How would you know in the moment if it would, or wouldn't, go lethal?

Me, I'm interested in all the stats for violent crime including simple assault, I want to know the odds of someone trying to physically hurt me (actually, I look at them for threat trends, not odds). YMMV, no worries.

They don't extrapolate well to the individual situation anyways. Sometimes in combat zones I felt like I was probably at lower risk of death than driving at home on the freeway...

 

[RX-79G]

Getting punched in the nose is important if you think you're going to be killing someone who tries it.

 

[Jeff White]

Strambo,
In many states simple assault is verbal, not physical and doesn't get reported as violent crime.

You have to know what you're looking at when you look at crime stats.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk