grabbing the gun from your attacker practical?

[random_gun]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXu9qrXHhoc

How practical are these techniques?
It seems to me some stuff in the vid is extremely risky, or reckless..... Looks pretty neat in slow motion but in real life a mistake can end up pretty bad....
For an average person(not some ninja...) what's the chance to disarm a gunman, or even a knife/stick man with hands?

Try to avoid these situations by awareness, if it doesn't help, run... if that still doesn't work, then what?

 

[lemaymiami]

I didn't look at the video (and don't intend to...). I was actually taught several different means of disarming an opponent foolish enough to be within reash, but.....

What I really focused on as a cop was making darned sure that I was never in that situation.

A disarm maneuver is an absolutely last ditch, total desperation proposition. If you know the techniques and are willing to go "live or die" that's the a choice each individual will have to make. I had instructors under my command that could disarm from a latched safety holster face to face, front to rear as well as disarm an armed individual ready to shoot and deal with them simultaneously (they were that good) - but I'll bet none of them wanted to try it on the street where it counts since the good guys don't always win....

I'll get down off of my soapbox now...

 

[dayhiker]

If you know the techniques and are willing to go "live or die" that's the a choice each individual will have to make.

+1

Life isn't the movies. A disarm, be it firearm of knife, isn't a strategy you can count on. Taking a "fake" gun or blade away from someone in training is one thing.

A live gun or blade from someone ready,willing, and able to kill you is another.

Still ,for me, dying while fighting is preferable to dying on my knees pleading for my life. Though I'd rather not need to do either.

 

[Unistat]

I personally know a guy who did this when someone attempted to carjack him at a gas station. Turns out the gun was empty, but he did get it away from his attacker.

It was a very bad case of poor victim selection.
My friend:
-practicing judo, karate, and MMA since he was 12
-former Sheriff's Deputy
-son of a police officer
-nephew of the Chief of Police
-nephew of the Mayor

My friend has said that God must have a plan for the turd that tried to jack him, because any other day he would have been shot dead.

 

[Deaf Smith]

While yes, if the attacker has his weapon right against you then you do have a chance to disarm. But also do keep in mind the guy also has a brain and will resist. And if he has a buddy...

Do practice disarms and takedowns, and other self defense as that is the way to ingrain it so you can use it under pressure, BUT it will still be a gamble.

Deaf

 

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

Disarming should always be last resort. Absolutely last. You have a good change of getting shot or stabbed anyways if you try it, but if you're about to be shot at close range anyways, you might as well try. If you have ANY other choice, distracting the attacker, opening the distance, anything, I would try that first.

I too have been through disarming drills in the Army and for LE with airsoft guns. Plan on getting hit with a bullet somewhere.

 

[sidheshooter]

Lemaymiami summed it up in the first response.

As to the OP question, I say: not really, but it's a darn sight more practical than rolling over and giving up.

Going on to knife disarms (with all apologies to my good friends in the FMA) that's even more impractical, IMNSHO. Best chance in last ditch hail mary is to seriously mess the knifist up before he has a chance to take any more sewing machine stabs. I do not relish the idea of repeatedly trying to play catch up with a bladester. I've seen a guy (Felix Valencia) who is so good at that stuff that he seems to always make it work on the mat, even against skeptical pro operators, but he's an anomaly, and I'm not him–nor will I ever be.

Here is a quote from McCann's combatives that I like:

"If you don't make your attacker tentative about using the knife, you're just prolonging the inevitable. You can't prevail relying on defense alone. You have to alternate between defensive and offensive postures as quickly as the situation allows."

He goes on to observe–and everyone is free to make up their own minds on this:

"if your (knife) attacker's intent is to kill you and you don't [mess] him up quickly and completely, he's going to kill you. Period."

Among all the other great and wonderful things I learned about myself doing martial arts for half my life, one of them was to just give up on "disarms" when it comes to blades.

JMO, YMMV and grain of salt, of course.

 

[Elm Creek Smith]

My idea of disarming an attacker is to shoot him...repeatedly...with the most effective firearm at my disposal. Most of the time that is going to be a .357 Magnum or a .38 Special. The only time I had to disarm a knife-wielding thug it took two rounds of Winchester 158 grain LSWCHP .357 Magnum rounds (in the days before flash-suppressed powders). I was still cut up (almost lost my left thumb) but he didn't get to my family, and I was able to go home with them.

Now if someone tries to poke me with a long gun, that's another story. You can take a long gun from an attacker if he's stupid enough to close with you. Handguns, maybe, but I'd be loathe to try. My first choice would be to shoot him...repeatedly...

ECS

 

[9mmepiphany]

My department actually paid for some of us to go to a course in knife defense. I'm guessing they didn't realize that the main focus of the class was to teach you not to try to disarm a trained knife wielder. They did teach some useful responses to the odd person using a knife, but their main advice was to create distance as a defense.

A handgun on the other hand, at close quarters, scares me much less...but is still not something I'd attempt unless there wasn't any other option. You need to be aware that distance isn't your friend against a handgun

 

[hso]

A disarm maneuver is an absolutely last ditch, total desperation proposition.

Yep

 

[WardenWolf]

I've considered tactics for this, as a last ditch maneuver. A rifle is probably easier to deal with, because it's easier to deflect and, once you're inside its length, it is very difficult to bring to bear. On the other hand, it's also a lot harder to take away.

The idea I have is to sweep with my arm, grab the wrist and then gun, elbow strike to the face, strike the wrist, and pull the gun away. A strike on the wrist weakens the grip slightly. That's physiological. And the hope is that, combined with the damage from the elbow to the face, would be sufficient to part the attacker with his weapon.

Incidentally, an elbow strike to the face is one of those last-ditch fighting tactics. It's something you can never take back, as it stands a high likelihood of putting out an eye or otherwise doing critical damage to the nose, jaw, or other facial structures. It's absolutely devastating.

 

[Shawn Dodson]

I trained for 8 weeks under the Rex Kwon Do system - http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/80500613/

 

[hso]

Long guns are more difficult to strip than hand guns. Stripping a firearm from someone is done when you're certain you're dead anyway if you don't try.

You need to be trained and to practice, then practice some more. Then practice with airsoft so your failures hurt, but not kill. Then keep practicing with different people who don't want you to take the red gun or airsoft away from them and who want to shoot you with the airsoft.

You'll learn a couple of things.
Getting shot in the forearm, chest and belly with airsoft hurts.
Trying to strip a firearm from an attacker is about the last thing you want to try.

 

[M2 Carbine]

This I wish I had seen.
Not something you hear about every day.

In the DFW area a couple years ago a 65 year old lady took a young car jacker's gun away from him and shot him in the stomach with it.

 

[Bovice]

Originally posted by Shawn Dodson: I trained for 8 weeks under the Rex Kwon Do system - http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/80500613/

Do you think anyone thinks I'm a failure because I go home to Starla at night?

FORGET ABOUT IT! (and disarming knives)

 

[Loosedhorse]

How practical are these techniques?

How good are you at them?

If you can do several disarms rapidly "in your sleep" because you've practiced them enough, then you know exactly their effectiveness and their limitations.

Saying that a disarm is a "last ditch" or "last resort" technique may be misleading--it is certainly not a "wait to the last moment" technique. That is, you can't wait until the guy is about to shoot you from 10 feet away (after he's tied you up!) to suddenly think, "Maybe I should try a disarm now."

If you are in a situation with a guy who means you and your loved ones harm (not just threatening so he can rob you: HARM), and you have no weapon or escape, and he gets distracted while the gun is within your reach--AND you KNOW you can quickly disarm him--then do it. Do it now. Don't wait.

It is a full commitment thing. You don't "try" a disarm and "see how it goes." You do it with the full realization that the gun will fire (though it may not), and that this attempt may be the last thing you ever do on this Earth.

 

[lemaymiami]

Just to show you how crazy disarming someone can get... here's a true story, I was the first one on scene and this is the situation I found....

It was a small x-rated bookstore in a bad part of town. There were two middle aged victims of an attempted robbery by two armed subjects. The inside of the store had walls spattered with blood in the area of the cash register. One of the victims was still holding the Charter Arms 38 he'd taken from one of the robbers. Both victims had numerous cuts to the scalp area (apparently so did the robbers...). Not one shot was fired in the entire incident.....

Now for the story. The clerk was inside the store behind a four foot tall counter built into a corner that you had to climb over to stand behind and that's where he was when things went down. One robber pointed a gun at him and started the party. The middle aged clerk jumped over the counter, grabbed the guy's gun and started beating him over the head with it... Robber number two then started beating the victim with his gun. While the three of them were dancing around and whacking each other with pistols, the second victim, who had been outside the store, ran in and joined the party. Now we have four guys dancing around whacking each other with two pistols (all head wounds)... Finally the two robbers broke away and fled on foot, leaving one gun behind... No one fired a shot, the two victims couldn't explain just why they did what they did... and I had a story I'd be able to tell years later...

Considering where it occurred there was a possibility that this wasn't a robbery (adult book stores aren't exactly where I'd expect to find an honest victim) but the crime scene pretty much validated their account. This includes bits of bad guy hair on the walls and on the gun left behind (victims and robbers were from two distinct races so it was easy to spot the hair from the robbers...).

The real lesson here is just how unpredictable and flat out crazy an armed encounter at close quarters can get. The victim who took the robber's gun couldn't even describe how he did it (and didn't even remember jumping over the counter). Both victims were ordinary middle aged guys with no particular physical attributes (soft, pot bellied, just like the rest of us...) and no training at all. I can't say why no one was shot during the entire incident but that's the way it went down. Like I said at the beginning of this thread I consider a disarming techique to be a last ditch, do or die proposition and always planned on avoiding it if at all possible....

 

[MtnCreek]

I’ve watched my son do his karate tests a couple of times. His last test required ‘attempting’ to disarm someone with a handgun in a few positions. The same with a knife, although multiple techniques to disarm were ‘attempted’ with the knife. I say attempted because at his rank, he only had to try.

The more advanced students were pretty impressive to watch. That said, the whole time I was watching this I thought that all of them would have probably been shot.

Off topic, but one thing that did bother me about the way they were being taught was the ‘gun’ was a wooden gun shaped like an auto. After disarming, they would point the gun at the attacker and ‘shoot’. They were not taught to ‘operate’ the slide, but it’s karate class, not handgun class…

 

[dayhiker]

The one thing that stands out to me in the OP's linked vids is this. During these disarms the muzzle sweeps the "Ninja" several times.

It is unrealistic to think that the aggressor would not be able to discharge his pistol multiple times during these disarm attempts.Nor does the "bad guy" ever use weapon retention techniques.

Of course being choreographed the good guy wins.

 

[MtnCreek]

The one thing that stands out to me in the OP's linked vids is this. During these disarms the muzzle sweeps the "Ninja" several times.

It is unrealistic to think that the aggressor would not be able to discharge his pistol multiple times during these disarm attempts.Nor does the "bad guy" ever use weapon retention techniques.

Of course being choreographed the good guy wins.

I noticed that also; when sitting in the chair, the pistol was pointed strait at his stomach. The aggressor pretty much went limp when the 'ninja' started doing his thing.

I think my 6 yo is learning a little better technique; at least the weapon is not pointed at him (and typically Sensei’s helper has his finger twisted in the trigger guard; painful even with a 6 yo leveraging on it). Maybe this guy can join my kids karate class and get a few pointers.

 

[MedWheeler]

I've never really had any actual disarming training, but have had some in redirecting an attacker's weapon while I access and deploy mine. If one gets over the mindset that the attacker's weapon must be taken and understands that another option exists, it opens up some more potentially life-saving possibilities.
As has been pointed out, redirecting an attacker's weapon is easier if it is a long gun. There are numerous techniques for doing so with one hand while the other is used to access and fire one's defensive handgun. Unfortunately, they do require that the intended victim actually get close enough to the assailant to employ them, which goes counter to our ingrained basic instincts.

 

[sidheshooter]

I've never really had any actual disarming training, but have had some in redirecting an attacker's weapon while I access and deploy mine. If one gets over the mindset that the attacker's weapon must be taken and understands that another option exists, it opens up some more potentially life-saving possibilities.

There we go; redirection and trapping are a lot different than disarming or stripping.

Frankly, it's the war that needs to be won, not the battle. If a knife wielding attacker goes down unconscious or deceased still holding his blade, then good on him; all I care about is no more pokey pokey in my direction, ASAP.

 

[WardenWolf]

One rule about attempting to disarm someone with a knife: you WILL get cut. How seriously depends on the techniques used and your skill at using them. Unlike a firearm, there is no place you can safely grab a bladed weapon that is held by another person because the blade itself is the danger.

When working with a handgun, gaining control over your opponent's wrist is tantamount, and should be the first thing you do. You want to be on their inside in order to limit your distance from their body so you can strike with your elbow. This also severely limits their movement and ability to strike back. Elbow strikes to the face are a pretty surefire way of obtaining submission or a knockout, and creating enough confusion (through blunt force trauma) to allow you to strip their weapon.

 

[Shadow 7D]

There was a post and like here about a year and half ago about a cop who shot and killed an armed man.

The family was VERY distraught (after all they are all 'good boys turning their life around)
He practiced with is partner every day pistol disarmament techniques

So when he was close in and this hood pulled on him, his training took over
he disarmed the guy quickly and efficiently, and handed the gun back to the hood (training makes PERMANENT not perfect) realizing what he had just done he drew his sidearm, and when said BG decided to try his luck again, he was not successful.

it can be done, it is a specialist technique.

 

[mortablunt]

Disarming a bad proposition- period. When you were a kid, did you ever get into struggles over the TV remote? Imagine that, only loser dies and whoever had it first is at a serious advantage.