# Are there any firearm (or other ranged weapon)-based martial arts? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 23, 2014, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-firearm-or-other-ranged-weapon-based-martial-arts/699303 "2014-09-23T03:32:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2014, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-firearm-or-other-ranged-weapon-based-martial-arts/699303/21 "2014-09-23T22:04:53Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > Shooting _is_ a physical skill. Many target games are, in fact, Olympic sports. As a true marial art, that is something that is used in actual real, true deadly combat, it is actually more of a martial art than virtually all of the various kung fu/karate/jiu jitsu disciplines. Unless you are a truly exceptional person, I doubt you could shoot alongside an Olympian or complete force-on-force training such as elite military practice. Nor did I say that there is no physical aspect to it. ---
**Author:** ![sweeteviljesus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/898d66/32.png) [@sweeteviljesus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweeteviljesus)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2014, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-firearm-or-other-ranged-weapon-based-martial-arts/699303/22 "2014-09-23T22:30:32Z")
Doesn’t [Semper Fu](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Corps_Martial_Arts_Program) partially discuss armed combat? ---
**Author:** ![Sleel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@Sleel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleel)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2014, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-firearm-or-other-ranged-weapon-based-martial-arts/699303/23 "2014-09-24T07:22:15Z")
In general there are 道 (dô) and 術 (jutsu) forms of Japanese mmartial arts. Dô forms are “ways” or art forms, and jutsu forms are more practical. Even before WWII, many of the practical forms were in decline since the government took a very dim view of anyone learning how to actually use weapons. The movie _The Last Samurai_ shows a very fictionalized and pro-insurrection slanted version of real history. There have been militaristic uprisings against the nominal government throughout Japan’s history, right up to quite recently. The delay between the two atomic bombings and the eventual official surrender was caused by internal warfare between pro- and anti-war factions. Swords are registered, licensed, and restricted more strictly than guns are in the US (even in the uptight states like California and Massachusetts), and gun possession laws are ridiculously tight. I wrote about the [social and legislative landscape of Japanese firearms control](http://shindoisshin.net/blog/2012/12/26/connecticut-shootings-and-japanese-firearm-law) a couple of years ago. The result of this is that it’s difficult to even possess an air rifle, and virtually no one learns archery or firearms shooting. Still, as someone mentioned earlier, there’s _kyûdô_ (Japanese archery), though that’s more of a ceremonial art than a practical martial art. It’s almost impossible to find an extant Japanese school that teaches practical techniques; I should know, I live in Japan and I’ve looked for one. I gave up on _kyûdô_ after a few months because I just wanted to learn how to shoot better, and in _kyûdô_ you’re lucky to get 3 shots in 5 minutes because of all the ceremonial pre- and in-between-shot bullshit you have to do. There’s [_hôjutsu_](http://www.guillaumeerard.com/life-in-japan/events/hojutsu-an-introduction-to-japanese-gunnery) (砲術), matchlock musket firing. The Portuguese introduced contemporary firearms to Japan, and very shortly after the Japanese had improved on the firing design and started to formalize training. I saw a presentation of this at one of the Koryû Budô events they hold every year. [Here’s](http://www.budojapan.com/special-article/live-at-budokan-the-37th-nihon-kobudo-taikai/) a write-up on a typical event. The schools don’t change much, so what I saw nearly a decade ago is pretty much the same as this guy’s experience. There’s also [jûkendô](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C5%ABkend%C5%8D), bayonet fighting, though that’s not using the firearm as a projectile weapon. In modern firearms training, the closest thing is probably competition handgun. That’s kind of getting far from practical in some ways, though, since all of them use highly customized weapons and rigs. Still, they would beat the bloody dogshit out of a plinker even with a standard weapon and rig. Apparently, from talking to friends in the armed forces and police back home in the US, small unit and close quarters tactics have improved immensely since they were first in. Back in the old days, SEAL Team Six and similar SPECWar groups were still pretty new, and many of the tactics were still evolving. They’ve had a whole generation of practical testing to shave down the rough edges. Unfortunately, there’s not a whole lot of practical civilian stuff available, from what I know. You can take bodyguard or tactical training classes, sometimes taught by former military, often taught by “contractors”. Many of the guys with real training and experience are understandably reticent to do much work in this area, even if they were officially allowed to. Many military personnel do consider teaching tactical skills as a potentially dangerous or disloyal activity and I understand it’s frowned on if not outright prohibited. From my martial arts background, I know that weapon clearing and retention is extremely important at any range closer than about 6–7 m (about 20–25 ft.) I think we even discussed it on this board in the past, but there was a fairly good MythBusters show on what happens if a guy with a knife rushes a guy with a gun. At my first dojo, more than a decade earlier, we did a very similar test after reading a news story about how two local cops were sliced up (one later died) by a guy they pursued into a warehouse. Turns out that even being able to get to your gun in time is a skill in and of itself. A guy with a knife can rush you faster than you’d believe if you hadn’t experienced it yourself, and do an incredible amount of damage. The maneuvering and positioning you need are basically the same as unarmed combat since — until you clear and aim the weapon — you **are** unarmed. We did weapon retention drills along with weapon stripping work. You can essentially reverse-engineer disarms to figure out how to clear, retain, and aim a weapon even when in physical contact with an attacker. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2014, 10:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-firearm-or-other-ranged-weapon-based-martial-arts/699303/24 "2014-09-24T10:06:01Z")
> [@Sleel](#): > > In general there are 道 (dô) and 術 (jutsu) forms of Japanese mmartial arts. Dô forms are “ways” or art forms, and jutsu forms are more practical. I guess jujutsu (or “jujitsu”) (same kanji start) is more practical for fighting and got the name first over judo (late 19th century)? Judo is essentially an exhibition sport. Do krav maga or sambo, especially in the military, have offshoots that deal with weapons handling (I am aware that the etymology of sambo involves unarmed combat)? ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2014, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-firearm-or-other-ranged-weapon-based-martial-arts/699303/25 "2014-09-24T17:31:21Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > I disagree. A serious practitioner of firearms technique armed with a plain vanilla nothing special gun will kill the holy living shit out of an untrained operator armed with the latest model the vast majority of the time. The gun only does what the user makes it do, same as swords or any other traditional martial arts weapon. Certainly my gut feeling is that did I have my choice of swords to face a master swordsman armed with nothing special or facing a marksman armed plain vanilla gun vs me with a – not sure what – an uzi(?) maybe. I’d take the latter situation. I may have no chance in the latter, but I certainly have no chance in the former apart from the swordsman being struck by lightning. ---
**Author:** ![Sleel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@Sleel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleel)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2014, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-firearm-or-other-ranged-weapon-based-martial-arts/699303/26 "2014-09-25T04:56:40Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > I guess jujutsu (or “jujitsu”) (same kanji start) is more practical for fighting and got the name first over judo (late 19th century)? Judo is essentially an exhibition sport. Yep. Modern sport judo is almost as far removed from its roots as modern foil fencing is from smallsword dueling. In competition, you’re basically limited to _nage-waza_ (throws), _katama-waza_ (pins), and _shime-waza_ (chokes/strangles). In theory, some _kansetsu-waza_ (joint locks/dislocations) are still in there, but in practice you can only do elbow locks. Strikes are not allowed in competition at all. The vast majority of schools don’t teach the judo kata, which do still preserve strikes (_atemi-waza_) and more _kansetsu-waza_ than are allowed in competition, because they focus only on the sport aspect. They also don’t do (IMO) enough work with the 柔 (jyû) part of the art, which Kanô originally stressed. The major distinction of his school at first was the idea that to effectively apply many of the techniques, you should break an opponent’s balance/structure. Judo and aikido went in diametrically opposed directions, when they were really quite similar in many respects only about 120 years ago. I’ve seen judo guys taught to take deliberately bad _ukemi_ just so that there’s less chance of an opponent getting a point, and nearly everyone muscles the shit out of their techniques instead of trying for good flow. Hell, I’ve seen better technique in sumo than in many judo matches. [Asashôryû](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMkChTpTjEc) in particular would throw guys who outweighed him by tens of kg with balance breaks and sound position. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2014, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-firearm-or-other-ranged-weapon-based-martial-arts/699303/27 "2014-09-25T14:40:58Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > If you have a gun, you don’t _need_ martial arts. KindaSorta. If you can get to your weapon and deploy it quickly, you’re good. If you can’t, you will always have your hands, feet and brains available for immediate deployment, but if you don’t know how to use them, you’re screwed. As far as the OP’s question…there is no organized martial art for firearms, so make your own. Learn to shoot from a qualified instructor, then practice on a regular basis, with reviews from that instructor. When you get right down to the nitty and the gritty, that’s all martial arts training really is. And what does the term “martial art” mean, anyway? Martial derives from Mars, the god of war, and refers to combat. Art is anything taken to a higher level. So, taking combat to a higher level, in whatever means you choose, is martial arts. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2014, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-firearm-or-other-ranged-weapon-based-martial-arts/699303/28 "2014-09-25T19:29:15Z")
Many years ago in the 70s, a talk show guest (I think it might have been on **The Mike Douglas Show** , just to narrow the time frame) was instructor for what he called “The Martial Art of Gunfighting.” I’d never heard the term before, and I haven’t heard it since. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-firearm-or-other-ranged-weapon-based-martial-arts/699303.md?page=1)