I was looking at some surveillance footage of robberies and kidnappings and it occured to me a lot of people seem to make a dumb mistake when unarmed and faced with a gunman only a few feet away, they move away a few feet and cower.
It occured to be guns are basically only effective at a certain range, too close and it is impossible to hit the target and too far and again impossible. If you are far enough to run and take cover you’re best doing that, but if you are close you’re probably better getting even closer especially with shotguns and rifles since you can easily make it impossible to hit you.
I was wondering if any self defense methods actually cover this.
Tracy’s (American) Kenpo does. At least handguns, but I can see how “get the barrel out of your face and kick the guy in the nuts” could work on a longer barrel weapon too.
Combat Sambo as taught to Russian soldiers, the US Army’s LINE system, the Marines’ MCMAP, those dudes in France who try to recreate old school Savate, Krav Maga, and probably every unarmed combat system taught to soldiers everywhere in the world.
These techniques are rarely taught in storefront martial arts schools because they are basically how to kill a cop.
BTW, I am not some kind of self-supposed badass. I believe in yielding to force except when travel to a second location is involved. Then you just gotta find your inner monkey defenses. You are descended from hundreds of thousands of generations of primates who survived threats from their own kind. Your inner monkey will know what to do.
It’s a pretty basic maneuver taught in a lot of defense classes.
If you get close enough, it’s not even that hard to disarm the guy. You automatically get to put your hands up near your chest or head “for free”, i.e. the assailant isn’t going to feel threatened by that. That’s why it’s called a stick-up in the first place. Second, the pistol hand isn’t exactly gripping the weapon in the firmest possible way. The fingers aren’t all closed, and one is even extended into the trigger well. So a well-placed smack will dislodge that pretty easily. That’s a lot of advantage to the defender…again, if you’re close.
Knives, on the other hand, are some scary business. You can grip those pretty hard and no assailant is going to let you start waving your hands around before slicing you.
Is this correct? (I mean, the attribution of the quote, not the tactics!) I’ve seen this credited to lots of different people, but never, till today, to Jimmy Hoffa.
Some martial arts were created before guns, so they may not incorporate them into their core teachings, but I’d bet that just about every self defense method has some schools which include disarming someone with a handgun. Just searching youtube, there are Tai Chi handgun disarming methods and while Tai Chi can be great for fighting, it’s probably pretty far down the list of self defense methods people think about when it comes to armed assailants.
Here’s one citation for the general sentiment if not the exact words. Sorry I don’t have anything more authoritative but I’ve always heard it attributed to Hoffa.
While developed and taught to law enforcement personnel, there are martial arts academies that will teach it to civilians.
It has a maneuver to disarm a person armed with a revolver, as well as someone armed with a semi-auto pistol (the moves are different). 3000 repetitions each X 2 and you should be be proficient.
Bolded text surprises me, as I thought cops universally responded to a non-compliant, armed person with deadly force. Or is this a non-US tactic for areas where officers amy not be armed?
At my first dojo we did some gun and knife work. Close is dangerous if you’re the person with the gun. You want distance. Close up, you either want to keep your weapon clear of getting grabbed or controlled, or depending on the situation you want to keep a firing line open. There are a few things you can do to line up a shot or two if the person grabs your gun, similar to regaining control of a stick or pole weapon.
There was a story in the newspaper that inspired us to test a particular situation. Two police officers followed a man into an abandoned building. The guy attacked them with a knife and incapacitated both of them as they came through the doorway. To simulate surprise, we had the “police officer” with a rubber pistol turn his back and tuck the pistol into his belt. The attacker had a training knife and started rushing from the back of the room, approximately 30 ft/10 m from the front.
Action started and finished in about 3–5 seconds whether we cued with “go” or just let the person with the gun respond to the sound of footsteps. The guy with the knife won almost every single time, being able to close the distance and start cutting in most cases before the defender could even clear his weapon. In the few instances the pistol was cleared, there usually wasn’t enough time to line up a shot.
Of course we were able to game it after a few iterations, dropping to change the angle, sacrificing a limb to clear the weapon, opening the distance while simultaneously drawing, etc. Unless you specifically train for it, you wouldn’t believe how fast a guy with a knife could cut the crap out of you. Two men with pistols helps, but even in that case one of them is going to end up carved like a turkey. If the attacker knew what he was doing and used the first guy as cover, he’d probably be able to get the second guy too.
It was a real eye-opener. Going into it, we all thought the guy(s) with guns would win almost every time. Nope. Something like 8 times out of 10 in that situation a rush with a drawn knife would have resulted in at least one—probably both—being cut up badly or completely incapacitated before they could line up an effective shot. Even if the guy gets shot, he’s probably not going to get hit in a spot that will immediately put him down. By that time he’s at maximum effective distance for his weapon, and absolute worst for anyone with a firearm.
My original art, Kuk Sool (a member of the large and complicated Hapkido family) had gun disarms, though I am still not sure if they were part of the actual curriculum or not.
Parker Kenpo here. There are quite a few gun and knife techniques in American Kenpo but I’m not sure they all work well. We spent some time looking at other systems that claimed to have gun defense too and the result didn’t leave me with a lot of confidence that I could pull it off. Maybe if they guy was close and alone and I was certain he was going to pull the trigger - then I might be willing to test one of the techniques I’ve learned.
One of our class WAS held up at gunpoint. He didn’t try any kenpo moves. There was more than one bad guy there and my friend had no way of knowing what the other guy had. All he knew was there was at least one guy with a gun and any wrong moves could have been fatal.