Sleel’s comment reminds me of the sometimes-debated 21’ rule in law enforcement. Anyone who might be armed with a knife who is within 21’ is a potential threat, and deadly force is appropriate. That’s a huge over-simplification. But yes, knives can be very scary.
As a follow-up on the OP, it’s worth remembering that most “bad guys” don’t have formal training with firearms. It takes a bit of practice to get the flinching reflex out, so they tend to go “gangsta’” style and hold the weapon as far from their body as possible (which reduces their hand strength). Add in adrenaline (which doesn’t help accuracy), confusion, and general “so scared I’m pissing my pants” factors, and close range can be an asset.
Thing that some folks forget, is that a gun is also handy as a melee weapon. The tactics and technique are entirely different, of course, so if someone has never been taught to pistol whip someone who is up-close, they could easily not even think of trying.
In Basic (Air Force), we were taught a series of rifle drills where, if someone was right up in your face, you could use your weapon to knock theirs out of the way (before you smacked them in the face with the rifle butt). Mind you, per our training, any situation where it was appropriate to rifle-butt someone, it was also appropriate to shoot them. It’s considered a use of Deadly Force because you can easily kill someone that way. Just a short PSA for anyone who thinks you can harmlessly knock someone unconscious with a blunt-force trauma to the braincase.
After Basic, I spent a half day being taught hand-to-hand self defense by a Security Forces instructor (a half day of training 3 years ago. I’m not getting in any fights with Jet Li in the near future). They taught us that in a short range fight (read: a grapple), most of the moves to get an attacker’s hands away from you would also work for getting a knife or gun away from you. Basically sweep your arms up very quickly to knock his arms out of line, then strike (“break his arm” was a common suggested tactic) and decide if it’s a good time to get the hell away.
This was a very brief familiarization course though, designed with the assumption that if we did not have a partner backing us up, that the cavalry was a radio call and a minute away. None of us were considered trained or qualified for hand-to-hand by the Air Force at the end of the day. Especially not me, who got tossed over some skinny guy’s shoulder to land on the mat head-first. Your mileage may very, stunts attempted by rank amateurs on a supervised course (and most of us got our asses kicked by the grumpy arthritic 30 year old teaching the course.)
A guy (robber?) with a gun normally just wants your money, if you try to take him on in a fight, he will switch to wanting to shoot you. Be sure you want this reaction before taking him/her on. If a person with a gun wants to shoot you, your first clue will be after you are shot.
That being said, I am a Hapkido instructor and will show students how to disarm a person with a gun if they ask, it is not something I normally teach, or want anyone to try.
When I was taking taijitsu we learned defenses against knives and guns. Would I use them in real life? Probably not. It’s much less risky just to do what they say.
Yup. After learning how to fight people with guns and knives, my conclusion was that if you’ve got a weapon you have no business being close to the person unless you intend on using it.
If you need to have a weapon, say to protect your family, and for some reason you need to be close to the person, then *hold the gun or knife as if it were your baby
to ensure that it doesn’t get taken away. I’m right handed, so I’d put my left shoulder first, hold the pistol ready to fire with my right hand just below between my stomach and chest, right up and braced against my body, with my left hand holding it tight. Any movement you do other than to slowly back away, and you’re toast.
If someone gets within six feet of you, you can disarm him fairly easily. If he’s fifteen feet or more, throw your wallet on the ground just past him on the gun side, then turn and run like hell, broken-field style.
It’s that six to fifteen foot range that’s a bitch.
The technique is only used as a last resort: subject has a gun pointed at you from a very short distance (1 foot away or shorter). Going for your sidearm is only going to get you shot, so you go for the perps gun.
I thought it went without saying that you only fight a guy with a weapon as a last resort, but a few people have posted stuff like “give him your wallet.”
Yep.
You don’t want to get in a knife fight or a gun fight. People end up dead. Even if the deader is the other guy, your life is fucked. There’s a very real chance that you’ll be going to jail for at least manslaughter. Hell, you could be unarmed facing a guy with a gun and still end up on trial paying tens of thousands of dollars defending yourself in court.
When you fight is in a situation where you can’t get away and you think that even if you give him what he wants you’re going to end up dead or at least in the hospital. Basically, only when you don’t have any choice. I’ve avoided or run away from far more fights than I’ve been in, and I’ve been doing martial arts for over 20 years. Why? Because a total idiot with a knife or gun is easily equal to the best martial artist that ever lived. All he has to do is get it halfway right to fuck you up. You have to get it exactly right to have an even chance of walking away without dying.
And legal realities being what they are, even if you win, you didn’t win.
I have watched dozens, if not hundreds, of people shoot handguns - ranging from experienced military and LEOs to people who have never seen a handgun before.
My advice to anyone confronted with a handgun-wielding assailant is to turn and run. 99% of people can barely hit the ground in front of them. Look at the recent Empire State shooting, all 9 of the wounded were shot by (presumably) trained LEOs.
When I studied Tracy’s Kenpo, they did teach a technique or two that could theoretically be used to disarm someone with a handgun, but the instructors universally stressed that it was only theoretical, and that every one of them, in such a situation, would just give the guy their wallet.
We also learned techniques against other weapons, but of those, the ones against a club were the only ones I’d feel at all confident using. I think some of the more advanced instructors said they might be willing to chance it versus a knife, but even there, the consensus advice was compliance with the attacker.
And I know you wouldn’t. It’s a physical impossibility - inside of six feet, your reaction time is too slow.
ETA: that’s not to say that I would try this every single time. I’d rather give up my wallet. But if I think there is even the slightest chance that the guy will pop me, I’ll take the weapon away from him. The issue is that bystanders might get hurt as I do, but if it’s down to the bottom line, better them than me.
I saw a first hand account on a documentary of how an unarmed attacker took out a gunman. The guy was a rugby player who had gotten on the bad side of the apartheid era South African government. He was sitting on his bed in a small (size relevant) hotel room when an assassin armed with a hand gun came through the door*. He dived and rugby tackled the gunman causing him to shoot the walls and ceiling several times – he was filmed telling this story in the actual room so you could see the holes – and, having got the guy down, took the gun away and hit him with it. “On desperate ground fight!” as Sun Tzu said.
He let the guy go, minus gun, once he’d extracted the information about who had sent him.
*I don’t remember if the door was unlocked or the gunman had aquired a key.