Download This Issue - US Concealed Carry

name of article here
The survival skill here
isn’t winning a gunfight.
The survival skill is
turning it into a gunfight
in the first place.
You are pressed into a corner, off balance, crunched
up, dizzy, surprised, with damage coming in.
lethal force options (and the training,
mindset and equipment to apply them)
you will be helpless in certain situations
… and if your family has no plan for disasters
ranging from earthquakes and
fires to home invasions, well, there is a
potential problem there, too.
What are the appropriate responses
when a friend insists on driving, drunk
off his ass, and says he will not give up
his keys? When Uncle Bob starts punching
Cousin Jimmy at the family picnic?
When your mentally ill friend suddenly
decides to run into traffic?
Having only a deadly force option is
like a country with only a nuclear option.
If all we had were nukes, what
could we do against terrorists?
The other side of the same coin: the
martial arts guru also only covers a
small piece of the spectrum of violence.
Whether you only have a deadly weapon
option or only have a collection of
joint locks or only have a sweet disposition
and a way with words, hoping you
will run into the right problem to match
your skills isn’t a strategy. It’s actually
kind of dumb.
There are two other reasons that
come immediately to mind that should
be obvious and aren’t. One requires
some background: I’ve been a martial
artist for a relatively long time (since
1981) and I’ve spent an ungodly amount
of time with real criminals. My day job
is teaching martial artists how big a gap
there is between what they practice and
the way assaults happen.
I’ve also been a tactical team leader
and trained as a tactical shooter, and
it is nothing like self-defense shooting.
You can’t afford to forget that.
Assaults happen fast and hard at extremely
close range, and unless the
threat can surprise you, he’ll give you a
pass. Knife, gun, fists and boots, or just
a piece of brick or a rock in a sock, you
are pressed into a corner, off balance,
crunched up, dizzy, surprised, with
damage coming in.
The survival here isn’t winning a
gunfight. The survival skill is turning it
into a gunfight in the first place. How
do you protect yourself from a flurry of
blows while drawing? How do you create
space and buy the time to draw your
weapon? How do you do it in such a way
that the threat, who has you at a complete
disadvantage, doesn’t know what
you are doing? If he sees your hands
duck out of sight, hands that should by
all rights be up and protecting you, he’ll
know something is up and he might
well escalate the speed and damage.
Surviving an onslaught at this range
is a specialized skill—one I haven’t seen
taught on a range. Realistically, I haven’t
seen many martial artists who can
teach it either, but there are a few.
So much goes right here and I’m
just playing with some of the implications
now: weapons jam at close quar-
40
USCONCEALEDCARRY.COM n CONCEALED CARRY MAGAZINE n MAY/JUNE 2011