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A Step Further

The term self defense has several meanings depending on who you are talking to. Some may consider an unarmed man to man situation self defense. In the world of marketing the martial arts, it is promoted as so. However, most of these situations can probably be avoided, for example: knowing when to stop an argument that may turn volatile. Sometimes the best thing to do is walk away and allow other means (the law) to solve your problems. In this day and age we must assume that a situation that may turn violent will turn as violent as it possibly can, meaning they may pull a weapon. There are circumstances that would turn an avoidable situation to a self defense situation. The first and foremost would be having your ability to turn and walk away taken away. Being cornered by someone that is dead set on continuing a disagreement to the point of trading punches is definitely a self defense situation. If we look back there was probably some point that this situation may have been avoided. This gets into knowing your environment, but that's not what this article is about.

Let's look at the unavoidable scenarios or the scenarios that are harder to avoid and truly make it self defense. The argument that is escalating beyond the point of being able to walk away and/or a weapon (gun, knife, stick, bat, broken bottle, etc...) is added into the conflict. Weapons change the circumstances dramatically. It goes from a situation that may have ended in scrapes, bruises, possible broken bones, and a hurt pride to one that may end in your death. Nobody wants to get beat up; however, that's much better then the alternative of death. So our focus in this article is to try and survive a weapon attack, particularly a handgun, the true essence of self defense.

The worst situation is staring at the business end of a handgun. If it is out of hands reach your best option is to do what the assailant says. Doing what the assailant says may eventually provide you with the opportunity to successfully defend yourself; or, if the opportunity to defend yourself never arises, you do what the assailant says and live to buy a new wallet and get more credit cards.

The opportunity to defend ourselves in a situation, such as the one where you're facing an attacker armed with a handgun, is a very touchy situation. In order to be successful in this case you would have to be in arms reach of the armed individual. Do not confuse the need to defend ourselves to survive the situation with the need to do what they say to survive the situation. Always remember to think about whether or not your current belongings are worth possibly losing your life. The need, or the decision, to react drastically should be made at the time that surviving the moment by doing what the attacker says is not going to happen. Once again, in order to be able to do something to physically defend yourself you would need to be in reach of the attacker or the weapon.

If the decision is made to react physically to survive, we need to remember one thing: all the assailant needs to do is move his finger enough to pull the trigger in order to be successful. Our actions as the attacked are much larger, so simplicity is of the essence. I've seen numerous techniques of grabbing the weapon and disarming the person. With the use of things such as simunitions (a type of paint ball that is adaptable to military weapons and some handguns) we have literally been able to try many of these techniques. Unfortunately, the majority of these techniques did not work and the times that they did, it seemed to be based on the person being attacked being, overall, more physically capable then the attacker.

My goal is not to give you the impression that these situations are not survivable, they are. It's not a matter of looking at it with the thought that we have to incorporate some type of technique that involves multiple motor skills, such as reaching out with both hands and trying to grab and control the weapon before they have a chance to fire. This type of technique may work if the individual handling the weapon is hesitant about killing you. However, if they're set on ending your life, hesitation will probably not be an issue. Other techniques such as ones involving two or more motor skills (sweeping the weapon and trying to grab it simultaneously) the same principle applies, you may be able to pull it off, providing the attacker is hesitant about killing you. We need to look at this situation one way, what will give me the best opportunity to save my life. If we break it down, all the attacker has to do is pull the trigger of the weapon pointed at you to be successful. Do not think that if the weapon is pointed at a none vital area (arm, shoulder, leg, etc...) that the survivability rate goes up, negative. All that will do is provide the opportunity for the attacker to make a second, well placed shot. Our first objective is to get the muzzle of the weapon pointed in a direction other than at you; for example, if it is in reach we just smack it out of the way. This is done with one quick motion because we are relying on the concept that our actions are quicker then their reaction. This means that by making the first movement the assailant would have to register or realize what we are doing, decipher it, and communicate the reaction to his trigger finger. Is this risky? Oh yea, but lets look at the alternative!

If we manage to get the muzzle off us by smacking it in any direction other then at us. We have provided a temporary fix to the situation by increasing the number of movements that the assailant has to make in order to shoot us. At this point additional actions will be required. This is the timeframe that your additional self defense training will come in handy. We could rely on running, but this will give the assailant the opportunity to shoot at us, probably not the best option. The weapon needs to be controlled at this point and the assailant's thought process needs to be interrupted, simultaneously. What I mean by interrupting the thought process is taking their mind off trying to shoot you to that of protecting themselves. If we can take the persons mind off trying to shoot us we have accomplished two things: 1) we have decreased their ability to focus on getting the guns muzzle back on you and 2) we have increased the possibility of disarming the gunman. The large majority of people with a weapon in their hand whether a knife, gun, or stick will focus almost all their attention on trying to use that weapon. They will do this with a complete disregard to defending themselves because their mind focuses on that weapon being the cure all for their problems. Once the weapon is rendered ineffective they focus on bringing the weapon back into an effective position and forget about everything else. This point was proven to me early on in my SEAL Team and martial arts career. One of my instructors placed a knife on the ground and had two of my team mates square off similar to a no holds barred scenario and said the knife was in play. On they both go diving for the knife and it became a wrestling match on the ground to the point of looking comical. Neither of them thought to let the other put themselves in a vulnerable position while reaching for the knife and taking advantage of him. At that point it became apparent that weapons will force the mind to lock in on one thought.

Once again I will put the emphasis on sweeping the muzzle of the weapon into any direction other then pointing at you. While sweeping the weapon we want to disrupt the attackers thought process by striking the facial area simultaneously or as close to simultaneously as we possibly can. Will this end the attack? Maybe or maybe not, it depends on the effectiveness of the facial strike. However, we should not plan on or train for the quick fix. We must plan on and train for the need of additional action to eliminate the threat. This could mean controlling the weapon, disarming the weapon, or incapacitating the attacker. One thing that must occur while trying to execute any of these three options is a continued disruption of the attackers thought process. As I stated before, the best way to accomplish this is by striking the facial area throughout the process of trying to control, disarm, or incapacitate the attacker.

Being involved in a self defense situation involving a weapon is an extremely intense situation and making the decision to react aggressively in that situation will be just as intense.

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