WEAPONS GUN RETENTION
What have any of you thought about weapons/gun retention, when you’ve decided to use one for self defense and the guy LUNGES for it? This is a very limited, and purely for the sake of having said it ‘introductory’ discussion concerning guns in the middle of a violent situation.
Guy pulls a gun on you.
Suddenly,
You Have HIS Gun!!!
The Importance of Weapons/Gun Retention!
There’s a lot to be said about gun possession, storage, ‘every day carry’ing, usage, and of course, gun retention. Lots of techniques, lots of methods, but I think that sometimes people get a little too bogged down with the idea of fancy rigs & inside waistband vs outside waistband, the propper shooting stance, etc. These are all valid considerations, but they all can easily become preoccupations, keeping us from Number 1 & Number 2. Number 1 is Having it/getting it into play, & Number 2 is Retaining/Keeping it in play. Since there are so many professionals out there who know Every Single Milimeter & Spec of Every Single Firearm ever created by man & monkey I’ll be sticking to My field of ‘expertise’ if I can call it that – and that’s Weapons Retention. Because of this very mindset I advocate ‘shooting from the hip’, or the sightless point and shoot. It’s what the quick-draw artists in every cowboy movie uses. Unless you’re on a bona fide battlefield (Real, not imagined) t’s the Only method as far as I’m personally concerned. Outside of a 3-10 ft distance it’s not self defense anymore, it’s survival of the fittest REGARDLESS of How or Who started it. So you have to be ready to employ a few other sets of skills at a moments notice, not just stand there with your arms outstretched screaming “Freeze!” when he’s got both his hands on your weapon. A great way to minimize all of that BS is to shoot from the hip (hence the saying ‘he shoots from the hip’). It’s also an Excellent means of gun retention in itself. This doesn’t mean that I don’t advocate other methods: There’s nothing wrong with all of the other methods & I advocate the use of many of them myself WHEN Appropriate. I just don’t think that The Weaver Stance is the Only way to go, and if that’s all you’ve learned so far & feel even Slightly satisfied – well, there’s a lot more to learn. And your aggressor may already have learned some of it.
As an instructor of Traditional Chinese Martial Arts (TCMA) in Pittsburgh, my considerations for Weapons/Gun Retention (gun usage/retention/acquisition) are very different than those who’ve been trained in gun usage Solely. There’s the Traditional Techniques that I’ve learned and mastered as a student, as a competitor, and as an instructor, and there’s the 19 years of bar security dealing on more than one occasion with guns that’ve already been fired, in very crowded & close environments, trying to keep Everyone from harm. I’ve worked in some of the worst places in Pittsburgh, usually alone, and without a gun. Although I can’t speak for other cities, or other security guards in other locations, I can only say that I’ve always been Glad to know Kung Fu in Pittsburgh-!
CONCEALED WEAPONS – TO SEE OR NOT TO SEE, THAT IS THE QUESTION
You can never take for granted that because your weapon is ‘concealed’ that Everyone Else is Unaware of it and that Weapons/Gun Retention is a non-issue; there are things in body language, things that people do with their hands and their eyes, their positioining that tell Anybody else in the know “…hey, that dude’s got a gun/knife/Soviet attack hellicopter under his shirt…”. And contrariwise, you should never assume that because you don’t See a weapon on an aggressive individual, that they don’t Have one (more often than Not the loud-mouth DOES have some kind of ‘insurance’ against those occasions where his mouth writes a check that his ass can’t cash-! A lot of shady cats carry weapons themselves and so have become Quite Adept at recognizing when someone’s favoring a side of their body in some way, or if they somehow ‘act’ like they’ve got some kind of edge. NOW You have to consider Weapons/Gun Retention in a whole other sense; you have not drawn a weapon, no one else has drawn a weapon, there is no obvious confrontation or signs of violence, but someone just lunges and Clamps onto your weapon trying to take it from you!!! Weapons/Gun Retention of a holstered weapon is in my opinion much easier, especially if you happen to have had the common sense to learn unarmed combat techniques as part of your preparation. And this is an Excellent Opportunity to reference Improvised/Non-traditional weapons but that’s Another Article 🙂
HOW TO LEARN WEAPONS/GUN RETENTION SKILLS
You have to train with a Good MA instructor – not someone who bought their rank, or a guy whos only interested in signing up contributors for the new addition on his house, or someone who only knows some kind of schlock chop-socky that’ll only get His ass beat when we meet, and Your ass Seriously Hurt or MORE in a true, real-life confrontation with someone. You owe it to yourself to learn from someone who has real experience, and most importantly someone who can Demonstrate that experience. Someone who has the answers to questions you haven’t even thought of yet, because those answers are the reason that he or she’s even still here to Talk about them. So I always tell people to interview their potential instructors as Part of their consideration process in joining classes or a school.
Because of my personality I tend to always end up in conversations with military/para-military/law enforcement personel, and after we spend a few minutes reviewing each others qualifications (including several demonstrations of counter- kill-strokes and mock weapons disarms) we’re Good Buddies 🙂 Whenever I meet one of Those guys, I Know that He knows what the Real Deal is. A guy like That – who playfully pals around with guys whose job it is to be deadly serious about pulling the trigger faster than the next guy whenever his government deploys them & decides to pal around with Him – THAT guy I Want to Know, hang out with, and Learn From.
There has to be retention of the weapon after it’s been Drawn, while still in it’s holster/concealment position, and in the event of an extrication from the hands of an attacker how to Keep it & use that instrument to Your best advantage to keep Your self & Your loved ones free from harm. THESE are the times when just having a gun or other weapon just Isn’t Enough – you have to be Thoroughly schooled in their usage, but also other tertiary skills endemic to weapons/gun retention such as hand to hand combat principles, techniques, and conditioning in order to Keep the weapon that’s been brought into play by either one of you. Whatever your primary weapon of employment is, you should Absolutely have a backup Specifically Suited for what the latest jargon refers to as Close Quarters Combat. You dr& he lunges for your weapon, or he draws and you Extricate – now there’s a life and death struggle going on. If he’s Bigger,Stronger, Faster, more Violent & Ruthless, if he’s ‘Scared-er’ – Any One of these things can spell doom for tha positive outcome to the situation. This stuff is EXTREMELY Trickey since things are Extremely Volatle & the circumstances as well as the choices you make/paths take are changing like quicksilver with No room to turn back, All or Nothing.
Regrettably, most people aren’t interested in doing what it takes to keep themselves or those that they care about free from harm. They like the idea of watching a YouTube video, or maybey attending a free SD class being offered at the “Y” once every year or so – or of being taught a bunch of fancy-looking tricks, or be convinced by the mandatory clapping & cheering that people get with their certificate of participation that they’re now ‘prepared’ – but beyond that, nada. They don’t want to go through the mental, physical, psychological, or emotional development necessary to carry them from where they’re currently at even to just where an attacker is – much less beyond to ensure victory. Everyone likes to talk about what they can do ‘when they’re mad enough’. I’ve got News for you: the Other guy Already IS mad/Amped enough! THAT’S why He’s Attacking! Although Everyone can’t be ready for Every Single Possible thing that can go down, & once it’s started that can go Wrong, but we can All Do what we Can Do to move as Far in that direction as Possible. I wish I lived in ‘your’ world – it must be Nice to Already KNOW Exactly what’s going to happen, when, & where….
Another consideration when it comes to employing weapons is that there are two kinds of criminals generally speaking – those who involve themselves in illegal activities on a regular basis for the purposes of generating income (‘professional’ or career criminals) and those who simply see an opportunity and are ballsy enough – or desperate enough – to try and take it. So when a guy pulls a knife on you, and you pull your gun you’ve just Upped the Ante: understand that through no fault of your own save ignorance you may have just Insured that this person has immediately in their own mind made the decision that they Can Not just Walk Away and Leave you Alone now that you’ve shown them a much Bigger ‘wallet’. There are numerous reports of suspects lunging for guns being presented by Law Enforcement Officers (LEO’s), so What makes you think that they’re going to have a problem with lunging for Yours? To Me, an ‘untrained’ & unsuspecting citizen looks Four TIMES as inviting for my vicious suprise attack! And you know, it might not even be because you were particularly threatening or that they felt at jeopardy, but Simply because instead of your 25 or 30 bucks Now by pulling your gun you’ve Introduced something worth Several Hundred dollars! That’s right, before they were trying to get a fix or just hurt somebody that they thought they could get away with it with – but Now this is Really Worth something to them, and it’s Only worth it if they Succeed In Getting it AWAY From You.
I DO Know almost as a fact (statistically speaking -) that the common citizen on the streets who does have enough sense to get training Typically has Much More Training than the average LEO. And this is to be congratulated (albeit Common Sense, but not all sense is common evidently….) I would think that anyone alive today would rather Have a few ideas, tricks, tips & have them worked out as much as possible In Advance than just standing there with a dumb look on their face with no idea of what to do. Even with the size/strength issues stacked against you, you’d think that you’d want to at least have some ideas to TRY and make a difference with, right?!? And if after your attempts to keep the weapon out of their hands it doesn’t work out at Least you had an Opportunity a Hope a CHANCE that it would work out – and something that you Can do to ‘ensure’ success is to Prepare, and Practice, until Perfect. Practice isn’t the same as real life, but it beats a Blank. “10% of Something, is better than 100% of Nothing At ALL.”
Finally, to paraphrase something I read elsewhere – A first rate person with third rate training is far better than the other way around. The training is a tool, YOU are the craftsman that makes it work. And when it hits the fan, there are always those in-denial people with No training, no Prep whatsoever who like to loudly proclaim “if I had to do it, I could-!” yet they never go out and train to do it. Yeah. I hand the keys of the schoolbus to the 1st graders every chance I get. I mean, just 3 controls & they play driving games all the time so it shouldn’t be a problem, right? “Yeah, I’ve thought about self defense, but I already Know how to fight, I don’t need no lessons…” Yah. Please Continue to limit your abilities and resources to the very same levels as a common criminal with the same mindsets. If you’ve made it this far down the page, then learn some damn skills, let Real knowledge and skills be your mindset. You’re smart enough to goto school to learn other valuable skills. Don’t let stupid be your skillset.
