Firearm Defenses
If someone pulls a gun on you and does not shoot, he or she wants something. It is possible that he or she may still shoot you, but, not before achieving a desired ends. When possible, compliance with the gunman’s demands is the best solution. Compliance, however, is not always possible; especially, if your instinct tells you the gunman intends you bodily harm no matter what. Of course, carefully consider your options and course of action. Again, there may be situations in which attempting a disarm is impossible and you must comply with the gunman’s wishes. Firearms are often referred to in krav maga parlance as “hot weapons.”
Similar to our previous edged weapon defenses, to defend a firearm threat you must deflect-redirect the weapon using a body defense (as with edged weapons defenses) move off the line of fire combined with simultaneous combatives to facilitate the disarm. Most important, krav maga’s philosophy is to give you any and every advantage. You might have to wait until the assailant closes the distance or lowers his guard in response to your feigned acquiescence, when, in fact, you are simply waiting for the best opportunity to disarm him. Be aware of your surroundings and how they might affect your disarm including walls, curbs, parked vehicles, the confines of a small space such as an elevator or a vehicle. With all firearms disarms, carefully gauge the distance and your reach capability to deflect-redirect and secure the weapon.
If the assailant has a handgun and you decide to run, the greater the distance between you and the gunman, the more likely you will not be hit. To be sure, a bullet moves faster than any human reaction. Handguns are difficult to fire with accuracy, especially at longer ranges and only skilled shooters can fire with decent accuracy at distance. Fortunately, criminals tend not to be the best shots, but the high capacity pistol magazines give them up to seventeen chances or more to hit you.
Shooting Accuracy at Close Range
Notably, trained law enforcement professionals when under the stress of a violent encounter often achieve less than a twenty percent hit rate according to the FBI. It is the author’s opinion that such statistics should not be interpreted as criticism of these departments’ professionalism. Rather these facts, underscore the realities of a violent, often surprise encounter. You can therefore extrapolate that if you must run, it is a fair assumption that you may reach safety unscathed about fifty percent of the time.
It is helpful to envision several scenarios in which an assailant could deploy a firearm against you – and avoid them in real life. To be sure, the best defense against a firearm or any time of weapon is to avoid a situation that exposes you to danger. Common sense should always prevail. Going to an ATM at night alone does not meet good common sense. Venturing into parking lot without scanning your environment or not parking near light or in a heavily trafficked area are also not good strategies. You must envision as many “negative five” scenarios as possible. Do your best to plan or envision what you might do if faced with these extreme life threatening circumstances. This could include a gunman surfacing from behind a neighboring parked car as you begin to enter your vehicle or confronting you from behind as you insert the key into your front door. Most criminals seek the element of surprise and plan accordingly.
If you flee, you can choose to run in a non-linear pattern as fast as possible. In other words, flee using a zigzag pattern to make yourself a more difficult target or to locate cover to stop a bullet such as a building or the engine block of a vehicle. A gunman has more difficulty swinging his gun arm and body in the direction of his dominant arm to shoot accurately. If you are facing a right-handed gunman, move laterally to your left (his right) – it is more difficult for him to swing the gun across his body. With a left handed gunman move to your right. Obviously, if your back is the gunman the directions reverse as moving to his right side will also now be moving to your right side. These evasions are also applicable for rifle/SMGs and sub-machineguns.
Firearm Disarm Philosophy
The brain slows down when processing several stimuli or engaged in two thought processes. If you must disarm an assailant brandishing a weapon – in this case a firearm – the most opportune time to act is when the assailant is distracted. He or she may be giving you an order or responding to your entreaty not to harm you. You might also spit in the assailant’s face or use another distraction such as throwing loose change, keys or anything else that is handy to initiate the disarm.
Basic Firearms Knowledge
It is helpful to have a basic understanding of firearms. There are two types of handguns, revolvers and semi-automatics, with the latter much more in circulation these days. A revolver uses a rotating cylinder to cycle the next round into the chamber while a semi-automatic uses a spring loaded clip that pushes another round into the chamber as the previous round is ejected. A revolver usually holds 5-8 rounds while a semi-automatic can hold from 8-17 rounds of ammunition. Some high capacity magazines can hold more than 17 rounds. If you disarm a gunman by securing the barrel and his finger is on the trigger, a semi-automatic handgun is likely to discharge. Krav maga frontal handgun defenses secure the slide preventing the ejection of the spent round rendering the gun temporarily inoperable. In the case of a revolver, securing it at the trigger guard while wrapping the hand around the cylinder can prevent it from cycling a new round as well.
It is best to work with an expert to educate yourself on the firearms operations, especially, to learn how to clear the weapon and make it operational. This ability could be crucial after you have disarmed the assailant and created distance (more about this shortly.) You should learn how to “tap and rack” a handgun to ready it for use or put it “in battery.” When a firearm is not operational, it is called “out of battery.”
Keep in mind, if you do attempt to disarm the assailant, he or she now considers you a deadly threat and will fight as if his or her life is at stake. Firearms are ergonomically designed for the operator – not someone trying to take the weapon away, especially, if the operator has a two handed vice grip on it. Therefore, whenever possible, you must move deep to the assailant’s deadside. In nearly every instance, the firearm will discharge as you deflect-redirect it because of the assailant’s reflexive flinch-trigger-pull-response. Do not worry about this. Your deflection-redirection hand will not get hurt. Prioritize securing the weapon while simultaneously debilitating your assailant with combatives to the throat, groin, eyes and other secondary targets. As always, your krav maga must be decisive and brutally efficient. In addition, you need to secure the firearm in the best possible way reducing the chances of bystanders being shot. Keep in mind that the assailant’s immediate instinctive or “flinch” response will be to retract his gun and pull the trigger. Therefore, your strategy must also incorporate “time in motion.” Time in motion is the movement pattern where the firearm (or any other type of weapon) is likely to end up as a result of your deflection-redirection and the assailant’s reflexive response. Once again, the need to move deep to the deadside is evident to keep yourself clear of the weapon’s line of fire.Once you have secured the handgun, standard Israeli operating procedure is to tap the magazine from bottom (the insertion point into the grip) and then turn the handgun parallel to the ground to check the ejection port and rack a new round. After redirecting-deflecting and securing a semi-automatic handgun, rotate it ninety degrees allowing gravity to help dispense a spent cartridge’s case which has likely jammed the weapon. Even if you do not tap and rack the handgun, while the handgun is likely to be out of battery, you should still consider the handgun “live” or functional for safety purposes, particularly, if you use it for cold weapon combatives.
After you create separation from the assailant, you can use the handgun as a tool – but not your only tool – to fend off additional attacks. For example, if the assailant continues aggressive actions towards you, you can straight kick him in the groin, sidekick him in the knee or use the handgun to strike him the head always keep the muzzle pointed towards him. Simply consider the handgun an extension of your body, but do not allow the barrel to face any part of your body. Importantly, if you have your own firearm, you should revert to using it rather than the assailant’s for the obvious reasons that you are familiar with it and have confidence it is operational.
Keep in mind that you might not know if the firearm is real or functional. It could be a starter pistol or “airsoft” type of facsimile weapon. One of the dangers of using an unfamiliar firearm is that it could explode in your hand. Criminals are not always the brightest and a live round could be loaded in a starter pistol. If you rack and tap the weapon loading a live round into a starter pistol and pull the trigger, the results could be disastrous for you. One indicator that the weapon is, indeed, functional, is if you immediately order the assailant down to the ground and he or she complies. An opposite indicator suggesting the weapon is not operational is if the assailant ignores your commands and rushes at you in which you need to use your krav maga combatives. If you decide to shoot the assailant, shoot center mass. If the assailant is wearing body armor, shoot him in the head or multiple times into the same location of the bulletproof vest. Your first shot will damage the body armor and the successive shots may penetrate the vest.
Note all of the following techniques assume the handgun is held by the assailant’s right arm.There are myriad angles and heights that an assailant could threaten you with a firearm. The following disarm techniques cover the positions and angles handguns most commonly used by an assailant. These are simply presented as a blueprint against firearm threats. Krav maga’s philosophy is to adapt to a situation using core techniques and principals. If you find yourself in a situation not covered in this book, fall back on the above four pillars for firearm defenses and use common sense to prevail. Notably, you could find yourself defending against a handgun threat covered or obscured by a magazine, newspaper or cloth. The defenses remain the same, but take into account that your grip and subsequent control on the handgun could slip from weapon of the angle of deflection-redirection and control is not correct. Importantly, if you attempt at disarm, the assailant is likely to instinctively retract his arm. You must understand “time in motion” — both yours and his — or how a body instinctively reacts to a stimulus to properly time and execute a firearm disarm properly.
The Four Essential Components of Gun Defenses
Disarming an assailant armed with a firearm is extremely difficult. Be sure that you have exhausted all compliance options and that you have no choice but to attempt the disarm technique. If you decide there is no choice but to disarm an assailant you must follow the four pillars of krav maga’s firearm defenses:
1) Redirect-deflect the line of fire combined with a body defense.
2) Control the firearm whenever possible moving deep to the deadside while stunning and neutralizing the assailant.
3) Understand “time in motion” – or what the gunman’s reaction will be the instant you react.
4) Disarm the assailant and create distance maintaining the firearm.
We will examine five different distances throughout the various firearm defenses:
Author’s Note: Due to pictorial restraints, for certain Chapter 5 techniques, the initial deflections-redirections are depicted, however, the final take away process is omitted as it is the same for all frontal disarms moving to an opponent’s deadside. Be sure to thoroughly understand the series 5.01 disarm procedure, as it will be referenced to finish many techniques.
NOTE: FOR ALL FIREARM DEFENSES, THE GUNMAN IS LIKELY TO PULL THE WEAPON BACK TO THWART YOUR ATTMEPTED CONTROL WHILE PULLING THE TRIGGER TO DISCHARGE THE WEAPON.
Active Shooter Situation
In an active shooter situation, it is preferable to begin your evasion plan (or a disarming technique) as soon as the threat is recognized. In short, non-telegraphed (body movements indicating what you are going to do before you actually do it) and unpredictable evasive maneuvers improve your chance of successfully disarming him or fleeing respectively.
If you can’t flee the active shooter scene, find cover or concealment. There is a difference between cover and concealment. Cover effectively shields you from incoming fire. Concealment hides you but is not impervious to gunfire. If you are located within reach of the gunman and you conclude fleeing or reasoning with him is futile, you must, of course, use the appropriate disarming technique. If you find yourself in an active shooter situation and you cannot close the distance for a disarming technique, you can throw objects at the gunman such as bags, books, chairs, staplers, coins, etc. to either close the distance for a disarm or as distractions in your attempt to flee. If you are hit, you may wish to feign being dead to prevent the shooter from pumping more rounds into you, but under no circumstances should you give up. Remember, many victims die because they lose the will to live.
In an active shooter situation within a crowd, one disarm technique, requiring great nerve, is to upend him. Close on him from behind, reach down and clasp his legs just above ankles and brace one shoulder against his buttocks and yank sharply backwards to dump him on his head. The assailant will let go of the weapon or, if he holds onto it, likely break his wrists on impact. As a last resort, a number of the intended victims may swarm the gunman to overwhelm him. This tactic, for untrained people and sometimes trained people alike, is contrary to human nature. Without a determined brave soul to initiate and rally the group into action, this strategy is unlikely to succeed.
Practice Suggestions: