I've looked through what video I can find of guns. It seems stepping close with a gun is reasonably common (within the population of gun robbery captured on YouTube). It's a given that they have to not be focused on shooting - I can't imagine why they'd get that close if their intention is actually to shoot. Even a bad shooter will feel comfortable taking their shot from beyond that range. IME, the less experienced they are, the more likely they are to overestimate their ability to hit a target (even a standing one, much less a moving one) at a distance.Depending on the ability to cause a malfunction is pretty sketchy, imo. (no offense intended)
No one likes grappling at the gun. The option to do so requires the bad guy to make several important mistakes that I'm not sure they often make. They might, but I haven't seen much evidence one way or another. The first mistake is that they must be hesitant in shooting. If they're already popping rounds, the defender has lost a significant advantage. The other is that they have to be close enough to be able to engage. Basically Silver's "Time of the Hand." How often do bad guys do this? Not sure. Doesn't look like it's very frequent but it might be. Just no statistics I know of one way or another. But one thing is sure, if they're intending to shoot, they shoot.
OTOH, it's a far better option than peeing my pants and crying like a little girl.
If you are close enough to engage the weapon bearing limb, the best option is to treat the weapon as if it were a knife (or a light saber!) with an infinite range. Its danger is greatest linearly extending from the muzzle. Control the weapon/weapon-bearing-limb and don't let the front of it "sweep" your body. Assume that it will discharge multiple times.
If you are that close, then this is better than just accepting you'll get shot. No doubt.
If you are a few steps away (outside of quick grab range), then MOVE. Move fast and laterally, seeking cover (or concealment if cover is not available). If neither cover nor concealment is available, still movement is a "better" option. Even experienced handgun shooters have difficulty hitting moving targets and the less experience the harder. Inexperienced right-handed shooters tend to pull shots to their left, so moving left is a very slightly better direction to move.
On a side note, I've been thinking about a "rant" about the current general perception of "gun grappling."
Peace favor your sword,
Kirk
I'd be interested in reading that rant, Kirk.On a side note, I've been thinking about a "rant" about the current general perception of "gun grappling."
Just thought I'd "...congratulate you on how smart we both are."
First, as usual, I appreciate your analysis and insights (maybe because I generally agree with you).I started writing an article about how "Gun Culture 2.0" is combining BJJ and such to try to get "gun grappling" good along with my thoughts. My thoughts are basically that thinking of it as "gun grappling" is both wrong and short sighted. It's just "weapons grappling" because human bodies haven't changed and what you have to do with your body and the way the opponent's body moves and breaks is unchanged also. It's just a weapon. "Pass the point," control the weapon/limb, inflict damage. Nothing particularly special.
I stopped writing it because, well, it's obvious. If you can find a martial arts manual with "illustrations" that include unarmed vs. armed, it looks pretty much the same, going back for centuries. Pass the point (void/move-out-of-the-way while moving inside the range), control the weapon/limb, inflict damage. Kung fu, Marrozo, FMA, "gun grappling," it's all the same. Boringly so, actually.
Further, the people who are investing tons of time thinking they are merging BJJ (or whatever) with guns are not going to be swayed or impressed (or may already realize this). Think they're going to be impressed if I tell them, "just go take a year or two of FMA to learn weapons defenses?" They've either already figured that out for themselves or, like Dorothy and those Ruby Slippers, won't believe it anyway. And the 2.0 folks who haven't gotten there yet? They're either still stuck thinking that the gun will solve all the problems and don't want to try adding a "martial artsy" thing in, or they already got there.
In either case, except for a very small subset, I'm either preaching to the choir or talking to the deaf. Talking to the deaf is just beating my head against a wall, and preaching to the choir is just an exercise in personal egotism so that people who already agree with me can congratulate me on how smart we both are.
So, when it comes to "gun grappling," well, it's just a weapon. The "rules" <ahem> for grappling against one are pretty similar to the rules for grappling against many of the others. Are there a few differences? Sure. But the differences are actually pretty small when you get down to brass tacks.
And what's more, at some point, it's not even "weapons grappling." If you boil it down far enough, it's just grappling. The other guy's body still moves and breaks the same whether or not he's holding a weapon.
At the end of the day, if you want to include any weapon in your self defense training, learn to fight with it and against it (as well as any other common weapons you might face) at all applicable ranges. It's not Rocket Surgery.
This is where someone quotes Bruce Lee about punching.
Peace favor your sword,
Kirk
Reasonable points. Like any weapon, there are some differences in dealing with it (not more than the difference between stick and knife, I think), but the basic principles are the same. Stick you can grab anywhere, knife you can't, gun you mostly can, etc.I started writing an article about how "Gun Culture 2.0" is combining BJJ and such to try to get "gun grappling" good along with my thoughts. My thoughts are basically that thinking of it as "gun grappling" is both wrong and short sighted. It's just "weapons grappling" because human bodies haven't changed and what you have to do with your body and the way the opponent's body moves and breaks is unchanged also. It's just a weapon. "Pass the point," control the weapon/limb, inflict damage. Nothing particularly special.
I stopped writing it because, well, it's obvious. If you can find a martial arts manual with "illustrations" that include unarmed vs. armed, it looks pretty much the same, going back for centuries. Pass the point (void/move-out-of-the-way while moving inside the range), control the weapon/limb, inflict damage. Kung fu, Marrozo, FMA, "gun grappling," it's all the same. Boringly so, actually.
Further, the people who are investing tons of time thinking they are merging BJJ (or whatever) with guns are not going to be swayed or impressed (or may already realize this). Think they're going to be impressed if I tell them, "just go take a year or two of FMA to learn weapons defenses?" They've either already figured that out for themselves or, like Dorothy and those Ruby Slippers, won't believe it anyway. And the 2.0 folks who haven't gotten there yet? They're either still stuck thinking that the gun will solve all the problems and don't want to try adding a "martial artsy" thing in, or they already got there.
In either case, except for a very small subset, I'm either preaching to the choir or talking to the deaf. Talking to the deaf is just beating my head against a wall, and preaching to the choir is just an exercise in personal egotism so that people who already agree with me can congratulate me on how smart we both are.
So, when it comes to "gun grappling," well, it's just a weapon. The "rules" <ahem> for grappling against one are pretty similar to the rules for grappling against many of the others. Are there a few differences? Sure. But the differences are actually pretty small when you get down to brass tacks.
And what's more, at some point, it's not even "weapons grappling." If you boil it down far enough, it's just grappling. The other guy's body still moves and breaks the same whether or not he's holding a weapon.
At the end of the day, if you want to include any weapon in your self defense training, learn to fight with it and against it (as well as any other common weapons you might face) at all applicable ranges. It's not Rocket Surgery.
This is where someone quotes Bruce Lee about punching.
Peace favor your sword,
Kirk
I think the valid part of that view is that there's a way of dealing with a gun (or knife, or stick, or punch, etc.) that's more easily learned from a BJJ foundation than other ways. It's more a matter of choosing techniques that will feel more familiar than of creating something new.First, as usual, I appreciate your analysis and insights (maybe because I generally agree with you).
Second, I think this is actually where someone talks about how the philosophy of X is not in line with the core principles of Y. It can be anything. For example, it might be, "We are including gun grappling in BJJ because the principles of FMA are not consistent with the core principles of BJJ." And so, we need to figure out how to do these things the "BJJ" way.
I think if you are at a point where you are competent in Kali or Eskrima, and also competent in BJJ, synthesizing the two would be easier than if you were competent in BJJ and making a BJJ-centric gun solution.
I just wanted to share a training experience I had years ago. We got a bunch of martial arts guys, brown belt and up, who had trained gun take aways in our art and we got a bunch of experienced shooters together. We had a police handgun instructor, teaching the class. (he also had rank in our system.) We paired the martial arts guys with the gun guys and trained our take aways. We learned a bunch of things. People who shoot guns a lot, do not let go of the gun. After a bit, we switched to using loaded air soft guns, to see if it really worked.
That's pretty easy to agree with.
If you guys would just agree with me at the beginning, we'd all save a lot of time.
Good write-up. How far from the shooter was the "shootee" when he started running? Did any of them try Hollywood moves (diving rolls, etc.)? I could see this being a bit confounded by the fact that the shooter knows what's coming. He's not watching for other stuff going on, or trying to intimidate with the gun's motion, etc. And there would be some aim loss due to stress/adrenaline. All that said, I'd expect the numbers to have been quite different, so those notes (the kind of observations usually found from almost any study) don't mean the results aren't significant. It would be interesting to see what the numbers were if running was only one option, and the shooters hadn't been told it was an option.
Yeah, but how would I keep my post count up??If you guys would just agree with me at the beginning, we'd all save a lot of time.
We started from the same position we did for the gun take aways. We did expect that the first shot or two would hit, but the shots kept hitting out to and beyond the 10 yard range. We did not expect that.
I started writing an article about how "Gun Culture 2.0" is combining BJJ and such to try to get "gun grappling" good along with my thoughts. My thoughts are basically that thinking of it as "gun grappling" is both wrong and short sighted. It's just "weapons grappling" because human bodies haven't changed and what you have to do with your body and the way the opponent's body moves and breaks is unchanged also. It's just a weapon. "Pass the point," control the weapon/limb, inflict damage. Nothing particularly special.
I stopped writing it because, well, it's obvious. If you can find a martial arts manual with "illustrations" that include unarmed vs. armed, it looks pretty much the same, going back for centuries. Pass the point (void/move-out-of-the-way while moving inside the range), control the weapon/limb, inflict damage. Kung fu, Marrozo, FMA, "gun grappling," it's all the same. Boringly so, actually.
Further, the people who are investing tons of time thinking they are merging BJJ (or whatever) with guns are not going to be swayed or impressed (or may already realize this). Think they're going to be impressed if I tell them, "just go take a year or two of FMA to learn weapons defenses?" They've either already figured that out for themselves or, like Dorothy and those Ruby Slippers, won't believe it anyway. And the 2.0 folks who haven't gotten there yet? They're either still stuck thinking that the gun will solve all the problems and don't want to try adding a "martial artsy" thing in, or they already got there.
In either case, except for a very small subset, I'm either preaching to the choir or talking to the deaf. Talking to the deaf is just beating my head against a wall, and preaching to the choir is just an exercise in personal egotism so that people who already agree with me can congratulate me on how smart we both are.
So, when it comes to "gun grappling," well, it's just a weapon. The "rules" <ahem> for grappling against one are pretty similar to the rules for grappling against many of the others. Are there a few differences? Sure. But the differences are actually pretty small when you get down to brass tacks.
And what's more, at some point, it's not even "weapons grappling." If you boil it down far enough, it's just grappling. The other guy's body still moves and breaks the same whether or not he's holding a weapon.
At the end of the day, if you want to include any weapon in your self defense training, learn to fight with it and against it (as well as any other common weapons you might face) at all applicable ranges. It's not Rocket Surgery.
This is where someone quotes Bruce Lee about punching.
Peace favor your sword,
Kirk
At the very least, the results seem to reinforce the idea that controlling the gun is the best resistance approach if the gun is in range for grappling.
Makes me think about my old jujutsu instructor. When he was teaching us mutodori (facing a swordsman when you are unarmed) he said that if you were unarmed and facing a decent swordsman, you would die. However, If it was a decent swordsman and he was that close, you would die if you tried to run away also. Since it was considered preferable to die attacking rather than trying to run away, we would learn mutodori.
