So, no one needs a gun

[barney57]

she pulled out a gun whats to say that that would have not raised the anti somewhat?

To where mate, already raised, that could easily have been a FATAL beating.

I doubt those cowards would argue with a drawn firearm, but if you have presented (not brandished) a weapon then you should be ready to USE it. Any one of the attackers producing a firearm would leave you clear to shoot, law varies from state to stae of course so no hard and fast rules.....

Weapon should only be drawn AFTER ALL other possibilities are exhausted, that may take half a second or half a minute..or the rest
of someones life.

Not disgreeing with you Chuck,,,but in a court of law (that could have easily been a FATAL beating) would be nothing more than supposition I'm afraid,,,for instance the next car that comes towards you when your trying to cross the road COULD swerve and kill or seriously injure you,,,but the fact of the matter is you just dont know that you, so what you going to do? draw your gun and shoot the driver just in case?? The Law is an Ass,, as we all know....if a gun had been drawn in that incident by either party,, then as said the Anti is instanly raised,,,,ask your self what wouldm have happened if an armed Police Officer suddenly appeared on the scene and was confronted with one person or two people for that matter holding a Gun,,,who does he shoot first??? the attacker or the Victim???then again hiw would he know which was the attacker and which was the victim??? a split second decision and a close call in which the victim probabaly the innocent one might end up dead by mistake or misjudgement??? its a close call chuck...

[Robin128]

"...would he know which was the attacker and which was the victim??? a split second decision and a close call in which the victim probabaly the innocent one might end up dead by mistake or misjudgement."

Exactly.

[Porcupine]

I can't speak for how well British police are trained in hand to hand combat. Versus a knife, open hand, I think I'd be right in saying that the pretty much universally accepted method of defence since ancient times is to grab your attacker by the forearm holding the knife and proceed from there (you could throw your opponent to the ground, break their arm, disarm them, stab them with their own knife, get them into a lock and then use your free hand to strike them, etc). You can see this demonstrated in the video.

If you have a gun, another option is to fire from a more compressed shooting position rather than attempting to get a proper sight picture and full extension as seen in the videos. You can see the two main compressed positions here (you may be familiar with them from a scene in the movie Collateral, where Tom Cruise, trained by Mick Gould, is text book in his execution). Keep in mind that gunfighting has come a long way since the 70s and 80s, as have holster designs - well-trained people with modern holsters can draw and shoot considerably faster than seen in the police video in my last post. Unfortunately, training for regular cops has not come very far - most will qualify with their weapon twice a year and nothing more.

[Chuck]

ROB< an anti stance mate, If in doubt you do NOT open fire, that is a given rule unless you want to be on a murder charge. FACT, cops get it wrong more than citizens, now why is that??

[Chuck]

Porcupine, a good earlier post, there is so much too this as you know. Ther are obvioulsy situations when you HAVE to draw and a 3 shot fight is what we teach and train, hopefully it works that way. If you are confronted then it may be that a draw IS required, even at point blank range. However much a CCW person must avoid a situatron in the first place it is the bad guy who makes the rules..A draw and fire in the video scenario would not be on, producing a weapon (NOT BRANDISHING, that is illegal) could have a result. Yes sometime sit IS a split second but if you happen on an aftermath it would be silly to just open fire, that is something that video simulators can train on. The decison to fire is YOURS< as you know, you stand or fall on what decision you make, ergo you MUST be goddam sure anout what you are doing.

The subject is an emotive and complex one with lots of variables, at the end of the day the RIGHT to choose is NOT given to us. Those that HAVE the right to choose can themselves live or die on that choice. For that reason not everyone avails themselves of firearms for defence. For us subjects, we have NO choice as even defensive tools are banned.

[barney57]

I can't speak for how well British police are trained in hand to hand combat. Versus a knife, open hand, I think I'd be right in saying that the pretty much universally accepted method of defence since ancient times is to grab your attacker by the forearm holding the knife and proceed from there (you could throw your opponent to the ground, break their arm, disarm them, stab them with their own knife, get them into a lock and then use your free hand to strike them, etc). You can see this demonstrated in the video.

If you have a gun, another option is to fire from a more compressed shooting position rather than attempting to get a proper sight picture and full extension as seen in the videos. You can see the two main compressed positions here (you may be familiar with them from a scene in the movie Collateral, where Tom Cruise, trained by Mick Gould, is text book in his execution). Keep in mind that gunfighting has come a long way since the 70s and 80s, as have holster designs - well-trained people with modern holsters can draw and shoot considerably faster than seen in the police video in my last post. Unfortunately, training for regular cops has not come very far - most will qualify with their weapon twice a year and nothing more.

From when I was an Operational Police Officer safety trainer,,,the action for an unarmed Police Officer who was confronted with someone with a knife....was to, if possible disengage and back off try and contain the situation whilst calling for back up which would more than likely be in the form of an armed response unit....otherwise all you had was your baton, and incapacitant spray,,,,officers were never encouraged to engage with any one with a knife or as more often described " AN EDGED WEAPON" as in hand to hand stuff,, yes they are trained to disarm using home office approved techniques,,but invariably the officer would get serious injuries,,of course these days Police officers have stab vests etc,,,but thats only in recent years,,,I remember the days when we didnt have them,,,,all we had was our guile, courage, stupidness and a 12" long piece of wood....and the hope that backup was on its way...

Stab vests by the way does not in any way make a Police Officer invincable.....

Oh and by the way fight scenes etc, in FILMS are staged,,,,the real life things are not!!

[Chuck]

NO ROB< NO NO NO NO NO! We are much to disciplined as shooters in the UK for that to happen. Virtually ALL of us are long distance i.e + 200 yard shooters, we are used to taking our time and - with those that - hunt identifying the target before shooting. We are too disciplined to go out and start shooting indiscriminately, not to mention the actual effort that would be involved for a non /un- trained civvie to shoot a human being.

Better to have some chance then NO chance like those in Cumbria.

Bottom line Rob, a shoot out or a massacre, choose one.

[Robin128]

I choose neither, Chuck...let the Police sort it out if they can...an armed passer-by's retaliation can be inflamatory and criminal. Vigilantism cannot work.

That's why we have laws and the Police. Not even America can afford the appropriate level of policing.

Gone off the notion of anyone other than the forces carrying loaded weapons in public places in the UK.

:(

[Porcupine]

From when I was an Operational Police Officer safety trainer,,,the action for an unarmed Police Officer who was confronted with someone with a knife....was to, if possible disengage and back off try and contain the situation whilst calling for back up which would more than likely be in the form of an armed response unit....

Of course, the same would go for anyone. If someone has a knife at the opposite end of the street nobody would advise you to gun him down (which would be illegal if nothing else) or charge at him and try to disarm him with your bare hands. But the video did not show that, it showed an officer getting bum rushed by a knife-wielding attacker at up to 21 feet, or attacked from within arm's reach. In either case there's no possible way you could run away. By the time you start to react the attacker has already started to accelerate towards you, and you not only have to match and then overtake his speed, but also turn around (without tripping over) in the process. If 'run away' was always an option then nobody would ever be stabbed to death. And you certainly would expect to get cut. There's no winners in knife fights, just least-losers.

Oh and by the way fight scenes etc, in FILMS are staged,,,,the real life things are not!!

Lol, of course. But when people talk about hip-shooting that scene inevitably comes up as it's such a famous and well-done scene. What Tom Cruise does is textbook i.e. that is what a lot of defensive pistol instructors would train to do. If you went and took a pistol class, you might well perform that drill with sparring partners. Not all of course, there's variations - some would advocate hanging on to the gun rather than just slapping it away etc. Obviously, in real life things don't necessarily go as they do in drills. A scene from a movie isn't proof that anything works, it's just interesting to see. In real life you might fail to grab or slap away the gun and get shot, or badguy #2 might have been quicker on the draw and killed you, or you might have fumbled and dropped your gun, or you might have been struck by lightning. But sometimes it's better to try than do nothing (equally, sometimes it's better to do nothing and hope they let you live).

There's no magic, foolproof solution to being attacked with a gun or knife, but there's better ways and there's worse ways to respond - military, law enforcement, and those who train them are finding out partly through genuine experience, and partly through experiments in force-on-force training (which I think everyone should do, even if you don't carry any kind of weapon at all - it's a real eye opener, not to mention great fun).

If training doesn't work and everything is down to chance, hopeless and can't be influenced by human action then someone best tell the army and the police because they're wasting a lot of time and money! :lol:

[Porcupine]

I choose neither, Chuck...let the Police sort it out if they can...an armed passer-by's retaliation can be inflamatory and criminal. Vigilantism cannot work.

That's why we have laws and the Police. Not even America can afford the appropriate level of policing.

Gone off the notion of anyone other than the forces carrying loaded weapons in public places in the UK.

:(

I might share your concern if there was any evidence of the kind of incidents you're thinking about being commonplace. When the states started to legalize concealed carry in the 80s and 90s anti-gunners said that there would be blood in the streets, and we might have assumed they'd be right. In fact there just haven't been the kinds of confused shootouts, mistakes, accidents and escalatory incidents people feared. Rather crime, homicides, gun killings, and handgun killings, have fallen in most states that have adopted concealed carry laws and across the US as a whole.