Bring a knife to a gunfight.

[LaCroix]

We did have a discussion about that some time ago in that thread about the frozen cat and other melee weapons, and I stumbled across this, which seems relevant:



Just like Mythbusters, the police came to the same conclusion - at less than 21feet, you're the stupid one for bringing a gund to a knifefight.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

As I've been trying to tell NRA drones since the incident in Moore almost two years ago you're able to bring a gun to a knife fight, only if you have enough time and distance to draw your weapon, or if you already have the drop on him.

Mark Vaughan had the drop on on Alton Nolen, who was busy trying to behead his second victim[cold shivers][/cold shivers].

That was why he was able to discharge his weapon and incapacitate Nolen.

If Nolen had gotten the drop on Vaughan instead, he would've ended up with both a knife and a firearm, and more people would have been killed.

(management at Unarco kicked around the idea of letting everyone bring a firearm to work, after what happened in Moore, and three weeks after what almost happened at Unarco itself[not ISIS-related, just someone gunning for a supervisor]...until it was pointed out to them what would happen, given the usual stress on the production floor. Thank god, as I had no desire to see my then-workplace turn into Dodge City)

[Joun_Lord]

There are a couple reasons why the 21 feet rule is more of a guideline then a rule, atleast according to gun owners. For one not everyone is going to be able to sprint 21 feet like a crackhead marathon runner. Some fatass with his man tits flapping in the wind is going to have alot of wind resistance and will not be able to sprint as easily as someone without man tits.

Depending on the method of carry a person can draw their weapon much faster or slower, an open carry person with their weapon condition one or two will be able to draw and fire much faster compared to a conceal carry person with their weapon condition 3. However a conceal carry person will be far less slowed down by scaredy whiners harassing them or calling the cops on them because they are offended by the mere sight of a firearm.

Also the level of damage between a knife and a gun is sure to effect the outcome. A knife in the hands of someone not trained to use it will not do much damage, if they are running they will be slashing mostly. Anyone with even a little self-preservation will hold up an arm to fend off the slashes buying them more time to draw. Someone shot will be much more severely injured even if shot in an extremity and unless they are Superman or Ozymandias they ain't going to be blocking a bullet. And then I'd wonder why the hell Superman or Ozymandias is trying to stab you. That justs seems really out of character. I mean I could kinda see Ozymandias stabbing someone because he's a dick but with as strong and fast he is why would he. But Superman? Nah, no way he'd be using a knife.

The main problem with a 21 feet rule however is the fact its used by American police to blast people holding knifes if they are too close. The rule was invoked in the recent shooting of the mentally ill transgender woman (she was mentally ill AND transgender, this isn't me implying she was mentally ill because she was transgender) who made Youtube videos with her doggy. Which frankly is even more fucked up then Joe Average considering most cops already will have their weapon drawn, will be wearing armor that should stop a knife, and will have a partner who can shoot if they cannot.

But anyway, cops acting like fucking cocks aside, the 21 feet rule is not some instant kiss your ass goodbye scenario. A person with an evil black baby killing extended clip fully semi-automatic ceramic polymer metal detection avoiding instrument of evil can still possibly defend themselves from a knife attack. Especially if they do the anti-American thing of retreating from the knife wielding maniac, maniac on the floor. And she's dancing like she's never danced before.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

and will have a partner who can shoot if they cannot.

Cops in many, if not most, US jurisdictions ride without a partner.

And, the point was, and is, if the knife wielder has his knife ready, and the peace officer does not have his weapon drawn, and he is less than 21 feet away from the knife wielder, then he will most likely be injured, if not killed; that becomes a certainty, if he is 10-15 feet away or less from the knife wielder, when he is attacked.

[Edi]

There are a couple reasons why the 21 feet rule is more of a guideline then a rule, atleast according to gun owners. For one not everyone is going to be able to sprint 21 feet like a crackhead marathon runner. Some fatass with his man tits flapping in the wind is going to have alot of wind resistance and will not be able to sprint as easily as someone without man tits.

Depending on the method of carry a person can draw their weapon much faster or slower, an open carry person with their weapon condition one or two will be able to draw and fire much faster compared to a conceal carry person with their weapon condition 3. However a conceal carry person will be far less slowed down by scaredy whiners harassing them or calling the cops on them because they are offended by the mere sight of a firearm.

Also the level of damage between a knife and a gun is sure to effect the outcome. A knife in the hands of someone not trained to use it will not do much damage, if they are running they will be slashing mostly. Anyone with even a little self-preservation will hold up an arm to fend off the slashes buying them more time to draw. Someone shot will be much more severely injured even if shot in an extremity and unless they are Superman or Ozymandias they ain't going to be blocking a bullet. And then I'd wonder why the hell Superman or Ozymandias is trying to stab you. That justs seems really out of character. I mean I could kinda see Ozymandias stabbing someone because he's a dick but with as strong and fast he is why would he. But Superman? Nah, no way he'd be using a knife.

The main problem with a 21 feet rule however is the fact its used by American police to blast people holding knifes if they are too close. The rule was invoked in the recent shooting of the mentally ill transgender woman (she was mentally ill AND transgender, this isn't me implying she was mentally ill because she was transgender) who made Youtube videos with her doggy. Which frankly is even more fucked up then Joe Average considering most cops already will have their weapon drawn, will be wearing armor that should stop a knife, and will have a partner who can shoot if they cannot.

But anyway, cops acting like fucking cocks aside, the 21 feet rule is not some instant kiss your ass goodbye scenario. A person with an evil black baby killing extended clip fully semi-automatic ceramic polymer metal detection avoiding instrument of evil can still possibly defend themselves from a knife attack. Especially if they do the anti-American thing of retreating from the knife wielding maniac, maniac on the floor. And she's dancing like she's never danced before.

After the video demonstrations above, which are just a sample of the full number of tests, you base this expert opinion on what? The turds you pulled out of your ass?

Your assessment there requires that the person with the gun is in top notch condition with his weapon training and already on hyper alert and it also assumes that there is significant air resistance to a larger man than to a smaller. News flash, there isn't, not at those speeds, you would need to accelerate a lot more and it isn't a 100 m sprint, it's less than 6 meters (at below 20 feet). Even big and relatively slow people can move fast over those distances and especially if they are already bent on mayhem.

And big people are even more dangerous there, because they will have more momentum and can use their body as an additional weapon as they get in close to overpower and pin down the man with the gun so that they can stab him, and if they fall on top of him the impact itself can cause injuries.

You're also blithely disregarding how adrenaline rush actually impairs the fine coordination required to draw, ready and fire a gun in a life and death situation when it starts from a situation where the gun is holstered.

Thanks, but I'll go with the tested demonstrations rather than tough guy macho-gun-man wankery.

That doesn't mean that there aren't a lot of unnecessary shootings by police in the US, but in many of those cases the cops have the drop on the suspect and they often fire even before the suspect even has a chance to comply. The issues there are separate from this gun vs knife exercise.

[Flagg]

You know the NRA is just going to say we need to ban knives and replace them with guns now, right?

But I'd known about the "21 foot rule" since years before I did my totally grueling 4 day long 24 hour training to get my unarmed guards license, where that was a sticking point. But since it was for an unarmed class D license, it was for why you always have your maglight out and held up next to your face with the bulb-side facing opposite from your thumb on night/ dark area patrols, so you can immediately bash someone in the head should they jump out at you. It's also why on day patrols you always carried whatever your self-defense weapon was (in my case, since 9/10 of the people I worked with couldn't be trusted to drive the golf cart we did outdoor patrols on because they were fucking idiots, also a maglight) in your primary hand so you wouldn't have to un-holsterpocket it.

[Terralthra]

Not a single tested demonstration in that involved a 21-foot distance. Most of them were 2 or so meters, and some were within arm's reach. Oh, and they involve an assailant named Dan Inosanto, one of the most highly-trained martial artists alive.

The original test (and the Mythbusters test) involved beginning not facing the assailant. The knife-wielder started behind the shooter at 21 feet away, or they started back to back and the knife-wielder ran away as fast as possible while the policeman turned and fired to see how far the knife-wielder could get in the time it took the shooter to draw, turn, aim, and fire accurately.

Very rarely do police get in trouble for turning and shooting a subject charging them from behind.

[Elheru Aran]

Dan Inosanto? Jesus, that's just silly unfair. One of the things that many seriously high-level martial artists have over pretty much anybody else is speed-- Bruce Lee had it, Jet Li has it, and Inosanto was one of Lee's *trainers* if that tells you anything... in Filipino martial arts... one of which specialties is knife work. You look at that video, you can see him just blurring through various combination cuts, slashes and stabs. While it's nothing that anybody can't do with a little training, it's still pretty far from what you could expect from a more 'typical' knife attack.

That's basically like putting Master Chief against a 2-week boot. A more fair comparison would have been, I don't know, one of the bloody secretaries from the police station! Call some guy in from the street and tell him he gets twenty bucks for trying to stab a cop, only don't actually stab them pretty please? (OK maybe not that for obvious reasons... but still)

It's still an effective enough demonstration-- don't get too close to someone you suspect or know has a knife, which should be fucking common sense-- but it's pretty flawed.

[Isolder74]

This was the sort of thing the Jim Bowie lived by. There are several fights he was in that he proved a knife was the best weapon at a poker table.

There was at least one gunfight in the old west, I wish I could remember the names involved, were a man was cornered by at least 6 guys and they charged him and he took all of them out with his knife having run out go ammunition.

[Simon_Jester]

But anyway, cops acting like fucking cocks aside, the 21 feet rule is not some instant kiss your ass goodbye scenario. A person with an evil black baby killing extended clip fully semi-automatic ceramic polymer metal detection avoiding instrument of evil can still possibly defend themselves from a knife attack. Especially if they do the anti-American thing of retreating from the knife wielding maniac, maniac on the floor. And she's dancing like she's never danced before.

...Your assessment there requires that the person with the gun is in top notch condition with his weapon training and already on hyper alert and it also assumes that there is significant air resistance to a larger man than to a smaller. News flash, there isn't, not at those speeds, you would need to accelerate a lot more and it isn't a 100 m sprint, it's less than 6 meters (at below 20 feet). Even big and relatively slow people can move fast over those distances and especially if they are already bent on mayhem.

I think "wind resistance" was something of a joke, pointing out that people in poor physical condition can't close distance as quickly as people in good physical condition. Conversely, people not mentally alert and prepared won't be able to draw and fire a gun as fast as people who are... so I think Joun's point is that the real distance at which a knife-wielding person poses an imminent mortal threat to a gun-armed person varies depending on the circumstances, rather than always being "six meters." Six meters is certainly a good estimate, but it depends on enough complex variables that it's not a trivial, hard-and-fast thing.

I think that sounds reasonable.

That's basically like putting Master Chief against a 2-week boot. A more fair comparison would have been, I don't know, one of the bloody secretaries from the police station! Call some guy in from the street and tell him he gets twenty bucks for trying to stab a cop, only don't actually stab them pretty please? (OK maybe not that for obvious reasons... but still)

Oh, that's easy to fix.

Hand them a Sharpie and tell them to mark the police officer's clothes up. Pretty good simulation of a knife attack; if you can get into Sharpie range you're in knife range.

This was the sort of thing the Jim Bowie lived by. There are several fights he was in that he proved a knife was the best weapon at a poker table.

Jim Bowie lived and died before repeating firearms became common- the guns of his era were single-shot weapons.

[His Divine Shadow]

So carry a gun and a knife, problem solved!

[Zixinus]

Didn't Mythbusters also did a test on this? I'm pretty sure they did.

[Joun_Lord]

After the video demonstrations above, which are just a sample of the full number of tests, you base this expert opinion on what? The turds you pulled out of your ass?

I base my expert opinion on common sense, the Mythbusters episode that test this, the piles of cops and civilian shooters who successfully shot someone with a knife in under 21 feet.

Your assessment there requires that the person with the gun is in top notch condition with his weapon training and already on hyper alert and it also assumes that there is significant air resistance to a larger man than to a smaller. News flash, there isn't, not at those speeds, you would need to accelerate a lot more and it isn't a 100 m sprint, it's less than 6 meters (at below 20 feet). Even big and relatively slow people can move fast over those distances and especially if they are already bent on mayhem.

It doesn't take much training to draw a firearm and fire it. With you arm. Even if they don't get center of mass or a boom headshot they are more then likely save if they are a stormtrooper going to hit and wound the attacker.

And as Simon correctly guessed, I wasn't being serious about the fat people wind resistance. Do you honestly think I'm stupid enough to think "man tits" are going to slow someone down because of their wind resistance? Don't answer that.

And big people are even more dangerous there, because they will have more momentum and can use their body as an additional weapon as they get in close to overpower and pin down the man with the gun so that they can stab him, and if they fall on top of him the impact itself can cause injuries.

A fatty fat fat fat falling on someone can cause injury but that true anyway it goes. A shot fat person falling on someone is still considerably less of a danger then being stabbed or being stabbed and fatty falling on them. And as a fatty fat I know I cannot move as easily as I could when I was a skinny little shit.

You're also blithely disregarding how adrenaline rush actually impairs the fine coordination required to draw, ready and fire a gun in a life and death situation when it starts from a situation where the gun is holstered.

It doesn't take much fine coordination to draw and fire a weapon especially at the kissing ranges involved here. And as I alluded to earlier, despite the adrenaline and the rush and all that plenty of police officers and not really trained civilian shooters have drawn and fired their weapon on attackers at those ranges successfully

Thanks, but I'll go with the tested demonstrations rather than tough guy macho-gun-man wankery.

Well fine, go with your tested demonstrations and disregard my tough guy macho-gun-man wankery and hurt my feelings. Because the tested demonstrations show in alot of attack scenarios based on the Tueller drill a person can draw their weapon and fire it successfully in the general direction of the attacker at 20 feet and under depending on the circumstances. Someone face to face with their attacker is far more likely to be successful while someone with their back to the attacker is not.

That doesn't mean that there aren't a lot of unnecessary shootings by police in the US, but in many of those cases the cops have the drop on the suspect and they often fire even before the suspect even has a chance to comply. The issues there are separate from this gun vs knife exercise.

No, they are linked like those two creepy conjoined twins on the Discovery Channel. Because police officers and normal people both seem to think the Tueller drill is implying that any knife attack under 21 feet is insta-death and that its either kill or be killed at ranges that close. They use that as license to shoot anyone armed at ranges like that even if they aren't presenting a threat.

The Tueller drill isn't supposed to imply that the zone laid out is a insta-death zone but a danger zone, a highway if you will, where the risk of injury and even death goes up greatly compared to ranges beyond 21 feet. Someone within that zone can still successfully defend themselves but depending on the variables they are far more likely to fail compared to if they were being attacked at 30 or 60 feet. And the variables are highly important. A person who has no training, has their weapon concealed holstered, and whos back is to the attacker will more then likely fail. Someone with training, with their weapon drawn, and facing their attacker will almost always be able to fire upon the attacker.

The latter scenario is the one that has police shooting people and the one I have a severe problem with. Though I'll admit I have a severe problem with police shooting people in general. One thing the Euro-commies actually do well is train their police to not overreact to armed individuals. Maybe its because they are so good at surrendering.

[Adam Reynolds]

Didn't Mythbusters also did a test on this? I'm pretty sure they did.

Indeed they did, with almost exactly the same results as the law enforcement test. Especially interesting considering that Jamie, who was the knife wielder, is not exactly young.

[Me2005]

I heard an interview about this recently. While the 21-foot rule is generally fair advice, it was written for people with holstered revolvers being charged by knife wielders. The 21-foot rule accounts for upholstering, training the weapon on the target, and firing before they get to you. Basically the interviewee was saying police today are being trained wrong - they have semi-automatic pistols and more often than not they already have their weapons drawn and trained on the target. He also said that they used to be trained to keep good track of their shots, as they only had 6. Now they've got up to 21, and are trained to keep firing until the suspect stops.

Granted, each of the 6 shots were probably individually more powerful than each of the +/-21 they've got now, but it's still probably overkill and sloppy.

[Lord Revan]

well the "shoot until the subject stops/drops" is not that bad of a advice, since a person may remain a a threat even after they've suffered leathal damage and will die the moment they stop, if the subject is drugged up or full or adreneral they might keep on doing before their body catches up to reality and they die but during that time they might injure or kill the officer who shot them.

Also when dealing with rules where lives are at stake it's best to for the "worst case scenario" just to make sure that lives are not lost needlessly.

[Me2005]

well the "shoot until the subject stops/drops" is not that bad of a advice, since a person may remain a a threat even after they've suffered leathal damage and will die the moment they stop, if the subject is drugged up or full or adreneral they might keep on doing before their body catches up to reality and they die but during that time they might injure or kill the officer who shot them.

I think the point of the interviewee was that the impulse already is to keep shooting in those kinds of situations, and he had to be trained not to do that. Basically, it sounds like he was taught better trigger discipline - shoot, see what has happened, shoot again if necessary. Maybe with the lighter rounds used today, you'd want to train a double-tap instead of a single shot. But the point is that the training should be to fight impulse and think. Then if you're in a non-threatening/less threatening situation you don't act like it's a worst-case like you outline. If you've been trained to always be in control, you can make the call at that point.

Also when dealing with rules where lives are at stake it's best to for the "worst case scenario" just to make sure that lives are not lost needlessly.

Keep in mind, both 'worst-case scenario' and making sure lives are not lost needlessly applies to both sides of the argument here. You've outlined the enforcement worst-case scenario; but the civilian worst-case is that an officer shoots and kills an innocent unarmed civilian. And we're seeing more situations like the second case than the first in the news lately - even in cases where the suspect isn't innocent, death hasn't been the appropriate penalty for the crime.

Although there was a case locally the other day where a bystander was armed with a gun and stopped a crazy axe wielder from killing the shop owner. IIRC, he only shot once, and had to aim carefully to hit the attacker and not the store owner.

[Raw Shark]

This was the sort of thing the Jim Bowie lived by. There are several fights he was in that he proved a knife was the best weapon at a poker table.

Bowie's reputation as a knife-fighter was based on a single fight, the Sandbar Duel, when he successfully used the eponymous knife to kill a man armed with a single-shot pistol and a sword cane (who stabbed him with the latter) after being shot in the thigh by one of his rival's allies during general close-range chaos. He later engaged in a very successful marketing campaign regarding the design of that knife. Bowie was a lot of things, including a pretty great shady businessman and a fearless beast when he was angry, but a lightning-quick knife duelist who could reliably face several focused gunmen and win was probably not one of them.

[Elheru Aran]

This was the sort of thing the Jim Bowie lived by. There are several fights he was in that he proved a knife was the best weapon at a poker table.

Bowie's reputation as a knife-fighter was based on a single fight, the Sandbar Duel, when he successfully used the eponymous knife to kill a man armed with a single-shot pistol and a sword cane (who stabbed him with the latter) after being shot in the thigh by one of his rival's allies during general close-range chaos. He later engaged in a very successful marketing campaign regarding the design of that knife. Bowie was a lot of things, including a pretty great shady businessman and a fearless beast when he was angry, but a lightning-quick knife duelist who could reliably face several focused gunmen and win was probably not one of them.

Yeah, Bowie IIRC took advantage of the Sandbar Duel to blow up his reputation, not unlike Davy Crockett. It was an era of ruthless self-aggrandizement and exaggeration. Make a name for yourself in some podunk town and before you knew it, you'd get blown up into the Hero who Faced Down the West (TM). You can see this in the political campaigns of the time and the popular media as well. This is the era where the 'pulp novel' got its real start, after all.

Granted, some people were just ridiculously badass to start with (see Andrew Jackson)...

[Lord Revan]

well the "shoot until the subject stops/drops" is not that bad of a advice, since a person may remain a a threat even after they've suffered leathal damage and will die the moment they stop, if the subject is drugged up or full or adreneral they might keep on doing before their body catches up to reality and they die but during that time they might injure or kill the officer who shot them.

I think the point of the interviewee was that the impulse already is to keep shooting in those kinds of situations, and he had to be trained not to do that. Basically, it sounds like he was taught better trigger discipline - shoot, see what has happened, shoot again if necessary. Maybe with the lighter rounds used today, you'd want to train a double-tap instead of a single shot. But the point is that the training should be to fight impulse and think. Then if you're in a non-threatening/less threatening situation you don't act like it's a worst-case like you outline. If you've been trained to always be in control, you can make the call at that point.

we got to remember that we're not talking about some PC game where you can take hundreds of knife stabs and not even get a scratch. Knifes are dangerous and should be treated accordingly. When using leathal force the objective of the officer is not to kill though in most(read:practically all) cases that happens, it's to stop the subject from hurting anyone else.

Also when dealing with rules where lives are at stake it's best to for the "worst case scenario" just to make sure that lives are not lost needlessly.

Keep in mind, both 'worst-case scenario' and making sure lives are not lost needlessly applies to both sides of the argument here. You've outlined the enforcement worst-case scenario; but the civilian worst-case is that an officer shoots and kills an innocent unarmed civilian. And we're seeing more situations like the second case than the first in the news lately - even in cases where the suspect isn't innocent, death hasn't been the appropriate penalty for the crime.

Although there was a case locally the other day where a bystander was armed with a gun and stopped a crazy axe wielder from killing the shop owner. IIRC, he only shot once, and had to aim carefully to hit the attacker and not the store owner.

Obviously unneeded use of leathal force is bad, but the estimate if leathal force is needed has to be done before after that judgement is made there's no time to second guess. Your civilian "worst case scenario" cannot factor into the police training on how to act after the subject is engaged there's no time for that, it has to come before when the subject is unaware of the presence of the officers or focused on someone else.

[Raw Shark]

Granted, some people were just ridiculously badass to start with (see Andrew Jackson)...

Yeah, as much as I wish there was a Hell so he could burn in it, you've got to give credit where it's due to a man who could calmly take a soft-ass early-19th-century bullet to the middle torso (too close to the spine to be removed surgically), aim, and return lethal fire in a duel. He was a total dick, but he had insanely huge balls.

[Isolder74]

Granted, some people were just ridiculously badass to start with (see Andrew Jackson)...

Yeah, as much as I wish there was a Hell so he could burn in it, you've got to give credit where it's due to a man who could calmly take a soft-ass early-19th-century bullet to the middle torso (too close to the spine to be removed surgically), aim, and return lethal fire in a duel. He was a total dick, but he had insanely huge balls.

The first presidential assassination attempt was on Jackson. His guards had to pull the president off of his intended attacker to keep him from beading the guy to death with his cane. The man's guns misfired but you have to wonder if he did hit him if it would have done anything more then make Jackson flinch.

[Zeropoint]

I assume that if he'd actually been shot, he'd have been so pissed off that his guards wouldn't have been able to pull him off the assassin.

More seriously, in my opinion, if you're justified in shooting someone at all, you're justified in shooting them however much it takes to stop them--you can't shoot someone "just a little". If someone is charging you with a knife, for instance, shooting them twice and then waiting to see what happens could get you killed if what happens is "nothing for now, because they're too hyped for the pain to affect them and you didn't hit anything vital".

[Beowulf]

Granted, each of the 6 shots were probably individually more powerful than each of the +/-21 they've got now, but it's still probably overkill and sloppy.

Not appreciably. Old revolvers are probably .38 special. Modern 9mm loads have much more power, in part because they aren't designed to be used in old blackpowder revolvers.

[Isolder74]

I assume that if he'd actually been shot, he'd have been so pissed off that his guards wouldn't have been able to pull him off the assassin.

Some fun about Jackson.