Guns in self-defense

You don't need an atom bomb to flush out a single rat in your kitchen. There is such a thing as an overkill. Weapons need to be managed for safety and for deployment. The bigger the firepower the higher the maintenance and safety quotient. The law of entropy states that things tend to get sloppy as the situation gets complicated. For home defense we must deal with these variables: 

• perceived threat
• management considerations vis a vis perceived threat
• safety considerations vis a vis location of weapon and place of deployment

So if the perceived threat is a single rat, you don't nuke 'em and blow up your own house. We are exaggerating the example here to drive the point that efficiency and economics are tied together. If a rolled-up newspaper is enough to stop an annoying cockroach why shoot it?

Many weapons are designed for the battlefield rather than for home defense. A weapons buyer must clearly understand which weapon fits his purpose unless he is a gun collector. Nevertheless, a gun collector must fully understand the safety considerations, as will be discuseed later.

So do you really have to buy a Tec-9 or an UZI for your home? With children running around, that would be courting disaster. Part of the management considerations are the legal implications of your weapon based on the laws of you locality. In the Philippines, you can still end up with a charge of homicide based on the circumstances. You can't just shoot and claim self-defense even if it happened inside your home. In some countries these cases are appreciated differently. Remember the Korean student who got shotgunned by the father of his classmate when he visited their home? The shooter was acquitted based on the principle of "castle-keep". But such common law jurisprudence does not apply in other countries like the Philippines.

For the home if you are not a gangster or something, with a normal threat of a possible theft or robbery, then you might need a simple and reliable weapon. A weapon that can be deployed with relative safety and designed for such common crimes.

A home-based weapon or a personal weapon must be concealable,  easy to deploy and reliable. A .38 caliber snub-nose is a very logical choice. It does not jam. It's drawback for the home is that once loaded it is very easy to fire. A pistol can jam if not properly maintained or if not properly loaded and cocked. The ammunition also plays an important part. Afterall it is the one that actually kills. Choosing a good ammo is a necessity. For pistols, the .45 has been tried and tested to deliver. It is very easy to maintain like the revolver. Other calibers may be suited for you to buy but it must suit your hand and personality. So before buying try gripping it for comfort. If it is too heavy for you why buy it?

A lot of people buy full-sized pistols or revolvers for self-defense but these weapons are not designed for self-defense but rather for police work or combat duties. Thus, they are not easily concealable and would require an outside holster to properly carry in the person.

For self-defense therefore it must be compact enough to hide. You cannot display your weapon as if it were the wild wild west. Assasins and firearms snatchers can easily disarm you if you parade it like you were John Wayne (if you can draw it easily from your holster, it means the snatcher can draw it easily too).

At home weapons must be separated from their ammos. It is better to remove the firing pin of the weapon when not in use. They must be stored securely with only you knowing the combination. If you intend to use it on a burglar, it means that you intend to commit homicide. Security for the home must not start on your weapon but on other more sensible variables like the height of your fence, the locks you put, the alarms you installed, the security mindset of your household, etc. Your weapon must only be your last resort (that is why there is such a thing as a panic room).  Remember a homicidal burglar who enters your home enters it with the element of surprise so it is very unlikely that you will be able to deploy your weapon exactly as he enters your abode. It is not a cowboy duel so stop the macho myth. Accept the fact that when shit happens you won't be able to draw your weapon (unless you carry it around your house like a paranoid Billy the Kid). 

There is a reason why security companies sell burglar alarms, CCTV cameras,  and other gadgets and not just guns. Guns are proximity tools. As I have mentioned before, when you have to use it it means the burglar or the intruder is already near you. Why was he able to pass through your gate, your door, your garage, your window or any other entrance? Perhaps you might need to buy a better lock, a new door or a new latch to your window than resort to buying a gun. If the gun is the best anti-burglar option security companies would just be selling firearms only. 

Security therefore is not that simple. You need a complete security survey or evaluation of your home. Is your fence the right height? Is your househelp becoming too friendly with your next-door gardener? Do you live in a gang-infested neighborhood? Things like these must be considered. The gun is not a magic pill. You will also need some training to use it properly.

If you have that enough money to ever need security, then hire security guards (the rich do!). If you are subject to grave threats hire bodyguards (the rich do!). 

Battlefield conditions versus street threat

Another reason why the study of self-defense is so frustrating is the fact that a law-abiding, peace-loving citizen is expected to act civilized and expect civility from other people in street situations. This translates to a relaxed emotional state while being dangerously exposed to possible threats. You have your psychic defenses down because you expect to be treated kindly and with respect. This is a false and dangerous assumption. 

A soldier on foot patrol, on the other hand, is expecting to be ambushed and therefore has his weapon deployed and ready. His eyes are keen, observing the minutest detail of the sorroundings trying to pick out hidden enemies. At the slightest provocation he can unleash hell on anybody.

If a civilian acts like a soldier he faces possible law suits, worse even get a ticket to the death chamber. The courts use the term "use of reasonable force" and "use of deadly force" to differentiate justified self-defense from manslaughter or homicide.

A mugging is actually an ambush and soldiers know how to deal with ambushes by having their firearms and ordnances ready. But a civilian on the other hand cannot just deploy his knife or gun. The mugger will always therefore be one step ahead. The fastest, most-coordinated, athlete will have a response time of at least 2 seconds to a simulated attack.  So if the house-weary housewife who is thinking about bills to pay, etc. goes into an alley she becomes easy prey. Her dulled awareness hardly notices the guy in the shadows. With no weapons deployed and a baggage of a spaced-out mind she is literally cold turkey.

Street smarts requires soldier-like perception and battlefield heuristics. So what do we have to do? We need to balance legal parameters with life and death choices. And its a thinline between deadly force and reasonable force. If  a guy enters your safety zone with a drawn knife you can not be expected to be half-hearted about it. You respond with equal brutality. Anyway, when you are dead the courts can't bring your life back. 

As we often say in this blog, efficient threat management lessens your chances to encounters of the ugly kind. Don't act macho and tempt fate by going to dark alleys and crime-infested neighborhoods. Blend with the crowd and appear common. Avoid conflicts and deescalate macho situations. But if you are caught in a place not of your own making be ready to show the stuff you are made of. Make them pay for messing up with you.

KNIFE SURVIVAL 2.0

What happens when two boxers face each other like Pacquiao and Eric Morales? Both will score a hit against each other. The longer the bout the mutual hits increase in percentage. Imagine if both had knives? The same statistics stands, but with horrific effects. 

It has been said that when two skilled samurais face each other, both of them will be dead. Indeed, duelling has this probability down pat. In duelling, being faced squarely against each other leaves both protagonists susceptible to each other's attacks.

Lessening your mortality rate factor therefore relies on your ability to avoid being a frontal target. Some call it avoiding the "centerline". You might have seen Pacquiao shooting from the side, totally avoiding a frontal strike from his opponent. That is essentially the tactical solution.

In Kali, practitioners are trained to locate themselves in "safety zones", i.e., the peripheral side where the weaponed hand has not launched an attack or where the weapon has been "spent".

In Waya-an Combatives, we train ourselves to maneuver to the sides or the rear to avoid the enemy's centerline attack at the same time protecting our own centerline from counter-attack.

KNIFE SURVIVAL 101

To a lot of martial artists, self-defense specialists and street-fighters, knife encounters represent their most feared challenge. The superiority of a gun in a street mugging is an accepted fact but the potential devastation of a knife is so distinct its terror quotient is unrivaled in close quarters combat. A gun is unidirectional. Its advantage is in distance. But its unidirectional character is more manageable in close quarters than a knife. A knife will cut you from any angle conceivable. It can travel at 95 miles per hour like a baseball fast ball. In close quarters the knife has its advantages over a handgun.

In muggings the knife is so fearsome, the most macho dude can cower like a bullied grade schooler and the most muscled gym freak can be reduced to a crying wimp. A lot of dojo trained martial artists lost their lives to a street knife fighter. Facing the knife is indeed one of the greatest enigmas in self-defense studies.

We must thoroughly understand the nature of the knife and how it is wielded before we can entertain how to defend against it.

The knife does not need much power to inflict damage. Mere contact with its edge and point is enough. It moves in all the possible angles where the arms of the wielder can go. It can come from a curved thrust like a Kali knife lunge.

Having to face the knife is basically enterring the point-of-no-return. It is enterring "deathground". Sun Tzu once said that on "death ground fight!". So if you engage a knife wielder you are basically in the area of combatives and not in  a low level threat situation.

A lot has failed against the knife because they engage the knife fighter with a mere self-defensive mentality. Second, one does not engage weapons with an empty-hands approach. As much as possible, you must try to equalize the situation by deploying your own weapon. In fact, always try to stack the odds in your favor. If he pulls a gun, you pull a cannon, if he pulls a cannon, you nuke 'em!

When a samurai uses jujitsu aganst a sword, it is because he lost his weapon and is hoping against hope to disarm his opponent to equalize the situation. A samurai would always prefer to have his sword.

Let us remember, in a knife encounter we employ empty hand techniques as a means to deploy our own weapon or to disarm the wielder before an attack can be effectively launched. But given a choice we must use weapons againsts weapons. We must use metsuboshi techniques to distract the knife fighter so we can deploy our own knives.

However, a knife encounter sitation must be avoided at all times, unless you are a soldier commanded to search and destroy the enemy.

Your threat management must be effecient enough to prevent you from getting into such situations.

Once you are in an "ambush site" like dark alleys, crime-prone areas, etc. a knife attacker will not show his knife at a distance. You will be introduced to his weapon at close proximity. If that happens that means your threat management has failed you and you are now in deep shit. 

Once you enterred the point-of-no-return, only one comes out alive. In some cases no one comes out at all!