EMERGENCY DEFENSE PREP #2: WEAPON DEFENSE

Disclaimer: This post contains graphic content focusing on defending oneself in an emergency, aspects of which may be triggering for some people, and considered adult in nature.  Defense situations (such as a weapon defense) can vary and no one technique will work for every situation.  Technique and weapons use are subject to local laws governing self-defense and personal protection.  Please consult local and national laws as part of your defense prep.  These laws may also vary depending on whether you’re at home, in our car, at work, or out in public.

One day in August of 2021 a woman was at home when she heard a knock on her door.  When she got to the door, there was a 20-year-old man who said he was raising money for a children’s charity.  She told him she did not have any money and as she started to close the door, he displayed a gun and forced his way into her house.

Bad situations happen and as preppers, we are aware of this.  Sometimes bad situations happen because other people have evil intentions.  These situations can be made more challenging to prepare for and more dangerous to us directly if those who have evil intentions are armed with a weapon.

EMERGENCY DEFENSE PREP: WEAPONS DEFENSE

We want to be ready if we find ourselves face-to-face against a gun, knife, stick, shiv, baseball bat, crowbar, wire, rope, electric cord, or other improvised weapon.

With any weapon we go against (including a gun) our focus is to stop the immediate threat first and finish the fight (which may or may not mean taking away the weapon) second.  If we can get out of the situation safely without battling over the weapon, we may not even need to take the weapon away.  Sometimes that is possible, sometimes it is not.  So it’s good to be prepared for either scenario.

WEAPON DEFENSE #1: STOP THE IMMEDIATE THREAT (GOAL 1)

To help visualize the first goal, imagine a gun being pointed away from you versus pointed at you.  Are both situations an immediate threat to you?  You might think yes.  Let me give you more information first.  The gun being pointed away from you is in your friend’s hand while you and your friend are at a shooting range and your friend is safely pointing the gun down range toward the target and taking all the proper safety steps.  You probably don’t feel like your life is in danger here.

Now, even if you’re in the same scenario but your friend is new to shooting and after shooting at the target forgets they are holding the gun and turns around to tell you about how good they shot not realizing they just pointed a live gun right at you.  No matter what situation you are in, from a practical standpoint, a gun pointed at you is more dangerous than a gun pointed away from you (regardless of intent).

To deal with the second situation I might put my hand on the back of my friend’s shoulder if they start to turn towards me and be ready to gently but firmly keep them from turning towards me.  I am especially ready for this scenario if I know my friend is new to shooting and does not yet have a good command of safety protocols.  In fact, I’d typically explain and have my friend practice the proper safety protocols even before going to the shooting range.  If I was not familiar with those safety protocols myself, I would ask the range staff to run through them with my friend and I before we started shooting.

WEAPON DEFENSE #2: FINISH THE FIGHT (GOAL 2)

To help visualize the second goal, imagine we are defending ourselves against an attacker armed with a knife.  We manage to pin the arm that’s holding the knife against their body.  After pinning the arm, what should we do, disarm them or keep fighting?  Sounds straightforward, right.  Besides, why would we keep fighting them?  Let’s take a closer look.

In the first scenario, we work to disarm the knife, but we’re so focused on the knife we don’t see what’s on the floor.  We trip and fall!  We quickly realize we fell on the knife.  Now, even if we quickly overcome the attacker, we have an additional problem.  We are on a clock because we are bleeding and need to get to a hospital before we lose too much blood.  In the real-world, tripping is possible.  Even if we are an expert at knife disarms, things don’t always go as we’ve trained for them to.

Now let’s look at the next scenario.  After pinning the weapon arm, instead of trying to disarm the knife we keep fighting and drive them back and against a nearby wall.  While they are focused on their knife, we see their head is exposed to the wall.  To quickly overcome the attacker, we keep their arm pinned and use the other to slam their head against the wall, knocking them unconscious.

In the first scenario, we thought the knife was the only weapon in the fight.  In the second scenario, we realized our body was a weapon.  The attacker was distracted trying to free their knife.  We saw an opportunity to end the fight, the wall.  We survived without needing to disarm the attacker.  Disarming is a good goal; we just don’t want to get so focused on it that we miss other opportunities to stop the fight.

WEAPON DEFENSE #3: SITUATIONAL AWARENESS

What’s the best possible scenario?  That’s right!  The best option by far is to avoid being in a situation where we might get attacked.  Being aware of what’s going on around us – or situational awareness –  is a big part of that.

How can we do this?  This is where we pull an idea from the security world.  Instead of being a soft target, we want to become a hard target.  We can become a hard target and lower an attacker’s desire to attack by removing opportunity.  We do this by:

• appearing confident
• fitting in (e.g., if we stand out because we look flashy or fancy that can attract unwanted attention)
• avoid isolating situations
• steering clear of emotionally charged groups, especially when substance use is likely
• being patient establishing new friendships or getting to know people

Keep in mind that these can be even more of a problem if stacked up.  For example, standing out to attract attention at a house party where you want to make friends, but don’t yet know anyone.  There may be an attendee at that party who does not have good intentions.  Keep in mind that an attacker assumes they can overcome their victim before they decide to attack.  If they do not, they may bring a weapon to help them overcome.

In real-life, fights never go exactly as trained, especially when weapons are involved.  Part of good training is being ready for surprises, mistakes, and taking damage.  When it comes to damage, we want to prevent damage that makes defending ourselves harder.  For example, in a knife fight we want to assume we will be cut.  This is a realistic mindset that keeps us from going into shock when we get cut during the fight and instead, we are able to survive the fight and then seek medical help.  We discuss this more in the “Weapon Defense: Knife, Stick, or Bat” post.

WEAPON DEFENSE #4: WHEN TO ACT?

The first and most important note here is that if an attacker wants something material (like our wallet or car) and we believe they will leave after we give it to them, then it is not worth the risk that comes with defending ourselves.  It may be preferable to comply.  We can inform police afterward and get another wallet, car, or more cash.  Once we are dead, we’re dead.  Even if we successfully defend ourselves but are shot or cut badly on our arm or leg, that will have lifelong implications for us even after recovery.

Knowing when to act versus comply is not always simple and straightforward.

For example, if:

• we are outside of our house rather than inside our house when attacked
• our intuition tells us the attacker’s intentions may be different than what they say (e.g., they say they want our wallet, but our intuition tells us something more sinister is coming)
• family or loved ones are present with us so we have to consider their safety as well as ours
• we have seen the attacker be violent already (even if they haven’t shot anyone yet)

Additionally, when considering emergency prep, there may be times in extreme cases when giving up our material items (like food or water, if there is limited or no available supply) can jeopardize our safety and security and be a threat to our life. In these situations, we may have to factor this in as well.

WRAPPING UP: WEAPONS DEFENSE

Back to our story, after the man forced his way into the woman’s house with a gun, things turned worse.  The man raped the woman before fleeing the house.  Police arrested him shortly after this situation.

The police learned this man, a month earlier, forced his way into another woman’s house at gunpoint while she made breakfast for her two kids.  The attacker told the woman to get on the floor.  She screamed for her children to run, and they did.   After she screamed the attacker hugged her, and said “Ma’am I’m so sorry, I got the wrong person” and left the home.

Again, situations like this are not uncommon.  A group broke into my mother’s home during the day using the doggie door in the back of the house.  My mother is a nurse who drives between patient homes all day for visits and stops by her house periodically to eat lunch or work on paperwork.  Fortunately, she was not at home when this happened.  Others may not be so fortunate.

I highly recommend Krav Maga (Israeli Martial Arts) training as it is the most real-world training system that is also widely available and includes defense against weapon attacks.  In fact, I would make sure the instructor teaches weapons defense at the beginning of the program.

Check out the other posts in this blog series:

• Fundamental defense prep ideas (post 1),
• Defense against weapons (post 2),
  • Gun threat or active shooter (post 3)
  • Knife (post 4)
  • Rope or cord used to choke (post 5)
• Using a defense weapon to survive (coming soon).

If you’re looking for more, check out the emergency prep strategy blog series (with a closer look at day-to-day prep, and coming soon: cyber prep, shelter-in-place prep, and evacuation prep).