Pete - great work and raises a ton of questions about the validity of how we train for quick, violent, almost instant encounters in which the first indicator that the officer is in a knife fight, might be that they are already cut. It reminds me of how we were taught and subsequently practiced firing a weapon one handed with my off hand. My instructor mentor taught me to start every one of those sequences with the weapon on the ground in front of me. He said, "People get hit in the hand, not because people focus on and shoot at the hands. But because when you are in a gunfight, your weapon (and hands) are between you and the target (hopefully) so they sometimes get hit when the bullets are flying toward you. And, Damian, where do you think your weapon is likely to end up if a bullet tears through your hand? That's right, on the ground." So for the last 20 years, every time I start a one handed/off handed drill, I start it with the pistol on the ground in front of me and then complete the sequence of the drill to include follow-through and scanning rather than just swapping hands with my pistol.
There is a great book research in the 1990's and published in 2001 called, "The Logic of Steel" by James LaFond (link below). He researched and did interviews related to over 250 blade encounters covering events related to everything from street crime to prison attacks. It is eye opening as some of the statistics he published were related to "brandished blades" vs. "concealed blades". It has been a couple of decades since I read it but I remember the percentage of knife attacks after a blade is shown or brandished is very low compared to the number where the blades were concealed up to the point of the attack. I feel that 21ft rule is much more related to the latter than the former and it underscores and relates to your points of having way less time to draw and fire a weapon than it takes to do so.
Pete - great work and raises a ton of questions about the validity of how we train for quick, violent, almost instant encounters in which the first indicator that the officer is in a knife fight, might be that they are already cut. It reminds me of how we were taught and subsequently practiced firing a weapon one handed with my off hand. My instructor mentor taught me to start every one of those sequences with the weapon on the ground in front of me. He said, "People get hit in the hand, not because people focus on and shoot at the hands. But because when you are in a gunfight, your weapon (and hands) are between you and the target (hopefully) so they sometimes get hit when the bullets are flying toward you. And, Damian, where do you think your weapon is likely to end up if a bullet tears through your hand? That's right, on the ground." So for the last 20 years, every time I start a one handed/off handed drill, I start it with the pistol on the ground in front of me and then complete the sequence of the drill to include follow-through and scanning rather than just swapping hands with my pistol.
There is a great book research in the 1990's and published in 2001 called, "The Logic of Steel" by James LaFond (link below). He researched and did interviews related to over 250 blade encounters covering events related to everything from street crime to prison attacks. It is eye opening as some of the statistics he published were related to "brandished blades" vs. "concealed blades". It has been a couple of decades since I read it but I remember the percentage of knife attacks after a blade is shown or brandished is very low compared to the number where the blades were concealed up to the point of the attack. I feel that 21ft rule is much more related to the latter than the former and it underscores and relates to your points of having way less time to draw and fire a weapon than it takes to do so.
Great work! Keep it up!
Debo sends.
https://www.jameslafond.com/book/logic_of_steel#faq
Great article