Alright I had a number of students a couple of weeks back ask about gun disarms? Are they realistic? Can they really be pulled off? The funny thing is they asked could I do it? All I could honestly say was, "I don't know its' never happened to me so I guess I'll have to find out?" The truth of the matter is I have faith the majority of martial arts out there do teach gun disarms, however if they are as realistic as some of the knife disarms I've seen, I would say live a quiet life and have some bodyguards? Anyway enough about you what do you guys think?


Peace Out


Chief

I'd say you're right about the quality of gun disarms. An armed man will always have big advantage over an unarmed one, and disarming an armed attacker is always tremendously risky.

Like you've always stressed to me about knife disarms, they work best against the village idiot.

Disarms should be included in the school's curricula, but with that caveat.

Your question brings up one of my pet peeves - namely, those radical anti-gun types who always say to me, "Hey Sean, you know kerotty, so what do you need a gun for?"

I wish I had a buck for everytime I've heard that while debating with these people over gun control. Apparently, these clueless types think THE MATRIX was a documentary and knowing martial arts enables you to dodge bullets, then turn around, jump in the air, spin around 360-degrees and knock out a trained, experienced fighter with a single kick.

Well, I will say handguns are easier to take away than knives. Yes I have experience on both accounts.

Hopefully were talking about CQB Close Quarter Combat and not like say 20 feet away!!!!!!

First off you don't necessarily have to take the pistol away from the attacker to neutralize the threat against you. There are tricks of the trade such as pushing on the barrel of a 45 semi-auto which will cause it not to fire, grabbing the cylinder of a revolver and blocking the hammer spur of a pistol from falling.

Remember the projectile only comes out one way and that hole is pretty small so your chance of controlling the weapon and staying out of harms way is much greater than with a knife. Plus it is actually easy to use the pistol against the attackers own hand causing great pain when making a disarm. (Yes it hurts like HELL!!!)

Now a knife can cut many ways and it doesn't just cut in one direction and it also has more surface to hurt you with. Take the barrel hole of a pistol, 1/4 inch or so but a knife blade is probably 3 to 5 inches long. Now it is very difficult to use the knife against the person’s own hand to disarm so you need to control the hand/wrist unless you want to grab the blade because there's not much else to grab on a knife.

I say most Martial Arts gun-disarms are as lame as their knife-disarms so if you want to learn gun-disarms then go to a CQB pistol expert. Massod Ayoob has one of the best courses in the world for this.

Sincerely,
Eddie Ivester

Hi everyone. I have some experience with weapon defenses, so maybe I can offer my opinion on it.

Everyone had some good points, but what Eddie said:

First off you don't necessarily have to take the pistol away from the attacker to neutralize the threat against you.

This is true, however I don’t agree with the next sentence:

There are tricks of the trade such as pushing on the barrel of a 45 semi-auto which will cause it not to fire, grabbing the cylinder of a revolver and blocking the hammer spur of a pistol from falling.

I’ve heard of these techniques and, to be honest, they are not very realistic. I’ve heard of the pushing on the barrel of a certain type of gun before the person fires but think about that…that requires perfect timing, which isn’t always possible in a confrontation. With the barrel still pointed at you, you risk losing your hand at the least, and your life at the most.

The grabbing of the cylinder on a revolver is more likely, but again it requires that you be extremely accurate and clamp down on the cylinder before the guy can get a shot off.

The defense of placing the webbing between the thumb and forefinger, or whatever else, in front of the hammer, to keep it from firing is also highly unlikely. Again you need perfect accuracy and timing, and once again this is something that can be difficult to do. Franly I'd call this defense nearly impossible in a real altercation, unless the guy who's holding you up is blind. What if you’re in a darkened area? Obviously many people would say that attempting the above defenses would really be of no use and to do something else.

Well, first off, why separate your defenses? If someone has this type of gun, you do this, etc. All handguns can be dealt with the same way, given you’re in range. If not you have to do something else. Bring your hands up in a submissive action just enough, and when the timing is right, deflect the gun and hit the guy. Arm wrap the weapon arm if you can, but the main goal is to smash this guy in the head, throat, etc. while keeping sure the weapon isn’t pointed at you.


Remember the projectile only comes out one way and that hole is pretty small so your chance of controlling the weapon and staying out of harms way is much greater than with a knife. Plus it is actually easy to use the pistol against the attackers own hand causing great pain when making a disarm. (Yes it hurts like HELL!!!)

I agree with this statement, except for the part about using the fingerguard against the person’s finger, locking then breaking it. I’m pretty sure that’s what Eddie is talking about. Well this can work, but I’ve always been taught to view things from a “worst case” perspective, so assuming the guy will fight back as hard as he can, and will use his other hand to keep his weapon, and/or attack you with it. So instead of trying a finger break just deflect the weapon so you’re not in the line of fire, and attack the attacker, hitting, finger jabbing to the eyes, etc. This will help to ensure he isn’t fully capable of using any other bodily weapons against you once you’ve neutralized the firearm.


Now a knife can cut many ways and it doesn't just cut in one direction and it also has more surface to hurt you with. Take the barrel hole of a pistol, 1/4 inch or so but a knife blade is probably 3 to 5 inches long. Now it is very difficult to use the knife against the person’s own hand to disarm so you need to control the hand/wrist unless you want to grab the blade because there's not much else to grab on a knife.


Again, part of this statement I agree with, but again with an edged weapon, you again want to assume that the guy will fight back as hard as he can to keep his weapon, or use his other limbs to attack you. Therefore it can be bad to concentrate only on the weapon arm. It’s even more dangerous to just grab the knife arm, and grabbing the blade I don’t really agree with. First off being able to grab a knife or the knife arm can be very risky, not to mention very hard to do, however I've heard stories of people doing it, so I don't fully discount that, but thinking worst case... The speed at which an attack happens, depending on how much reaction time you have (and how skilled your attacker is), you may not be able to grab on to anything. Then when you try and grab the knife arm what if you miss and you’re fatally stabbed? The more you reach out to grab the attacking limb the more you open up your vitals in which an attacker and go around your outstretched limbs and possibly deliver a lethal attack.

What I’ve been taught is to keep compact; crouch and limit the size of the target area. This also shrinks the amount of area you must protect. Keep your arms in close to your body, hands by your throat. Your forearm bones, ribs, sternum, and hand bones will keep a blade from your body, should you take a stab or slash. From this position you can parry the knife arm with your forearms still vertical..don’t reach out as you might in a karate-type block. This only opens you up (given you have the time and can clearly see the angle of attack). Remember you have bones in which can keep a blade out of you. Worst case, if you took a stab in the forearm or slash, you could still launch a viscous attack and hopefully take the guy out then and there.

The best thing to do is to attack the attacker. Go after him/her while “shielding” your vitals and make him worry about his own safety. One more thing. Yes there are arteries in the forearms, which can be severed if stabbed deep enough, but first off, there is that chance that the blade is deflected by your elbow, or even misses the arteries by a hair. But let’s say you were stabbed in the arteries. Then do what I said and attack the attacker and take him out now. You skill have about a minute to maybe even a few minutes before you lose too much blood pressure and pass out. It’s different for each individual and how you were cut. I read of a story of a guy who was stabbed in the femoral artery and was bleeding heavily but didn’t get professional medical care for about an hour and a half and still lived.

So if you do get stabbed in an artery, use a tourniquet and get to a hospital ASAP. Obviously this isn’t the ‘natural’ thing to do but on a tactical/ survival level I believe it’s one of the smartest (other than just avoiding trouble altogether but what if you have no choice). Either have a better chance of keeping the blade out of your body by sacrificing your limbs, or reach out and risk missing the grab or parry, and get your throat sliced.