Tag Archives: force necessary gun

IF YOU PULL? YOU MUST SHOOT! OTHERWISE, NO PULL!

June 19, 2024 Hock

Every once in a while, in my years in police work ranging back to the early 1970s, we would get a new shift supervisor like a sergeant or lieutenant, that would open his early shift briefings with some new preference standards. Often this would be a desk jockey or what we use to call a “REMF,” in the Army. Which stands for “rear-echelon-m________, f_________.” These were folks with little to no street experience, by their choice, or folks forced upwards too soon, to fill admin openings. Still a lack of experience.

And yes, some of these people were detached airheads. Several demanded that we never, ever pull-draw guns unless we absolutely have to shoot a bad guy, All other times, the gun must remain holstered. Only draw and must shoot. Must draw? Then must shoot! We would look at each other and think, and later complain in private powwows:

“Has this idiot ever searched a building or home after an alarm or invader threat?”
“Has this knucklehead never made a felony traffic stop?”
“Has this yahoo never…… (on and on with this list).”

Apparently not! How could some supervisors in law enforcement be this ignorant. But this idea transcends policing. I bring these memories up because, lately in my teaching travels, sometimes big, sometimes small, I have run across citizens who have been smart enough to attend concealed carry classes or other entry-level, defensive tactics courses. They attend my “Force Necessary: Gun” courses also. When teaching this and organizing class training to make decisions, a number of attendees are graduates of simplistic, entry-level, CCH and intro “def-tacts” from other programs. Some of these attendees have approached me and said –

“Well, they told us in _______ that we only draw our pistol in severest, deadly force situations and can only draw to shoot to kill-stop. You can’t pull your gun unless you also intend to shoot to kill-stop.”

Ooooh boy. That old chestnut again. I just look at them, flabbergasted, and wonder “who are these teachers?” And how can I undo this kindergarten, mentality message. I try to explain that I use a commandment list of “Assess, Draw-and-Assess,” decision-making based on many actual events.

Assess, Draw and Access, the big five decisions:

1: There-Not There.

2: Pull-Don’t Pull.

3: Aim-Don’t Aim.

4: Shoot-Don’t Shoot.

5: Leave-Don’t leave.

These decisions may all occur in 2 seconds or half an hour! Yeah. Situational. I am not writing this today to dissect the list of 5 materials, as I have written long essays on each, elsewhere. Each of the 5 have a successful history in situational, real-world defense, crime and even war.

I always repeat the old studies once so easily found in DOJ – Department of Justice – annual reports about firearms use. Each year there was a statistic that about 69% of the time when a gun (or knife, not stick) was drawn by the intended victim, the criminal left. Sure, each situation was ugly and scary (I report some actual situations to attendees) but this was an average end result over the years. Sometime in the 2000s this routine annual stat became really hard and then impossible to find, because it does not suit the political powers that be. This cause was then picked up by various pro-gun groups and their publications. They regularly report successful citizen, gun, crime-fighting events, but they are declared as right-wing bias and they do not carry the mojo of a government report.

Yet, these successful events happen frequently, and you are deprived of the truth. When things go unusually “bump in your house, bump in the church, bump in the school, bump in the stores-malls, bump in the wherever” you may be in a position to pull your gun and assess. Remember the best quick draw is pulling your gun out just before you really needed it. (We’ve dissected “brandishing” in detail another essay here.)

Gun instructors. Here in the United States, while I and others consider the rising plethora of non-police experienced and non-military-experienced gun instructors, their presence is still a good thing in general. Hey, it’s become a cottage industry hasn’t it? Citizens teaching gun courses and school and church-shooting courses, etc.. I still think It’s a good thing overall because we’ve noticed they’ve-we’ve achieved a overall higher level of good material. The bar has risen. Overall? Good. But for some of us, sometimes, we can’t help but wonder about some of them and ask,

“Okay, who is teaching what in these courses regularly?” and,
“That guy said…what now?”

If questionable recollections, are these students misinterpreting what the instructor actually meant or said?” That’s certainly possible. But, police, military, citizen instructors and their courses all need to vetted by customers, sure. And, needless to say within those jobs, there is job leakage that won’t fit. For examples-

Do police really need military-based shooting courses?
Do the military really need police shooting courses?
Do citizens really need police and-or military shooting courses?

To some extent? Well, yes. To some extent? Well, no. Careful! Reduce the abstract. Its my old “who, what, where, when, how and why questions.”

It might be so quick, so easy and so legally course-sue-safe, especially for the class and instructor, to declare in a very brief citizen gun course that you can ONLY draw and shoot. Mandatory! But then, you can’t just draw and assess? Scare off? Issue verbal commands? Hide and ambush? Etc. Customize survival thinking to the plethora of situations?

Quick legal message, “point-don’t point” also means “aim-don’t aim” and are legal evaluations in court and internal affairs police investigations. For a reason!

I try to explain, but what really sinks in best is classes replicating and making them do repetitions with simulated ammo. Working through actual situations where each of the 5 decision steps above have historically worked and why they are so important. From a legal standpoint, these options must be explained and must be taught. Sometimes you CAN and SHOULD draw WITHOUT shooting.

Check out the Training Mission Books, which cover gun combatives. Click right here.

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“Protecting the Belt,” Gun Retention Observations

January 9, 2020 Hock

I would like to tell 5 quick, pistol/holster retention stories

Retention story #1:
Several years ago I taught at a major US city police academy, an in-service combatives course. Running there also was the rookie class. There was a woman in this rookie class that was consistently having her pistol taken during defensive tactics classes. Instructors told me she’d purchased a high level (many tricks to draw) retention holster. There were so many twists and turns, pushes and pulls, that she herself could not draw her own gun. Their final qualifications were coming up and she absolutely refused to give up her new safer holster, even though she literally could not pull the gun out on demand! I left before there was a conclusion. My best guess though, is she changed holsters.

****

Retention story #2
I was teaching a Chicago seminar once that was attended by a large group of area police officers. One of the scenarios I taught was drawing and shooting after your strong-side/gun-side arm had been incapacitated as in injured or shot. You cross-draw, pull your gun with your support hand, taking care not to accidentally insert your pinky into the trigger guard, a common discharge problem from this angle. You either shoot the pistol upside down (can you do this with your pistol?) or use a knee pinch to get the gun right-side-up. We do this standing and on the ground with simulated ammo as the practitioner actually has to shoot a moving, thinking person closing in and/or shooting back. Next came a short break and I saw all the officers over in one corner of the gym, their support arm stretching and reaching unsuccessfully around their backs to pull their pistol. Only the skinniest, most limber, police woman could do it. I asked them what they were doing, and they told me that their guns and holsters were department issue. The holster retention device would not allow for such a frontal, angle removal. That holster company feared that gun takeaways would usually occur from the front. In order to pull the pistol from that model holster, a shooter had to grab the gun pull/angle it back, and then out. This holster prohibited the easy, common sense draw I, and so many others, teach. (And, what about drawing while seated in a car?)

****

Retention story #3
In the 1990s I was teaching an Air Force SWAT-style team and the San Antonio SWAT team. I was, once again doing simulated ammo scenarios and was doing one on the ground, on my back. I asked for a gun belt and an SAPD officer quickly gave me his. On my back, when time to draw and shoot, I could not remove the pistol from the holster. We all gathered around closely to inspect this. The SWAT officer’s holster had several retention tricks built in. His holster, that company, had also decided that most pistols were removed from the front, requiring a pull backward first, then out. Since I was flat on my back, I could not pull the gun back. No one, all seasoned vets, in the class had thought of this, least of all this SWAT officer until this experiment. One would think that a holster company would put such news on the packaging label and advertisement.

“WARNING! You cannot draw this weapon when down on your back!”

We learned that to draw from such a 3 o’clock, hip holster, you had to roll half-over, or lift your body into a half a crab-walk position.

****

Retention story #4
“Back in the day,” as a detective, I was working with a fellow investigator on a case when we heard of a very nearby armed robbery on the police radio. We were so close, we actually saw the suspect run from the store. We drove as far as we could to chase him, then had to bail from the car and go on foot. A few fences were jumped and the robber got into a cement factory with a large, open gravel lot, and big trucks. We’d split up, but we both saw the robber stop by a truck as we could see his legs under the truck. We split further apart, circled the truck and drew our guns as we closed in. My partner pulled his .45 out on the run. He pulled the pistol AND paddle holster out and pointed it at the bad guy. He made a violent jerk and the holster flew off the pistol. The robber, facing our two guns, surrendered. We laughed about it later because we were a little crazy back then, but we also learned a lesson about holsters.

****

Retention story #5 The Sandpit Travesty. One of my officer friends once, lost his pistol and was shot and killed by a fugitive. Without revealing any personal details, this SWAT officer had a retention duty holster on regular duty, but when on a SWAT assignment had a “drop” holster as shown previously, a low, thigh, tactical holster, minus any retention. His pistol was taken in a ground fight and he was shot in the head. Since sad events like this, retention devices started appearing on the most “tactical” of holsters, (even Taser holsters,)
His agency went on a PR, press junket to prove how much they cared about the subject, suggesting that holster retention was so well trained. They filmed a news segment for TV with their officers training in a sandpit. A trainer grabbed a trainee’s holstered pistol and tried to remove it. The trainee held on and basically the two engages in a stupid, standing wrestling match – four hands on a holstered rubber gun. Sometimes falling down in the ruckess.
Perhaps to an ignorant novice, this seemed like terrific, tough-guy, training? But it is not. No one threw a punch, kicked a nut, yanked head hair, popped an eye, or broke a bone. A bad guy wanting to kill you will do all these things. An officer, wanting to stay alive will do all these things. All the things that can not happen full speed in training, but can be partially simulated, yet still are totally ignored. And like you learn to forget to punch in Judo, bad training makes you forget how to survival fight. This is not preparing an officer, or any one toting a gun, to respond properly to a disarm attack.
And that is why, this sort of sandpit style training is a stupid travesty. And it doesn’t have to be in a sandpit either, as you’ll find stupid anywhere.

Words of wisdom – Military vet and weapons instructor Mike Woods sums up by saying, “Buyer Beware. So, if you’re shopping for a holster – as an individual or as an agency buyer – you need to go beyond the ratings and advertising hype by fully understanding how the various security features work. You also need to ask hard questions about the specific tests and criteria that a manufacturer uses to rate their products. Until the industry unites around a single standard, it’s not enough to assume that Brand X’s Level III rating denotes a comparable level of security, durability and quality as Brand Y’s Level III rating. Your choice of duty gear is too critical — and your safety too important – to be influenced by clever marketing. Ask tough questions, get the details, and make sure you’re comparing apples-to-apples.”

Protecting the belt! There are many such stories. Keep your eyes and ears open for them. And, keep experimenting. Just think about handgun/holster retention. In 26 years in line operations, I have had only 5 attempts on my holstered pistol. There are many attempts on record all over the world. It happens. Statistically your odds on an attempt may be like one in 40,000? But if it happens to you? It’s one in one.

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Hock’s email is HockHochheim@ForceNecessary.com

Click here and check out this popular pistol retention video

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The Car as a Coffin

January 5, 2017 Hock

Back in the 1970s, the 80s and even the 90s, this phrase “the car as a coffin” was a warning, a cop-training-phrase, a “word to the wise” about being stuck in the car and being killed while stuck by an outside shooter. The advice was to…

“Get out of the car! Because the car is a coffin.”

When things got hot and you predicted bullets could/would fly, or while bullets were indeed flying, you have to try and get out of the car. Get out of the car because the car is an enclosed coffin. So, we got out if we could, because you know, sometimes you can’t! We got out the driver’s side, or we planned on traversing across the front seat to escape, low and crawling, to get out the passenger side if need be. OR, I have had friends successfully dive under the dashboard while under fire.

But alas, that was the good ol’ days of big cars. Who can dive for cover under a dashboard in today’s cars or worse, today’s patrol cars? They have some small patrol cars today, and some big police SUVs too. But, have you seen the front seat of a police car lately? It resembles a miniature version of the bridge of the Star Trek Enterprise. Computer systems, like a Robby the Robot, if you will, sits in the middle of the front seat. You CANNOT traverse the front seat anymore! And in civilian cars, the popularity of the console traps you in the driver’s seat more than ever.

I followed this golden rule, but even when you believe in it, you can still get caught there in an instant. Like I did this one disturbing Saturday, summer night in 1980.

“Sixty-one,” the dispatcher said.
“Go ahead,” my reserve police partner Joe Reilly said.
“Domestic. Brothers fighting in back yard. The Starnes brothers. Mother called it in. 15 Jasper Street.”
“Ten-four.”
“Ask if the two brothers are wanted,” I told Reilly.
“Dispatcher, check wants and warrants on the brothers.”
“In progress. They’re clear.”
“Ten four.”

Damn. The Starnes brothers. Bout half-crazy, trouble makers. Almost twins, born so close and virtually look-alikes. In just about the same kinds of twin trouble. Drugs. Fighting. Burglaries. It wasn’t too late yet in the evening. About 8 p.m. Too early for the real trouble these neighborhoods brewed. We drove through the busy streets on the warm night. We didn’t need to look 615 Jasper up on the map. We’d been there before.

When we pulled up, Reilly and I got out and heard the loud argument in the backyard, behind the long, old white house. We walked up the driveway beside the house, passed through the metal, chain-link gate and into the yard.

The mom was there in a house dress, arms folded. A neighbor we knew by sight, a very big dude was calmly standing by and when he needed to, pushing the brothers apart. The bothers were neck vein, popping mad over something.

“Hey!” I said loudly. “What’s going on?”
The mother spoke up and relayed the problem which frankly, I don’t recall to report here. We all talked it over for a moment, and I appreciated the presence of the neighbor. But, upon our very arrival, the brothers wanted to disappear. Afraid of being arrested again? Something else? I don’t know. It seemed like our very appearance ended the fight.

Brother Buddy Starnes was shirtless and wearing very tight, light-colored jeans. This is important later.
Just about the time I was officially wrapping up the conversation, Buddy left prematurely. Looking back now, it was obvious he had something to hide or be worried about. He turned and walked away well before I finished, and I, casually, walked after him down the driveway. Reilly lagged back just a few seconds more to finish up with the mom.

I felt Buddy’s exit was a little too soon, but I really didn’t know what to do about it. He led the way down the driveway to the street, and I looked him over from behind. There weren’t any clothing prints of weapons that I could see in those tight pants.

“Buddy, next time, don’t leave until we’re through,” I said.
I wasn’t trying to be bossy, or a prick, but I wanted to say something to…to see what he would say or do.

He looked over his shoulder at me and gave me a real dirty look. Which, you know, “sticks and stones,” and a look never hurt me. But he strutted off onto the street heading in the way of a crowd of folks up the next avenue.
I walked around the front of the patrol car, opened the door and sat in behind the wheel. The very instant my butt hit the seat? I caught motion in the corner of my left eye.

Buddy was strutting back to me, his right hand borrowing into his tight right pocket.
Shit. I instinctively, instantly pulled my revolver. The window was already down, and I laid the 4 inch barrel of my magnum on the top of the door. Barrel right at him. It’s big and he saw it.

“WHAT you pulling?” I growled.
He yanked his empty hand out of his pocket and stood there. Expressionless. Looking at the hole in the barrel of my gun.
Now, I tell you I stared hard at the pocket. It was flat, flat, flat and his jeans were very tight. I made a snap decision that he could not have anything at all in that pocket, or any pocket for that matter.
“Get the fuck outta here,” I told him in a very quiet, sinister way.
Expressionless, he waited in a stare down with me and the gun, then turned and walked away in his original direction. I did not holster my Python. I just watched him walk off.
Reilly slipped into the passenger side, sat and was shocked at my position. Gun out, barrel on the door.

“Wha…?”
“I don’t know,” I told him. “He turned back on me, and it looked like he was pulling something from his pocket.”
“Okay!”
“But I can’t imagine he had anything in that pocket. Those pants are skin tight.”
I put my gun away, started the car and drove off. Not even a half a minute later…

“Sixty-one, are you still on Jasper street?” the dispatcher asked.
“Just a block away,” Reilly answered.
“Man shot on porch. 12 Jasper. Ambulance in route.”

What? I whipped the car around and blasted over to 10 Jasper. We slid up in front, ran up the to the porch where an older woman was tending to man lying on the porch. He was down and shot in the chest. I propped him up just a bit. We told her to get us a towel, and Reilly made for the trunk for our first aid kit. We plugged the hole. Applied pressure.

The old man could talk. He said he was sitting on his porch when “that boy” without a shirt in tan pants walked by, out in the street, looked at him and then shot him.
“Was that Buddy Starnes?” I asked while the ambulance sirens closed in on us.

“It coulda been, but I don’t sees real well. Real far. At night.”
The bullet hole didn’t look very big on his chest, but a chest wound is a chest wound. The EMTs got there and took over. Reilly and I jumped back in our car and I checked in with the dispatcher. I put Buddy Starnes out on the air as the shooting suspect.

We and other units scoured the streets for Buddy. Reilly and I made every nightclub in the district. Asked everyone on the street. For hours. Nothing. And boy-howdy, I knew I screwed up. I made a snap decision to let that little piece of shit walk off. He did have a thin gun after all, must have, probably a small, semi-auto in that pocket. That bullet was meant for me. But since he couldn’t shoot me, he, frustrated, walked off a few houses away and shot that old man. I should have stepped out, and patted him down. But, I let a visual-search-only, trick my judgement.

I met with the detective on call that night, and I told him what had happened. He also hunted Starnes with us in his own car. I can’t remember which detective it was. He asked Reilly and I to write supplements to the shooting crime report when we got back to HQ.
CID worked up a case on Starnes. The old man lived. It was a .32 caliber bullet that didn’t do much damage at all. Within a day or two, the detectives found Buddy, but they never found the gun. He confessed to shooting the old man because he said he’d always had trouble with him as he was growing up. A cranky old neighbor motive?

But deep down, I knew what happened. I first ticked Buddy off. He wanted to shoot me in the car but I got the drop on him. And since I let him walk off, he shot that old man instead.
Months and a few years later, I would stop and talk to this old man a time or two, when I saw him on the porch in that same chair.

Even years later as a detective. He frequently reminded me that he and Buddy had problems since Buddy was a kid, and that is why he was shot, but I still feel like I was a precursor to his shooting. I know I was. What…what do you say to this guy, to make any kind of amends? The old man died in the 90s. I still think about it sometimes. A missed chance. A missed chance!

“The car as a coffin.” My good, trusty friend and working Texas cop, Jeff “Rawhide” Laun, told me that even now, 40 years later, they still use that phrase in police work and training. Even though they are now more captured today on the driver’s side of their cars with the techno systems in the middle of the front seat. No crawling across the front seat to escape! No dropping out the passenger door! No diving under the dash! You are stuck. The coffin shrinks.
But, this was as close as I got to being stuck in a car and shot. My friends have been shot at while inside cars and those are other stories. But, no matter how well I understood, and how much I believed and worried about that classic training line – “the car is a coffin” – in a single instant, I still got stuck in there.

I am alive today because several times over the years I got my gun out first and fast. I am not some kind of a quick draw artist, not at all. I am…just quick-to-draw. My gun just “appeared” when I needed it. Practice, I guess? If you have to shoot through the glass of your car? Shoot. Don’t worry about the finer points of trajectory and how the bullets will go slightly up or down due to the angle of the car glass. You don’t have time to run the math. Just shoot. Make a hole and shoot through that hole!

Email Hock at HockHochheim@ForceNecessary.com

This story appears in my truce crime books. Get them click here

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The Drop Dead Gun

May 3, 2016 Hock

“If I die in combat zone. Box me up and ship me home.”

You’ve all heard that ditty? Or, maybe you haven’t? It comes for most who have had it as a cadence – a song – we all sang while marching and running in the military. It has been bastardized, or satired and altered for various messaging. One paraphrased version we don’t see much anymore, but old-timers will remember, was popularized on some t-shirts and posters years back. It was about you dying in a combat zone and having your gear split up by survivors, the words accompanied by the artwork of a rip-shirt, commando. This splitting-up is a very good idea for several reasons, but I don’t think the commandment reaches deep enough in citizen and police training methodology.

“If I die in a combat zone? Get my ammo, guns and gear and…continue to kill the enemy.”

It is common advice in shoot-outs that drawing and using a second gun is faster than reloading your first one. This of course depends on where you are carrying that second gun, but the advice is classic and comes from veterans. Did you arrive at this scene with a second gun? Can you find a second gun at the scene? More ammo? Was there a “second” gun, loose and back on the ground that you just ran right by?

There are numerous, vitally important, physical, gun-survival things you cannot and will not learn or get to do, should you decide to forever shoot on a paper target range and consider that practice to be the end-all to gun-fighting.

This year, 2022 marks the 26th year that I have routinely, almost weekly, (barring Covid madness) created and supervised simulated ammo shooting scenarios of some sort. Some are short and involve two people. Some are much longer and involve numerous people, all are in numerous situations and locations. Urban. Suburban. Rural. Inside and outside. Daytime. Nighttime. People get shot by whatever simulated ammo we get to use for the training session. This reality can be very demoralizing. But, it happens.

In the briefing, I ask the participants, once “shot,” to evaluate their wounds when hit. If shot in their shooting limb, then they switch hands and carry on a bit. If shot in the leg, they limp on for a bit. If they take one or two serious shots, like shot in the head, I ask them to drop right where they are and essentially…“they be dead.” Playing this dead part, however demoralizing, is important, as you will soon read. Loose, or with lanyards and slings, you and your gun are laying there for all to seize.

Remember this is a very situational thing. How many guns and how much ammo did you bring? How long will this last? What to do about a “drop dead gun,” or the dropped gun – one dropped by a seriously wounded or dead person. Comrade or enemy? You can lecture on this, show charts, and talk it up. On the live-fire range, you can put various kinds of domestic or foreign guns in various conditions on a bench and suddenly make people pick them up, make-ready, load them, etc. and shoot them (which has been done forever by a few clever instructors by the way, but not enough, but done). The true savvy and timing of doing this pick up inside a hot, under-fire, hunter-hunted situation is hardly if ever practiced on the live-fire range. Too dangerous? A sims only endeavor?

Loser-Taker Disarming. Technically, disarming should end with concerns of “weapon recovery.” Weapon recovery is often ignored in training. Recovering disarmed or dropped weapons is a missing link in most hand, stick, knife and gun martial, art or otherwise, systems. On the subject of weapon disarming training, two folks play parts. One the gun-loser, one the gun-taker. Most ignore the fact that either one could be the good guy or the bad guy, and typically the good guy gets to disarm-take from the bad guy in most typical training. This one-sided, prioritizing hinders good-guy, weapon recovery skills, but…look around you, this is the usual format, isn’t it?.

What if you are the good guy loser? When your pistol has been disarmed from you, holstered or out, you MUST recover it, hopefully while the taker is fumbling around with it, to get it aimed back at you. In practice, gun-takers often just take the gun, flip it around, fiddle with it into position, etc. Still the good-guy-loser must get his weapon back from bad-guy-taker, and instantly. Rush him! Now! (It is also a great training idea to have the bad-guy-loser instantly rush the good-guy-taker for the good-guy-taker to realize he has to instantly grapple with this reality heat. Are you following me with the whose-who?)

(Some instructors demand that the taker should perform impossible checks, fixes and repairs in those few split-seconds right upon acquisition, not expecting a vicious counter attack, weapon recovery from the loser. And in the real world, was the taken gun a replica? Out of battery? Empty? These are issues for another distinct, subject-centric article just about these very things.)

But weapon recovery is a bigger issue that just good-guy, bad-guy, taker-loser disarming. There’s the rarely mentioned recovery of your downed comrade’s or enemy’s weapon, what this essay is actually about.

Aside from disarming, guns are dropped. I run only situational, simulated ammo gun courses, never teaching marksmanship. I once saw a range master, and trophy winner cop, standing before an armed training partner in a scenario. Both with gas guns. The draw! And the police instructor vet lost his pistol in the air, mid-draw. He had never drawn right in front of an armed man with a pain-delivering gun. Gas gun hit the floor. Just the first time. Next time, he adjusted.

We also see photos and hear about such fumbles in both normal and stressful times. We see them dropped in simulated ammo scenario training. We even see them dropped at live fire ranges. Long guns and pistols are dropped with some frequency in non-combat life, of which we have no stats on, but they get dropped from time to time. I can’t recall dropping mine in some 50 years, but I’ve seen my friends and co-workers drop theirs a time or two. And we certainly see them dropped on youtube. One example, we were doing a street shooting situation in Las Vegas. A very athletic, concealed carry guy ran from car to car and dropped his pistol. The metal gun hit the street in front of him and to make matters even worse, when it landed, he KICKED it! Kicked it right under a parked car…needless to say. He was killed.

Dropped When Shot. I can say with some experience that four common things happen when someone holding a firearm is shot. The shot person:

Drops the gun, or…
Convulsively fires the weapon, no aiming, or…
Aims and shoots back, or…
Gun does nothing. The gun remains unfired in their hands.

What about the dropped weapon of a shot, severely wounded or dead compatriot? Or enemy? A “drop dead gun,” just laying there.

As the organizer, over-seer of these scenarios, as the “ref” if you will, I see so many things in all of these shoot-outs. I see things people really do when in various predicaments. These occurrences, these experiences are quite remarkable and extremely educational. And one of the many things I consistently see is teammates, running past and around their deeply wounded, still or dead, yet still armed partners. Whatever kinds of weapons we are using, Airsoft, gas, markers, Simuntions, whatever – the training weapons we can get wherever I am – these guns run out of ammo, gas, power or break down at the damndest instances.

To aid in the failures, I so want to advise, “pick up THAT gun!” as they run by the fallen. Sometimes they have the time to do so. But, I do not want to bark orders or suggestions to interfere in the middle of the freestyle, firefight exercise. I’ve see many folks run right by other available guns and ammo. As an “invisible” ref, I wait until the after-action review to bring the subject up and next time? They still often forget to do it.

Once in a while I see a practitioner who instantly knows to snatch up his dead buddy’s gun. Either, it is something trained and remembered, or they are just that naturally gun-and-ammo-hungry to simply know this and do this instinctively. They swoop down and snatch up the weapon as they go by. This is an event that never happens in live fire range training, but rather could happen in real life, and should be bolstered in simulated ammo, scenario training whenever possible. I say oddly but, many video game players of complicated war games, obsess about collecting weapons and ammo as a mainstay, and are prone to thinking about picking up “leftover” weapons. I say oddly because they have readily absorbed a concept from a totally, abstract reality.

I might remind quickly here, that weapons are sometimes attached to people by lanyards and slings, something that can be very life-saving for the original holder, but also may flummox your partner’s attempt to get your weapons once you are down and out. Know your partner’s gear. Look them all over. Know your team or squad mates stuff. Which leads us to different issued gear topics.

Different gear? Different guns? Different ammo? In many organizations such as with the military or police, certain weapons are mandated for all in policy for good reason. If we all have the same guns, we all have the same ammo, magazines and we can pick up, exchange, provide, etc., weapons. It can make for good sense. I am not advocating for the “one-gun, one-ammo” policy, I am just reporting on it here. There is something to be said too for personalized guns and gear, too.

When military people move into policing jobs, they often and should carry-on with them these overall concepts. Well, I mean, if you were an Army “clerk,” you might not have take this to heart, but people trained for dangerous jobs and have experienced danger are better carriers of this idea.

So often, citizens minus these background, may not consider this at all, or not have the deep heartfelt, burn, understanding of the concepts of gear and the weapon recovery. Shooting instructors of all types may never even know to suggest this topic. You must realize that you might be missing huge chunks of important tactics, topics, subjects and situations. You might instead begin to dwell deeper and deeper into repetitive, endless “gun minutiae” within your teaching. Why are they stuck in this redundancy when there is so much more diverse combative situations with sims ammo to dissect and experiment with?

Such experiments are psychologically and neurologically proven better learning experiences. Many experts call it “deep learning” in “wicked” environments. In other words, simply put – get off the range and do these interactive, situational shoot-outs with simulated ammo.

Active Shooters Talk Yet Again. Martial arts instructors, ones who appear to have zero gun, police and military experience or at best very limited exposures, have organized some active shooter response classes. There should be something of a newer concern and movement in this “pick up” weapon subject, as more people should contemplate picking up the guns of shot police, downed security, etc. This pick-up-off-the-ground could be practiced with live fire too, with little imagination.

Remember that when you snatch up another’s gun? You might well not know how many rounds are left in it! Oh, and in certain crime and war circumstances, when citizens pick up the dead guy’s gun and the authorities arrive? Do I need to remind you? You could look like the bad guy at first. You could be shot. Phone in, act and surrender accordingly – well, the same rules as if you were armed in the first place should the authorities arrive.

Souvenirs Anyone? This discussion cannot be complete with the pick-up-weapon-souvenir concept. Usually after the battle? My father landed on the beach in WW II and made it all the way to Berlin in Patten’s army. He collected German Lugers and had a box of them mailed home. They never made it through the US Post Office. I recall in Vietnam era, folks trying to get AK-47s. Often though, in many wars, watch out! Such things are BOOBY TRAPPED!

Evidence! This a crime scene? Is the bad guy dead-dead. Control the scene for authorities or supervisors or crime scene people. Sometimes weapons are stolen by onlookers. Consider this and other problems before automatically, cavalierly picking up enemy guns (knives, etc.) Sometimes EMTs can really disorganize your organized crime scene, too.

In Some Kind of Summary. It has been my experience that if frequently suggested in a briefing and-or corrected in after-action reviews, many people may think of this when the action starts and the possibility arises. The more they do it in training? The better. Again the pick-up is very situational.

That gun may be dropped, but it ain’t dead.

“If I die in a combat zone? Get my ammo, guns and gear and…continue to kill the enemy.”

More on this from Sheriff Jim Wilson, click here

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Hock’s email is Hock@hockscqc.com

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The Parable of the Wooden Gun

April 4, 2016 Hock

The Parable of the Wooden Gun

Wooden, rubber band guns. Why do I use them? Let me count the ways…

At seminars, police or others, I have seen and organized a whole lot of “force-on-force” style work-outs these last 26 years and without exaggeration, all over the world. This “FOF” nickname became popular in the later 1990s. The majority of these FOFs were and still are done with “no-shoot,” classic rubber guns. I have always preferred to use guns that shoot something VERY safely so we can get many repetitions tallied and a whole lot of “external focus” experience in.

I am a true-blue believer in the motto that “YOU are not fully learning gun combatives unless you are shooting at moving, thinking people who are shooting back at you.” And of course with simulated ammo…you learn quickly, that it sucks. Never stop working on marksmanship, dubbed by experts like Force Science as “internal focus,” but never forget this “external,” sucky part.

I have decided to only teach the interactive, external part. And due to travel, locations, expenses, safety, logistics, etc, I mostly use wooden, semi-auto, rubber band guns that shoot pretty straight for about ten feet to experiment with. Remember, if you do use gas guns or official SIMUNITIONS? They can break eyes, skin, windows, mirrors, chip room paint, bust ceilings and blow out lights, ding and dent cars, etc., etc.

“I thought simulated ammo is supposed to hurt!” One military vet told me years ago. In certain training exercises yes, like room clearances and so forth. There is certainly a time and a place for painful ammo. But there is also a time and place for pain-free ammo. A whole lot of time and a lot of places. I use the wooden, rubber band guns…that shoot something.

In the 1990s I was laughed at in national training circles and ridiculed for using “toys.” In fact, even Airsoft (popular then in Japan) was considered toys back then. In my defense I never used toy-toys. I used these wooden, rubber band guns that fired multi-shots. There was little available and affordable to simulate any close, interactive shooting back then. By about 2000 or so cops worldwide were seeing my drills and buying a lot of these wooden guns from me for their repetition training. Of course, citizens too.

Easy. Safe. Quick. Great for lots of short, realistic vignette experimentation with lots of reps, anywhere. Anytime. (I even had life sized M-16s that shot very well at about 30 feet.)

OKAY! “No-Shoot” Rubber Guns, versus “Do-Shoot” Wooden Guns. When it comes time to draw these classic rubber guns under stress, or when just fighting over them for a draw, and when one person gets free of the other enough to successfully pull, point and theoretically “shoot” the pistol at the partner/bad-guy, – this is what I have seen for years – these two participating folks just freeze and look at each other. Once in a while someone might yell “bang!” But they frequently just freeze. It’s over! They act like the scenario is over, like the fake trigger pulling part and the wounding or killing part is automatically over. No follow-up action needed, taken or practiced. Just…just freeze!

What Happens Next? In my great collection of “Ws & H” questions, one of the greatest questions is “WHAT happens next? Then next? Then next? Of course, it’s not over with the classic freeze. It’s not. I mean what can happen? The other guy surrenders, or is shot and wounded, or even if he receives a mortal shot, he can still shoot back, stab, fight back a bit, or fall upon the good guy with a weapon like a knife in his hand. Even if the attacker “surrenders,” if they surrender, do citizens know what to say or do next? Orderly or disorderly escape? “Citizen’s arrest,” so to speak? Often this never enters gun instructor’s minds. What happens next? The fight is not over with the mere pointing of a rubber gun. The freeze is totally unreal, incomplete and inadequate training.

The Trainer-Actor’s Part. The scenario IS NOT OVER! If the bad guy is shot, he or she should act like they are shot – it’s he trainer’s job! But it helps the trainer to know where they were shot, to properly act-out responses. Impossible with classic rubber guns and no “bullets.” You need something that safely shoots, tens or even hundreds of times to get the reps in. The trainer doesn’t have to win the Oscar, but act out in common sense.

Light Beams? Somewhat popular these last few years are the SERT guns. To say “popular” might be a “financial” misnomer. They are about $225 to $500. They shoot light beams. They are very real in look, size and wright. Everybody knows about them but few can afford them. How many people do you know will afford to buy one? If you teach seminars, how many people show up with one? In my many year teaching experience, very, very few show up with SERT guns. $$$! And here’s the training rub, when battling with CQC force on force, the attacker-actor almost never knows where the light beam landed so they can simulate a leg shot, hip or gut shot, or throat shot, whatever. They always see, feel where the rubber band lands. Okay, SERT is neat for solo practice, but almost useless for me in the type of hardcore, close quarters drills I do.

When Suggesting the Wooden Gun “Route”…I have often said to folks:

“You like those rubber guns, huh?”

“Yes.”

“Hey, what would you think about wooden guns?”

“Wooden guns?”

“Yeah, using wooden guns shaped like your real guns, or shaped like your rubber guns?”

“I guess that would be okay.”

“Now, what if I told you…what if I told you that these wooden guns could shoot something? A safe something? Wouldn’t that be cool? You could do all the stuff you are already doing, and – you could actually pull the trigger shoot something and see if you could successfully, actually shoot the gun, hit your enemy while fighting, standing or on the ground. And multiple shots like a semi-auto. You wouldn’t have to stop when you pointed the gun. You could actually exercise pulling the trigger and aiming under stress, explore the next events. Anytime. Anyplace.”

“I guess that would be smart. But we do that with Simunitions.”

“How often?”

“Oh, about once every two years.”

“Two years?”

“Sometimes more years than that. Some people never do it. ”

“I know. Because you need special gear and a special location that won’t be destroyed by the Sims. Lots of set up and gear. Sometimes the setup and expense just pushes the workouts off and off. And who wants to be shot with Simunitions 30-40 times in one hour when working on an important scenario? What if I told you could use these wooden guns – which cost about 15 bucks each – anytime, anyplace, aiming, shooting with no safety gear, easy experimentation with moves and problems. You can get a lot done, safe, and cheap.

“I guess that would be okay.”

“I am talking about using wooden rubber band guns. I am not talking about giving up routine live fire. I am not talking about never using electric, gas or Sims again. I am not saying throw away your rubber gun. It too has uses. I am just talking about the potential of wood over rubber. I am talking about the easy, safe study of moves & shooting. I am talking about more access to important experimentation and reps. You are already using rubber. Why not wood? Why not wood that shoots something? Did I mention the wooden gun cost about $15?”

And a Safety Idea. Sometimes these gas guns look really real. Horrible switch mistakes can happen, especially after lunch (another long story) and they, rarely thank goodness, get into the classes. And, with wood, within the class, everyone can see instantly see that each other has a safe, light-colored, wooden, training gun.

I can travel the entire world with a box of wooden guns without breaking ANY laws in any state or country. Can you with a suitcase full of gas guns? Sims guns? Easily? Effortlessly? One more point for traveling practitioners and instructors, these wooden guns weigh almost nothing in your luggage.

In my External Focus Gun seminars, or regular mixed seminars of hand, stick, knife and gun, you will probably be shot 30 to 60 or so times a day as you work out with a good-guy or bad-guy partner in different situations. And very close up in standing, seated and ground situations. Battery powered guns will not damage the facilities (and will not hurt cars) but you still need some thick clothes and face protection. And I still can’t outfit all, half, or even a quarter of attendees with these guns and safety gear, and furthermore protect their walls, lights, windows and cars. Out come the wooden guns.

Don’t let your custom fit holster stop you from doing this training. I hear this complaint or excuse. Just get a real cheap “ol bucket,” universal holster for this type of training. The emphasis is on interactive goals about movements and fighting, and many skills more important than exactly how your replica pistol fits perfectly snug your custom fit holster. Rubber training guns don’t always fit into your custom holster, either. Yet people have persevered for decades with rubber gun training stuck in bad-fitting holsters.

Where ever we are, lets move the ball downfield every chance we get. I know what folks are saying about Airsoft, that it is superior training in versatility. There are two kinds, 1) gas and, 2) electric-battery. With Airsoft, you still need eye protection and the pellets can still sting. (gas hurts more.) When you do a combat scenario like this one in the photo above, 10-15 times, then 3 more scenarios in the hour, you are shooting your friend, or being shot 45-70 times in just one or two hours. Close-up. Then add 4 or 5 hours to that. This becomes a “pain in the neck,” especially with Airsoft gas guns. Everyone in the whole room must have at very least eye protection but some people wear more and more safety stuff. Even with electric-battery Airsoft, this becomes a logistic-gear-expanding training endeavor. (I like to use electric-battery Airsoft around cars because cars will not be dented or hurt.) The higher quality sims gun? The less reps your people can stand for the basics. The more pain, less reps means way less experimentation and “muscle memory.

In Summary Pain is not the only reason to have safer, ammo shooting gun. Not by a long shot, ducking pain is part of the training. I would like to use the best gear in the best locations were we can ignore the destruction of people, buildings and vehicles. But that dream is both impractical and expensive for most of the places I travel to teach. I do the best I can, with what I can at the moment to move the learning ball down the field. A wooden pistol that shoots something and safely is better than a rubber gun that doesn’t. The wooden rubber band gun. It utterly harmless, still shoots semi-auto style and you get to see where your shots land. Totally superior to no-shoot, rubber gun. I ditched the rubber gun for a wooden one that at least shoots something. Why have a “shoot-less” rubber gun, some cost $50 or more, when you can get a wooden one for $15 that shoots something?

And this is why I use them a lot. I think I have counted the ways.

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