The guns vs. martial arts debate has been a fascinating one even to me. A question people seem to be wondering is "if you have a gun, why learn hand to hand combat?" As i mentioned in my blog post "why relying on weapons will get you killed" (http://everythingselfdefense.blogspot.com/2016/12/why-relying-on-weapons-will-get-you.html ), i've already listed several key reasons why using only weapons is a bad idea. Why should you learn hand to hand combat?First, most situations don't require a gun and would be legally or physically dangerous if you do use one. Many people use guns and think about survival than about the legal consequences that follow. According to law, you are generally only allowed to shoot if someone is using lethal force against you. Other than that, you could be convicted of a crime and sentenced to prison. If you want to do time in jail or prison every-time a violent situation arises and possibly get your gun taken away then by all means use a gun for self defense. If you want to learn how to avoid that then you should learn hand to hand combat in addition to firearms training.
The other critical reason why you should learn hand to hand combat in addition to gun self defense is because you need to create distance, time, and speed in order to use your gun effectively. Guns are long range weapons. Fists are short range weapons. If you don't know how and when to use each one appropriately, you may find yourself wrestling with an attacker over your gun. If you can land the first shot with no problems and your enemies scatter then good! If you lose the gun then that's very bad for you. I once saw a video of a gun defense instructor teach students that when faced with multiple attackers, you should punch one guy and then clinch as you fire two shots in him before you shoot at the others. This is very bad advice because the other attackers could hit you from behind and take the gun away from you. By using guns and hand to hand combat together, you are better equipped to defend yourself. When fighting multiple attackers, you beat them up. If someone draws a gun, you could either disarm or use an attacker as a shield before you draw your own gun and fire. If the gun jams or you run out of ammo, you could still use it as a melee weapon and do some serious damage.
While this would work in theory, the chances of you needing a gun in self defense are rare and often pose more problems than solutions. A study done showed that there was no advantage to using guns than other means of self defense.
In conclusion, you can't just simply "point and shoot" without considering the potential consequences that follow such as killing an innocent person by accident.
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Nice post
ReplyDeleteThanks!
DeleteHand-to-hand combat and guns have been two contentious concepts that I have read about, hear people arguing about, and so on. If you ask me, I would prefer to learn both skills, but use them where necessary. In my quest to learn more about hand-to-hand combat, I bumped into the following resourceful posting: http://survival-mastery.com/skills/defence/hand-to-hand-combat.html
ReplyDeleteGood article. I'd say it's necessary to have both skills because distance, timing, and speed are all essential in a fight. I've heard of cases where gunmen have been killed by knifeman and had no time to draw their guns. Sometimes you have no choice but to use hand-to-hand combat on an attacker before you can draw your weapon.
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