There was a government study some years ago that has been used as a training point with law enforcement and some military personnel. The study looked at situations where a skilled knife fighter started X number of feet away from a person with a gun. The situation was repeated with the gun pointed at the knife wielder, with the gun drawn but in a lowered, relaxed position, and with the gun still in the holster. The study came up with some larger than expected ranges at which a person with an edged weapon could kill or cripple the gunman in each scenario.
I was told that these findings formed the basis for a somewhat blanket ruling for the people trained. If you see a person with a knife and they start to do anything threatening within about 30 feet, shoot them, or get cut up.
Of course there are alot of variables about skill, weapon length, the comparative reaction speeds and fitness levels, distractions, lighting that can be debated after the fact in shootings like these.
Yeah. One of the major issues is with a lot of people not shooting well enough under stressful conditions. You have to dump a decent amount of lead into the CVT of a bad guy to them down, when you're using pistols. Doing that quickly, on a moving target, before they're on top of you is something that even extremely well trained individuals would have a hard time with.
When you compare how long it takes for an average person to cover a distance of 30 feet at a sprint, and then how long it takes someone to /accurately/ put half of their mag on said target... Well... Yeah.
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-15 06:40 pm (UTC)I was told that these findings formed the basis for a somewhat blanket ruling for the people trained. If you see a person with a knife and they start to do anything threatening within about 30 feet, shoot them, or get cut up.
Of course there are alot of variables about skill, weapon length, the comparative reaction speeds and fitness levels, distractions, lighting that can be debated after the fact in shootings like these.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-15 07:53 pm (UTC)When you compare how long it takes for an average person to cover a distance of 30 feet at a sprint, and then how long it takes someone to /accurately/ put half of their mag on said target... Well... Yeah.