Mythbuster's Tueller Drill (aka "knife to a gun fight")

[Jumping Frog]

Instead of relying on Mythbuster's for accurate information, I place more credibility in the legitimate law enforcement research. For example, here is a Part I and Part II article series by The Force Science Institute.

II. EDGED WEAPON DEFENSE: IS THE 21-FOOT RULE STILL VALID? WAS IT EVER? Part 1 of a 2-Part Series

II. MORE FROM FSRC ON EDGED WEAPONS & THE 21-FOOT RULE. Part 2 of a 2-Part Series

An excerpt:

Recently a Force Science News member, a deputy sheriff from Texas, suggested that “it’s time for a fresh look” at the underlying principles of edged-weapon defense, to see if they are “upheld by fresh research.” He observed that “the knife culture is growing, not shrinking,” with many people, including the homeless, “carrying significant blades on the street.” He noted that compared to scientific findings, “anecdotal evidence is not good enough when an officer is in court defending against a wrongful death claim because he felt he had to shoot some[body] with a knife at 0-dark:30 a.m
. . .
After testing the Rule against FSRC’s landmark findings on action-reaction times and conferring with selected members of its National and Technical Advisory Boards, the Center has reached these conclusions, according to Executive Director Dr. Bill Lewinski:

1. Because of a prevalent misinterpretation, the 21-Foot Rule has been dangerously corrupted.
2. When properly understood, the 21-Foot Rule is still valid in certain limited circumstances.
3. For many officers and situations, a 21-foot reactionary gap is not sufficient.
4. The weapon that officers often think they can depend on to defeat knife attacks can’t be relied upon to protect them in many cases.
5. Training in edged-weapon defense should by no means be abandoned.

Although the research was performed with law enforcement applications in mind, when we are discussing action-reaction times most of this work is directly applicable to the armed citizen and self defense and thus an interesting read.

[JSThane]

When you are facing an opponent armed with a knife once he starts to rush you MOVE off the line of attack. You can gain valuable seconds by moving back and to one side or the other.

I agree with this except the backing up part. If you are lucky you can back up half as fast as someone running forward. The best strategy is to step to the side, this forces the attacker to reajust and change their vector. It is also more difficult to turn while running forward which increases the targeting problem for the attacker. The step to the side provides significant time to engage the knife wielder. The simple side step works even at distances as close as 10 ft while this drill demonstrates you need 21 ft straight for striaght on. Additionally without the side step off the line of attack, a successful handgun shot, which is frequenly not an instant stop anyway, you most likely will be injured. So if you are still on the line of attack then the wounded attacker can still severly injure or kill you. That is not a winning combination, but bringing a gun to a knifefight.

A subtlety to the tactic of stepping to the side off the line of attack is to do so to the side opposite the one that holds the BG's weapon. If timed right, this sharply limits the range of his edged or impact weapon to just slightly beyond his torso because he has to deploy it across his body instead of to the side on the strong side, where he has a full arm's reach. Of course, if he's trained, he'll simply change hands, but most aren't so trained.

Another subtlety (although more debatable) is to focus the one shot you may get off into the pelvic girdle to try to take the BG's undercarriage out from under him so he can't run or maneuver. This too holds no guarantees, but it's a more likely stop than a center mass shot and a more likely hit than a head shot attempted under these circumstances.

Offlining opposite the weapon could, depending on the weapon and the person, get you out of the sweep of it... or into it. A right-hander swinging a weapon across to his left can keep turning his arm and torso a bit to continue the sweep, or swinging left to right can continue in the same fashion. A stab will be easier to evade, going either direction. The key point is, though, don't be where he expects you to be, whether it's "away" or "towards" his weapon arm. Practice getting out of the way first, practice both directions irrespective of where the weapon is, and -then- you can focus on determining whether left or right is better.

And I'd really advise against shooting for the pelvic girdle. Odds are, you're going to be putting rounds all over, anyway; aiming for a specific, non-center-mass point on a moving attacker (and you are moving, too, aren't you?), while dealing with an adrenaline dump, is a sure recipe for a miss or three. Try to put those rounds in the center of what you can see, so that you don't wind up pulling a Bat Masterson and hitting something - or someone - you don't want to.

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Also, with regard to carrying a round in the chamber, consider this: most police and law enforcement departments have a very firm policy that their officers' guns -must- be chambered, at any and all times the officer is on duty. This is in an easy-to-access, openly-carried, and oftentimes designed for speed, holster. If they carry one in the pipe all the time, when they can get to it faster than a concealed firearm, and it still isn't fast enough sometimes, why slow yourself down with an empty chamber in a concealed, harder-to-access, designed to hide, holster?

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As before, as always, I'm just some with opinions on the internet. Check these opinions past people who make a living knowing what they're talking about.

[AdioSS]

I once worked for a guard company that had an empty chamber policy. That was one policy that I always broke.
They were more worried about Negligent Discharges than actually needing to use it. I only know of one NG that happened there off the range, & never was a gun drawn in defense against a person. The only times weapons were use away from the range were in pest control since the post was on a 2000+acres ranch. That NG happened during shift change over. I saw it about to happen & put distance between them & myself.

Back on topic, I carry a fixed blade on my weak side specifically for something like this.