Self-Defense = Time + Distance
How you carry is as important as why you carry.
When you break it down to the basics, almost all self-defense boils down to time and distance. Given a set of circumstances that demand your immediate reaction to survive do you have enough time at that distance to react BEFORE you get injured or killed?
Most people have no idea how fast an attack can happen, let alone how far behind they will be when it does. (Incidentally, this is why we always stress the importance of awareness and avoidance. If you can recognize bad behavior early, that gives you more time and presumably more distance to avoid the problem altogether.) The bad guy controls everything, we do not get a choice, they control the time, the place, and the level of violence. Reactions are always slower than the action itself. Even if you are pre-programmed and ready to act you will always be a split second behind at a minimum.
How you carry is as important as why you carry.
The average person can cover approximately 21’ in about 1.5 seconds (Tueller Drill, keep in mind that this drill was developed for police officers who carry their firearms in an open holster on their hip, and not concealed). Lets talk about a scenario where you are going to have to pull your gun and fire to defend yourself. Does that give you enough time to get your gun out, fire at least one accurate round, and get out of the way BEFORE the bad guy gets to you?
By most standards, if you carry a gun concealed (under your clothing) and you can draw and fire one round accurately in two-seconds you are doing really well. That is .5 seconds longer than the 21’ distance that we previously mentioned. Now, put that gun in a purse, how much longer would it take. Do you even know how far 21’ actually is? We can ask a classroom full of students to estimate 21’ and we will get a variety different answers (usually anywhere from 8’-35’). Everyone perceives distance differently. Have you gone out and measure off 21’ in order to have an understanding of what that actually looks like?
Stimulus – Response Times
The Force Science Institute recently conducted a study on stimulus/response times for police officers. In it, they address the quote; “Common sense dictates that in situations where a law enforcement officer has a suspect in their rifle sight, the officer could pull the trigger before any suspect could move a gun toward the officer or another, aim and fire.”
“In Force Science News, Training the Humanity Out of Cops (and Other Myths), we observed that police, like all humans, are constrained by the reactionary gap.2 That is, there is always going to be a time lag between a stimulus and a response. Certainly, fast cops might outshoot slow suspects. But, even the fastest officers need time to recognize and respond to a perceived threat.
In the opening quote, the author limits the response time to the time required to “pull the trigger.” But, in the real world, officers must first detect the stimulus (e.g., object and movement), recognize the context and meaning of that stimulus (i.e., situational understanding), and then decide whether and how to respond. Once a decision is made, officers still need time to perform the movements required by the response. In cases involving a rifle, this could include the time needed to aim, manipulate a safety, move their finger to the trigger, and press the trigger.
Together, the mental processing time, movement time, and device manipulation time make up the “response time.” With practice, officers can decrease response time by speeding up and overlapping these processes, but they can never eliminate the stimulus/response gap. And, no matter how fast an officer responds to lethal threats, that response will always involve more than simply pulling the trigger…
The Simulation Design
To provide the greatest chance to outperform the simulated suspect, Lon Bartel selected Mr. Jeff Knaup to perform as the responding officer. Jeff is a retired 30-year police officer with nearly 20 years of advanced tactical training and experience. As a former full-time SWAT operator, Jeff was expected to respond quickly and accurately to the simulated assault. If an officer with Jeff’s experience could not outshoot the suspect, it would be unreasonable to expect officers with less training to accomplish that feat.
The suspect in the scenario was shown standing while pointing a gun at his own head. From that position, he suddenly pointed the gun toward the officer, aimed, and fired. The officer was instructed to maintain a site picture of the suspect but told not to fire until he perceived the suspect moving the gun toward him.
The Results
In the first scenario, the officer was instructed to keep the safety engaged and his finger indexed along the rifle frame until he decided to fire. In that scenario, the suspect was able to move, aim, and fire the gun at the officer in .40 seconds. Officer Knaup responded to the suspect’s assault in .86 seconds. A slow-motion review of the video revealed that the suspect was able to fire two shots at the officer before the officer’s first shot struck him.
In the second scenario, the officer was instructed to keep the safety off and his finger on the trigger. The question was whether eliminating the rifle manipulation time would allow the officer to overcome the stimulus/response gap. In that scenario, the suspect again moved, aimed, and fired the gun at the officer in .40 seconds. Officer Knaup responded to the suspect’s assault in .60 seconds. Even after eliminating the time needed to disengage the safety and move to the trigger (and with the officer having already seen the assault one time), slow-motion revealed that the suspect was able to get one shot off before the officer’s first shot struck him…”
Final thoughts…
How you carry is as important as why you carry. If you cannot access that tool in an effecient and fluid manner and put accurate shots on target it can become more of a liability than an asset. If you are not training at the range the way that you would be carrying in public there is a good probability that under stress you will not be able to perform adequately. Train you like you will have to act when you are in the fight, you won’t rise to the occassion, rather you will fall to the level of your training.
We all have a movie playing in our heads when it comes to self-defense. That movie usually gives us more time and more abilty than we have in real life. Under the stress of the moment you will not be John or Jane Wick.
Having an honest understanding of your abilities, time, distance, and how you react under stress all affect how you will react. A solid comprehension of what to look for before and attack (awareness) will give you both time and distance to deal with the problem before it becomes one.
Knowledge builds confidence and confidence is a non-victim quailty - We Teach Confidence.
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