A 'person' with a knife

[Glenn E. Meyer]

This is a variant on another forum's debate. I give you two scenario.

One will on the surface be easy.

You are outside your house. The front door flies open a man holding a large knife charges out and towards you. You are within Tueller distance. However, you are trained in the Tueller skills to deal with such. You are carrying an easily accessible standard semi-auto with good rounds. A Glock 19, 23, 1911, Sig - whatever!

What do you do?

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You are outside your house. The front door flies open a man holding a large knife charges out and towards you. You are within Tueller distance. However, you are trained in the Tueller skills to deal with such. You are carrying an easily accessible standard semi-auto with good rounds. A Glock 19, 23, 1911, Sig - whatever! The person is your son who has been suffering from depression - probably of biological base but it is your son.

What do you do?

Does the value of the person make a difference?

[TexasSIGMan]

Does the value of the person make a difference?

In other words, is there a time when someone else is more valuable than you?

That one will have to wait until it happens I'm afraid, and I hope none of us ever have to find out.

[Chris Phelps]

In either case, I would wait for them to get within arms reach of me, grab the wrist of the hand holding the knife, pull it in the direction they were running, then quickly snap it back, effectivly taking their feet out from under them and landing them on their back, I would then quickly twist in the downward direction of their arm, while pulling up to roll their body over... then I would put my knee in their back, lock their elbow in a position in which it was impossible for them to move, and proceed to yell for someone to call the police.






Just my .02, and more than likely a bad place to mention this, BUT... I think CCW's have allowed people to slack off in their hand to hand combat skills. Too many people are eager to shoot someone in these situations.

[MarkTT]

Too eager to shoot someone charging you with a knife? Thats an interesting way to look at it I guess. I personally would rather pull the trigger than attempt a "hand to hand" confrontation with someone that already has an advantage of an edged weapon.

What would be a good reason to shoot someone in your opinion?

As for the original post, Im a pretty selfish person. My life is more important to me than anyone elses. Be it a family member or completely random person. If someone is charging me with a weapon in hand I will assume they have the intent to harm me, and do what is necessary to protect myself.

[DavidJBlythe]

draw my own knife and prepare for some good hand-to-hand. Smiling an evil grin all the while

[Recon7]

random stranger, he's dead. My son, and I take the knife from him ,or get cut trying. I don't care if killing my son would be justifiable, I don't want to do it. there are things more important in this world than my life. My son if I had one would be one of those things, a stranger would not be.

[Peeweester40]

I assume from the scenario as described you know it's your son. Assuming this, I would run. If I didn't recognize the person, I would like to think I had enough time to draw and fire, then run.

[Chris Phelps]

What would be a good reason to shoot someone in your opinion?

If I found myself in a situation where shooting was the only chance I had to save my own life. Personally, I do not feel overly threatened by a charging pissed off person with a knife. Anger clouds your judgement. Plus, if they are charging me, then I would assume they wouldnt stop, at which point their momentum could be used to my advantage. If they did stop, there is a moment of pause in which your brain has to recalculate distance, thus opening yet another window of oportunity. I am quite skilled in hand to hand, so a firearm would be an overreaction for me, personally. When it all comes down to it, you have to choose what means you have of stopping the situation without putting yourself in danger. For many, that would only leave a firearm, but for some of us, it just isnt needed in this situation.

If I felt like I was against a skilled knife fighter? Well then I would have to go this route....

draw my own knife and prepare for some good hand-to-hand. Smiling an evil grin all the while

[joneb]

well I like recon7's reply the best, if some had a mentaly distrurbed son that is physicly capable one might invest in a taser.

[Lycanthrope]

No way. He'd trip the Claymores. I'd never have to disrupt my tin foil beanie or drop the remote.

Seriously. My Dragon skills outweigh my Tiger and Tueller skills. I'd just smoke him with the combat tupperware.

[pickpocket]

Stranger gets a Triple sommersault into a flying double round-house with a handstand backflip triple kick as a finisher.

For my son: Diving roll into a kickup-sommersault onto a leaning handstand using my left foot as the disarming mechanism, locking his wrist in the crook of my knee and shooting myself between his legs to throw him into a forward roll. As soon as he hits the ground I do two no-hand sommersaults into a triple backflip heel-kick with a follow-up heel sweep. I catch the knife that I kicked out of his hand three moves ago and I throw it at him as I spin around, pinning his shirt to the front door.

Viola! Safely disarmed!

My kung-fu is stronger than yours....

[Twycross]

Does the value of the person make a difference?

Yes, I believe it would. In the scenarios you outlined, the logical thing to do would be to blow the attacker away. They are both posing the same threat, but the difference is the degree to which I am willing to put myself out for them. For the hypothetical son, I would be willing to put my life on the line in order to show unwarranted and potentially foolish moderation. Not so for the stranger.

It boils down to the fact that the attacker has given me the right to take their life. You might say that they should die. In the first case, I would probably do the sensible thing (kill him), and in the second, I would probably be willing to take the risk of showing restraint, for no real rational reason other than affection.


This one was tough. I may have to think some more about this.

[DerDer]

This has happened to my friend.

A drunk homeless man had entered his house from the back door and had armed himself with a filet knife from the kitchen. When my friend walked in the front door he pulled his .38 spl (158 gr. lrn) and proceeded to fire four rounds at the homeless man. By all accounts it was all over very fast.

Friend says he actually heard the bullets hit his body with a slight thwock.

Homeless man falls to ground at fourth shot. 3/4 were torso and one was genital region.

The shooting occured with very low lighting and minimal time to react. I am talking about almost pitch blackness and being about 10 ft from each other.

According to my friend the man did advance on him a few feet while holding the knife in a "menacing fashion." He said he might have mumbles something about "seeing him in hell."

I have since prepared myself more mentally for the possible situations that could arise. Being alert can prevent many slip ups. Hesitating to pull the trigger can cost someone dearly.

[Chris Phelps]

Since you all seem so adimant that shooting is the answer, I have a question to pose... just to keep the discussion going.

Would your response change if the BG was less than 5 feet away from you? We all know (or should, anyway) that pulling a handgun at that distance will more than likely worsen the situation, as the BG will most likely grab the gun and you will end up wrestling for it.

A couple of people have made smartass remarks because of what I said, but there are so many different things people arent thinking about here. Distance is only one that I have come up with.

[Lycanthrope]

I think the situation really can't get much worse, but I'm still getting to my weapon. Basically, the same answer.

If that means I need to get something between us, throw something or push him hard, I'm drawing.

Any hand to hand with a person with a blade is dangerous. Even the best knife fighters expect to get cut.

[High Planes Drifter]

Stanger - Shoot him so many times that when they put him in the bag, you can hear the fluids slosh around.


My son - Walk up to him and grab the knife, then whip his a**. He's 3 . If he did it when he grows up, hit him with pepper spray or a non-lethal device. If he has given reason to believe he may do something like that when he grows up we would certainly keep those things around. Pepper spray would be very usefull in that particular event.

Does the value of the person make a difference?

Of course, Im a father.

[OuTcAsT]

I actually have been in a similar situation with a close family member (Not my Son)and I was CCW at the time, I was able to use his momentum to my advantage and disarm/restrain the threat. Because it was someone I recognized, I don't think the Firearm ever came to mind as an option, and I do not feel particularly threatened by a knife. However, If a stranger rushes out my front door, weilding a knife, I do not know his capabilities, could be a whacked out SEAL...He gets my gun...Bullets first!

[Chris Phelps]

However, If a stranger rushes out my front door, weilding a knife, I do not know his capabilities, could be a whacked out SEAL

Wacked out or not, a SEAL would go out the back door, sneak around the edge of your proporty, creep up behind you as quietly as possible, then stand up and take you down with the blade of his knife either into the side of your neck, or slashing acrossed the front. Or he would grab your forhead and pull you onto it, the knife entering the small of your back, just before going for the throat. Wacked out or not, noone of that stature would simply open the front door and rush you, giving you enough time to draw. After all, if they did that, they wouldn't be very good specops operators, now would they?




The fact that someone is rushing you at such a great distance with a knife should be all you need in order to proporly judge your opponent.

[ATW525]

Does the value of the person make a difference?

Absolutely not. At least not until the situation is resolved.

I would meet any imminent threat of death or great bodily harm to myself with immediate and overwhelming deadly force directed at my assailant. Who they are and thier skill level means nothing and wouldn't affect my response.

I'm certainly not going to try to engage them hand to knife, as even the most unskilled and incompetant fighter can get lucky. At most I might sacrifice my offhand arm as a shield to buy me time to get my gun into play.

[NDTerminator]

I'm a Nidan in Goshin Budo Jujistu and have taught Defensive Tactics to fellow LEOs, as well as State Academy rookies and college Peace Officer Training students for roughly 15 years. I have close to 30 years on the street, and can't even tell you how many physical arrests and dust ups I've been in. I tell you this so that you can take my experience into account in weighing my opinion.

You can have all my share of choosing to go hand to hand with a knife wielding assailant, thanks much. I'll come visit in ICU, and that's if you get the knife away from him before he inflicts fatal damage to your precious bod. Rest assured he will inflict damage, either way. If you survive, you'll never be the same...

Frankly, edged weapons scare me more than handguns (but not as much as rifles & shotguns). So much so that I spent extensive time training in their use. What I learned over the years and saw on the street only reinforced my beliefs as healthy fear.

The hard cold truth is that it requires NO TRAINING OR SKILL for a dirtbag to ruin your whole existence with a knife. All he needs to do is have the will to use it, and to get close. If he has even some slight skill, even a decent edge on his weapon, and/or is holding something like a big fighting knife, axe, straight razor, or cleaver, or even a good sized folding hunter, God better be on your side.

About a 6 weeks weeks ago, I worked a knife assault/attempted murder case. The victim was dropped off at the ER anonymously. He had two stabbing knife wounds, one into the neck under the left ear, and one to the left front of the abdomen (indicating a right handed over/under hand attack, boom,boom...), from a fairly narrow & short bladed knife, like a small folder. If it had been a Buck 110 or a big Gerber Gator, they would have dropped off a corpse. As it was, the Doc opinied that they saved the guy with less than 5 minutes to spare. Too bad, as we could have made a case with a corpse, and the world would have been a better place all around...

Clearly, the assailant had some skills and delivered those two stabs with specific killing targets in mind and bad intentions. He just missed the good stuff in the neck, and lacerated the liver with the belly shot. I openly expressed admiration for the skill, as most knifings we see are stab & slash jobs.

The victim was a gangsta from the Res that I've arrested numerous times, and told us to mate with ourselves when we interviewed him. Ironically, I had this guy in court a week ago, and convicted him of assault.

Our investigation revealed that this was a fight that broke out at a hardcore AI drinking party, over an insult to a girl's virtue (and I use that term loosely). The witnesses all said it started and was over in seconds, and they didn't know the victim was stabbed until he yelled he was cut. The knife was so small, none recalled seeing it in the asssailant's hand until he was running out the door. The victim was taken to the ER and dropped off in an estimated 3-5 minutes from the stabbing.

We never arrested the assailant and see him walking the street quite often. With an uncooperative victim and highly intoxicated witnesses, the States Attorney won't prosecute. As I said, if we had a corpse, we could have made a case based on forensic and circumstantial evidence.

Back to the Question At Hand: In the above scenarois, I would recommend moving diagonally (and keep moving!) to try to create reactionary gap & time, drawing down on the assailant, and loudly commanding the nutball to drop the knife. He gets about two heartbeats to comply. If he continues to pursue me, he's going down, friend, son, brother, whatever,...

Bottom line; if you take chances with a knife wielding subject, best have your personal affairs in order...

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Interesting - the serious responses. Knives are extremely dangerous. I was an expert witness on a case where a young man got into a dispute with an older man. The older man took out a little paring knife, stuck it once into the chest of the young man who dropped stone cold dead as the cut dumped his blood supply. Lucky hit?

I'd appreciate more serious comments as folks have been there on this one. It's not a mall ninja scenario.

[Chris Phelps]

I'd appreciate more serious comments as folks have been there on this one.

...And you got mine.


(except for the part about the son, I dont have one)

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Thanks for it.

[NDTerminator]

As kind of an aside on this subject; I'm a hardcore bowhunter and have killed God-alone-knows how many head of game in my lifetime.

I can tell you that it's extremely common for a broadhead through the vitals to kill a big game animal in 10 seconds or less. I personally consider a broadhead to be a far more efficient killing instrument than a bullet from any firearm I own.

On the theme of serious responses and actual experience, I once tracked a guy from a crime scene who had been stabbed in the liver with a steak knife, by his blood trail on the street & sidewalk. He made it three blocks, and I could have followed that blood trail with my nose, it was so copious.

Only a fool or the uninformed underestimates edged weapons...

[Trip20]

Originally Posted by Chris Phelps

In either case, I would wait for them to get within arms reach of me, grab the wrist of the hand holding the knife, pull it in the direction they were running, then quickly snap it back, effectivly [sic] taking their feet out from under them and landing them on their back, I would then quickly twist in the downward direction of their arm, while pulling up to roll their body over... then I would put my knee in their back, lock their elbow in a position in which it was impossible for them to move, and proceed to yell for someone to call the police.

Not everyone is trained in hand-to-hand combat at a level which would make this even remotely possible. Even for those that are, not everyone has the speed and/or agility to perform a maneuver such as this. Not everyone has the strength to do the same, as well.

Knives are dangerous. When we used knives in class (of the rubber variety), it was very monotonous, very predictive, and very telegraphed. Our instructor made it very clear to us that even an untrained person with an edged weapon, coming towards you with erratic movements, would be a serious threat. The movies and even classroom exercises make it seem easy – but it is not.

I think most people with common sense realize this. Therefore, IMO, those posting that they would draw and fire do not necessarily coincide with your assumption:

Originally Posted by Chris Phelps

...CCW's have allowed people to slack off in their hand to hand combat skills. Too many people are eager to shoot someone in these situations.

...it only means they're more than likely, just being realistic. Now, you could be a complete uber-ninja, I have no idea. But for the average, above average, and even skilled person; taking on a deranged lunatic with an edged weapon is an absolute tactical disaster.


Edited to answer Glen's original post:
#1 - Bang, you're dead.

#2 - I'd take some stabbings from my son if I thought I could over-come him eventually. But ultimately, I'll kill anyone who's trying to kill me. Even a son deserves to die when he's so messed up he's murdering his own family members. That goes for any human IMO.

So yes, the value of a person does make a difference to me - at least initially.