I saw a story from over the weekend that made me shake my head on several levels…
A lady was at an I.C.E. protest in San Francisco when a thief tried to take her hat and sunglasses. She grabbed pepper spray, but the thief grabbed the pepper spray out of her hands and used it on her and then ran off with her hat & sunglasses.
One thing that this brings up is that, under stress, pepper spray can be surprisingly hard to deploy. And there’s a good chance that you’ll be more rattled by an interaction with a criminal than they are…after all, if they’re any good, they’ve got the element of surprise on their side AND they’ve probably got more recent practice with criminal interactions than you do.
This problem can happen with ANY defensive tool–pepper spray, Taser, stun gun, knife, or firearm. A bad guy can take them away from you and use them on you.
It happens more often than you think…but it doesn’t have to happen to you.
Here are 3 keys to reduce the chances of an attacker taking your weapon and using it on you.
1. Readiness. If your weapon is buried in a purse or backpack…or if you can’t get to it smoothly and efficiently, the scramble to get it telegraphs your intent to your attacker, making it easier for them to take your weapon. If the weapon you want isn’t ready, you may need to use empty hands skills to buy yourself enough time to deploy it.
2. Intent. Threatening someone with a weapon with no intent of using it is a horrible idea. Sometimes, it will work. But more often, the bad guy will actually have intent, sense hesitation, and take your weapon from you as you watch.
Sometimes, people say that they have a laser on their pistol because all they’ll have to do is point it at a bad guy’s chest and he’ll give up. They have no intent to actually use the gun to stop the threat. My suggestion to them is to buy a toy gun and tape a laser pointer to it so that when the bad guy rips it out of their hands, he won’t be holding a gun.
3. Base level skill. If you’ve got to think through the process of using a weapon, it’s just not going to happen in a high stress situation.
In order to be successful, you’ve got to know the basics subconsciously…as a reflex. With a gun, you can’t be thinking about how to clear cover, grip the pistol, aim it at your attacker, or press the trigger without disturbing the sights…it’s all got to be automatic.
You need to be able to think about the end result that you want (stopping the threat) and automatically do the steps necessary to make that happen.
You can’t accomplish that by trying to cram it all in by going to a class once a year or once a quarter.
You can’t accomplish that by just going to the range once or twice a month.
The absolute best way to get weapons skills that you can depend on in a high stress situation is with frequent, short, perfect practice sessions.
With a pistol, that can be just 5-10 minutes of perfect practice with the right dry fire drills, a few times a week, in the comfort of your home. That will not only get you better and quicker results than going to the range for an hour or two at a time, a couple times a month, but it’ll save you a lot of time and money too.
So, if you’ve already got our training, I want to encourage you to make sure and spend a few minutes using it tonight and a few more times this week. It doesn’t need to be a major production…just a few minutes of the right dry fire drills will make a huge difference.
If you don’t have our training yet, you should. And you’ve got a couple of options…
First, you can sign up for the 21 Day Alpha Shooter program and several bonuses, including a free deck of Dry Fire Training Cards by clicking >HERE< < This is the new short, mobile friendly page.
The other option is to sign up for Upgraded Shooter by clicking >HERE< This will give you access to the online version of 21 Day Alpha Shooter as well as the Journal Of Tactics And Preparedness, and early access to “21 Day Alpha Shooter: Advanced” and “Mastering The Concealed Carry Drawstroke”
Either way…train hard and stay frosty.
Questions? Comments? fire away by commenting below
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