If you have got it out do you have to shoot then?

Unlike their Singaporean counterparts, say, American bodyguards have handgun weapons and about the usage of weapons by personal security we are going to speak in this issue.

There is such a well known dogma “ shoot if you have got it out”.
Our readers, of course, know this postulate. Do not touch a weapon if you are not ready to shoot.

And everything seems to work correctly aimed on mindfulness and discipline of weapon’s owner, but the range of possible actions is narrowed to the only one. This is to make a shot. Besides that it is not professional (and we speak about expert trainings for bodyguards) but that also might be criminally dangerous.

So, why is it bad to shoot only?

• If a bodyguard at work uses only a weapon personal security will be re- qualified into OTG then with all arising consequences for a VIP.
• There might be different reasons not be able to make a shot (bad quality cartridges, a weapon do not work properly and so on) and you have to do another actions very fast and do not have time to fix weapons. This is not a shooting gallery
• In the real situation a shot might not stop an attacker especially that one who gained decent dynamics to reduce the distance and here there is a huge amount of examples.
• A shooter could have missed. In stressful situations misses even at short and super short distances are not means of rarity.
• It is forbidden to shoot. The law / dangerous environment / crowded.
• Damaged working limb. A shooter’s fine motor skills are not capable.
• Instinctively a bodyguard went and got out a weapon but he did not have time to put it into a combat position because the distance was decreasing dramatically fast.
• In some countries (Russia is not an exception) personal security use their own traumatic hand gun weapons very often which makes the process of a resultative and productive shooting more unpredictable. Shot trajectory, stopping factors, reliability.

Not enough? Shell we give more examples?

In general any situations of not shooting can be described shortly:
A shooter can not do that / a weapon is invalid / a situation does not allow.

​So, what else useful is it possible to do except shooting?

Demonstration of a weapon in the holster.
There are a lot of positive evidences in practice when a tactful lapel of the jacket and a correct look forced aggressors to calm down instantly.
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Let us move further.
Taken out and demonstrated weapons can be a very intelligible argument in favor of refusal of intentions. It works especially lucidly in conjunction with voice commands such as drop your knife, go down on your knees, put your hands behind your head and after that you should do actions according to the algorithm.

Such actions are possible if the distance to the problem is at least 2-3 steps.

Another cool thing is that a weapon can be used to beat somebody.
You can beat someone with the barrel of your gun straight on his head or the body.
The effect of the contact soft muscles and even bones with a kilogram of iron exceeds all expectations.
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Yes, the wrist should be accustomed to such loads and for that purpose trainings must be done. For such usage of weapons not only the wrist must be trained properly but the most important thing is how a bodyguard’s brain reflects in stressful situations at least to have a chance to change actions from shooting into the impact.

Are you still in doubts about the effectiveness of impacts using weapons? Ask your colleague to poke you with a barrel , well, for example to the pectoral muscle in the manner of the direct impact. And now try to transfer these feelings on your face even without increasing the force of the impact.
Pleasant, is not it?

The situation is becoming tougher and you are already on the ground with an aggressor.
It is extremely difficult to take weapons out during the fight and the trajectory of shooting from that position is unpredictable. Therefore if you can manage to take the weapon out it is definitely necessary to beat.There is no time to bring the weapon to the combat position lying on the ground (here we are talking about law-abiding employees of the personal security, are not we?) but beating an attacker with an iron gun is a great opportunity to finish fighting quickly.

Regarding ground and weapons there are still specific techniques how to make pressure and pain impact with subsequent control in Krav-Maga. Welcome to the training for bodyguards! At high levels we also analyze these questions.

What another important advantage does the whole team have solving problems without shooting?

The answer is simple. This is the law. From the point of view of the law everything is more than correct. Yes, there was an obvious threat for a life and it was possible to use weapons but the skills of the bodyguard won and he saved a huge amount of money and time of the protected person which could be spent by him on lawyers in case of double-alpha had been done by his bodyguard.

And what shell our unarmed colleagues from the Asian Economic Miracle do we will talk in our other issues.