Fundamentals of Contact Shooting

Here's another important video from the Personal Defense Network. We're at the Valhalla Training Center inside of our scenario ranges to get an idea of what an extreme close quarters shooting situation might be like. In the context of our defensive use of a firearm when we're in contact with someone, we need to talk a little bit about what's realistic and what's not, what's likely, and what isn't. A lot of times you'll see people doing something like this. Just leaning backwards, reaching back, drawing a firearm orienting to shoot towards someone that is in very close or actually in contact with you.

The problem with this model is that it doesn't actually give you contact with the threat. If you're going to need to use lethal force to defend yourself against someone in close quarters, the chances are incredibly likely that you're not going to be able to get your firearm out and into a shooting position before they've actually made contact with you. So if your premise is, I'm gonna get the gun out and shoot from here in this speedy fashion, what you actually need to realize is, you're probably going to be in contact. Therefore training on a three-dimensional mannequin, something that you're actually in contact with when you're trying to stop someone from drawing a firearm or stop someone from hitting you or choking you. Controlling them and dealing with this directly while you're drawing and firing is incredibly important.

Taking this out of context and simply drawing the firearm, holding it close to your body and shooting is skills in isolation. We always wanna teach defensive skills and practice our skills in context. The context of an extreme close quarters shooting is contact. We wanna make sure we're in contact whenever we can be. Now, if you don't have a three-dimensional mannequin that you can train against, you still wanna have some type of contact as safely as you can.

Here at Valhallah we use three-dimensional mannequins made of plastic and wood on the stand with a metal and rubber background along with frangible ammunition. We're not concerned with splash or ricochet like we would be if we were using jacketed ammunition or non frangible lead rounds. These unjacketed frangible rounds are very safe to use in this environment. We also have a lot of controls in place with safety officers standing by watching the angles, watching to make sure no one's hand has gotten behind the target and then our legs are out of the way while we're shooting in these contact positions. You can get 90% of the training value by using an airsoft gun or a simulation gun of some other kind that fires a non-lethal projectile something like a plastic pellet or a paint round that will allow you to experience these positions at home.

I do not advise training with live ammunition unless you're properly supervised in a controlled environment with an experienced instructor who understands the principles involved, not just the positions that you're seeing in this video. When we talk about principles and fundamentals, it's really important to understand that that's what underlies the technique or the tactic that we're training. Principles and fundamentals are the key to being able to apply yourself in a specific situation. It could be critical that you understand why you're doing something, not just how to do something if things are a little different. For example, if we always trained for a target that's directly on top of us to draw an orient firearm this way but we get shifted during a close quarters combative interaction where we're sideways to the target.

If we always think of pulling the gun out and pointing this way, we've got a problem if our threats over here. We need to understand the principle involved to get the firearm oriented safely and appropriately in an efficient way towards the threat. So let's talk about that. Let's talk about some of the things that we do to make sure that we're orienting the firearm in a safe and efficient way towards the threat. If I'm squared off towards a threat, I'm gonna go ahead and turn this guy around.

You can see from this position, if this is where I am when this person tries to draw a gun or pull a knife or maybe they're trying to choke me or hurt me, and that's important to understand. We're not talking about someone who's standing there with a gun shooting at you. We're talking about something that happens within two arms reach, where it's faster for us to move forward and control this firearm before it gets up to be pointed at us. So as it comes out of the pocket or as it comes up from under the shirt, we're actually gonna move in to try to control this knife or this gun. By controlling the knife or the gun and then trying to use whatever physical techniques we can to stop the threat, we might not need to use lethal force.

And certainly this is better than backing up and having a bad tie when he gets his gun out and I get it my gun out at the same time. And of course his action is probably gonna beat my speed to bringing the gun out this way and that may not even be a tie. I may get shot before I can give any type of response back, or stabbed, or choked, or hit, or knocked out if it's an improvised weapon. So when this close quarters attack starts, anything within two arms reach, we're gonna train to stop that attack. Whether it's a gun knife, a punch, a choke, a tackle, we wanna move in to stop that energy, meet that energy with our own.

And we're gonna talk more about unarmed conflict as well. But right now let's talk about the point where we're going to get to the response with lethal force. As we come in, I'm gonna move into here and try to control this gun and at least make sure it's offline. When it's offline from me, I'm gonna get my body in as much contact with my training target as I can because the reality is, if someone's trying to hurt you, if someone has put you in a position where you're so afraid that you need to use lethal force to defend yourself, they are probably on top of you. They may be grabbing you and trying to stab you, they may be trying to shoot you, they may be sticking a gun in your face, they may be choking you, hitting you, whatever they're doing.

This is where you wanna be. And by maintaining this contact, you can use a couple of very simple principles to not have the gun taken away from you and to make sure that you're orienting the muzzle safely and efficiently towards your threat. When the gun comes up out of the holster, you wanna make sure it stays close to your body. If you pull the gun out of the holster to here and someone sees it or flags it, in other words you catch their attention because of the movement, this hand is certainly gonna come up to grab the gun. Now you're in a wrestling match over another gun.

Maybe there's two guns in play or a knife and a gun, or he's still hitting you and Andy's holding onto your gun. This is not a good situation. If you keep the gun against your body when you draw, you maintain better retention. This person shouldn't even be aware that you have the gun at this point. Orienting the muzzle towards the threat is the next step.

When you do so, making sure that you keep the magazine well against your body and your strong side thumb up against your clothing, jacket, body, body armor, whatever it is you're wearing is incredibly important. This will allow you to orient the muzzle towards your threat based on your position, body-to-body. I don't have to look down to see that my muzzle was oriented into this torso. I can be up here, I can be getting choked, I can be blind, I can be in the dark. By coming up out of the holster, orienting, keeping the magazine well against my body and the thumb against my body, because of our contact, I know that the muzzle is oriented in a place that is going to significantly affect this target's ability to keep hurting me.

At the same time, by having the magazine well against my torso, in any position as I go around my body even if I were to shoot behind me, for some reason coming across my body, because of the position I got into during this altercation, I avoid covering myself with the muzzle. Now I could certainly cover a limb, I could cover the edge of my body, depending on my body shape and size, I might even be able to cover a portion of my torso if I had a short bowed firearm, for example. And I came back this way and I had say a larger abdomen area that was going to get covered by the muzzle. That's still better than getting shot, stabbed, choked out, or beaten to death by an adversary. These extreme close quarters contact shooting positions are dangerous.

They're not something you should enter into training lightly, you shouldn't think about their use very lightly, but if you're justified in the defensive use of lethal force and you carry a firearm and you're in this position, using these techniques is better than suffering the intent of the aggressor. Let's take a look at this now live fire and see how this entire process would work if this person did try to pull a gun out of a pocket or up from under a shirt and I was within that two arms reach situation. I'm gonna recognize the threat, I'm gonna react by lowering my center of gravity, bringing my hands up, orienting towards the threat, and then I'm gonna respond cognitively by trying to control that weapon. If I were to back up now and try to do a speed position where I'm gonna roll the gun back here and shoot, all I'm gonna at best is a bad tie. I need to control that weapon.

Whether it's a knife or a gun, a fist, a brick, a stick, before it can hurt me. So I'm gonna move in to control it. I'm probably gonna try to exert whatever force I can, whether it be a knee, or a stomp, or an elbow, or a face, or rake, whatever I can do to come in here and try to stop this guy from hurting me. At this point, if I can take the gun away, great. I've taken the gun away, I've taken him out.

Maybe this stopped him, maybe grabbing his face stopped him, maybe I tripped him and he fell down. Maybe we're lying on the ground, rolling around wrestling over the gun, pinned up against the wall, maybe he pushed me back. Whatever the situation is, that could end it or that could take it to the next level. And if the next level is your recognition of the fact that this person is a lethal threat even though you are trying to control the weapon, you're going to transition to the use of the firearm. Staying in contact is incredibly important.

If you push away and pull your gun out, all you do is give them the space, the opportunity and the warning to use this hand to try to interfere with your ability to come back with a lethal response to his lethal threat. So coming in here, I can transition, I can get my grip, I can come straight up, orient the muzzle towards the threat with the magazine well and my strong hand thumb against my body. I will then administratively bring my left hand back to the small of my back because a training scenario and we wanna be as safe as possible. I'm gonna have a safety officer check the angle when he gives me the okay, I'm gonna touch the trigger, press the trigger, release, and then think about what I would do next. Obviously this kind of a close quarter shooting is going to have a significant effect on this Target's ability to present a lethal threat to me.

That combat accurate shot might stop this scenario or it might not. If this person doesn't stop fighting and doesn't stop wrestling me, doesn't stop trying to hurt me or those I care about, I may need multiple shots. Again, check with the angle on the safety officer. Multiple close quarters shots could certainly be justified in this situation, especially if we were on the ground, rolling around, and this person continued to resist my attempts to stop them. Understanding the principles involved in extreme close quarters shooting is incredibly important.

If I were to be in this position here with the gun coming up this way and I pinned it against the wall and I have my side against this person as I try to stop them, if I couldn't, simply coming up following the body and now orienting across the front of my torso moving my hand administratively to the safety position, checking with the safety officer, touch, press. In this position, I would be doing exactly the same thing. This is a choreographed position. This is applying the same fundamental principles to the realistic position I ended up in. That's an incredibly important part of your close quarters response.

Applying fundamentals and ideals and principles is much better than rehearsing choreograph position. Another important consideration when you're in this position is making sure that that magazine well and your strong side thumb are against your body and that the muzzle of your firearm does not protrude past your torso. When you're pushed up against your threat, if your muzzle is out beyond your body and you touch against that person, what's gonna happen behaviorally is a couple of things. One, when anyone gets poked in their side, in their rib cage, they naturally react by pulling away. The other thing is, if they're in a fight and they're aware of what's going on, especially if they have reason to believe you're armed, and that gun gets poked against them, they're immediately gonna realize that's the most lethal threat.

It's sorta like going like this. If I come up here with a gun and they see it, they're gonna stop worrying about fighting me over this gun or this knife or hitting me and immediately put their attention on wrestling over this gun. Well, this gun is the only thing that might save me. I need to make sure I keep it close, keep it controlled, and keep it in against my body. If I go against this target, I might also push the gun out of battery.

And as we all know, if we push a gun out of battery, and we pull the trigger, nothing happens, right? In this case, I've made my firearm completely useless and warn him about the existence of this firearm in the first place. Now I'm fighting over a gun and I wasn't able to use it. So by staying in close, but keeping my muzzle behind the furthest extension of my body, I can bring the gun up, orient towards the threat, check my safety officer, make sure his angle is approved, touch and press and get that shot off without risking warning or disabling my own firearm. Contact shooting isn't easy.

Practicing your context shooting should only be done under direct supervision in a safe and controlled environment. Check out more videos just like this one at the Personal Defense Network.