P1 First Person: The 21-foot rule revisited

By Mike Rayburn
Smith & Wesson Academy

First, let’s get one thing straight, most bad guys are not going to come running at you from across the Wal-Mart parking lot with an edged weapon. This “rule” — which is more of a tactic — is not realistic. The original video was put together by an officer by the name of Tueller, to demonstrate the safe distance needed in dealing with an individual armed with an edged weapon. It was determined that a minimum of twenty-one feet was needed in order to draw and fire one round into a charging bad guy armed with an edged weapon.

Has the drill been effective in making officers more aware of the dangers of edged weapons, and the distances needed to safely handle these individuals? Sure, but again, this is not realistic. In most cases you will not have a twenty-one foot gap in between you and the bad guy. An edged weapon is a personal weapon. It cannot be deployed from twenty-one feet, ten feet, or even five feet away. The bad guy has to get in close in order to make his weapon effective.

More importantly is the fact that as law enforcement officers we don’t deal with people, suspects or citizens, from 21 feet away. The very nature of our job is up close and personal. Do we get on the PA system and order the driver out of his vehicle, have him place his license on the curb, and then order him back into his vehicle, just so we can maintain our distance? How about handcuffing someone from ten feet away?

Think back to the last time you were involved in a situation where the pucker factor was running a little high, a situation where if it had “gone south” it would have been bad for you. I’m willing to bet you were in close to that person.

The very nature of our job brings us in close proximity to the people we deal with on a daily basis. If this is a fact of our chosen profession, then shouldn’t we have a tactic for dealing with it? We could just tell everyone to stay back twenty-one feet, but again, this is not realistic. However, what is realistic; is hip shooting.

Hip shooting, or shooting from the hip to be more accurate, will allow you to quickly deploy your sidearm against a bad guy, even at very close distances. It is fast, easy to do, and with just a little practice, can be very effective against an adversary, even one that is rapidly advancing towards you to assault you. You first have to realize that you will not have any type of traditional sight picture on your firearm. If you try to take the time to raise your firearm up to eye level for a traditional front and rear, or just a flash front sight picture, you’re as good as stabbed from ten feet away.

Ten feet away! How did the officer allow himself to get so close? To understand this, we need to look at the facts of an edged weapon attack. The average distance in an edged weapon attack against law enforcement officers in the United States is ten to twelve feet, not twenty-one. Why is this? It goes right back to the edged weapon being a personal weapon, and the distances we are forced to contact people at while we are performing our duties as law enforcement officers.

The most commonly used edged weapon against law enforcement, is the kitchen variety steak knife. Why is this? It’s because of availability, no other reason. Although there is a huge knife subculture here within the United States, as well as in other countries, your average Joe Dirtbag isn’t going to go out and spend good crack money on a knife. He’ll grab whatever is available, and that usually ends up being a knife out of the kitchen drawer.

According to the FBI’s report from 2006 on Officers Killed or Assaulted in the Line of Duty, 1,047 law enforcement officers were assaulted with an edged weapon. In the ten-year period covering 1997 – 2006, 10,625 officers were assaulted with edged weapons. That is a staggering number to consider, but not really when you look at the facts. Take a look at the number of edged weapon assaults you handle at your own agency. I’m willing to bet the number of edged weapon assaults far outnumber firearm assault calls you handle. This has a lot to do with availability as well, but you also have to take into account that knife subculture we talked about earlier.

Think about the number of knives and other edged weapons you’ve taken off of suspects in your searches or pat downs, versus the number of firearms you’ve actually found on bad guys. If you’re out there on patrol, working the streets, you see these weapons all the time. How many times during the course of your week have you taken a knife, box cutter, or utility tool from someone? These weapons are out there, and we need a realistic tactic to deal with them. That realistic tactic is hip shooting, because standing 21 feet away from someone, in most cases, is not an option.

Remember this simple phrase, elbow up, elbow down. As you grab your handgun, undoing any snaps or other security devices, draw your firearm raising your elbow straight up. Now drop your elbow right down to your side, elbow up, elbow down. Lock your elbow right into your hip area, and tighten up your arm and shoulder area. This will allow you to absorb the recoil from the firearm. Your handgun will want to naturally go towards the centerline of your body. This is a good thing, as this is where we want it to be. Trying to keep the gun off to your side is unnatural, and it will not allow you to take advantage of the natural point you have with your body. Famed NYPD officer Jim Cirrilo used this technique himself.

Try this in a full size mirror, with a safe and empty gun of course, to see how this works. Align the barrel of the gun on the centerline of your body in the mirror, and see how much more natural it feels than trying to keep the gun off to your side. Once the firearm in aligned with the centerline of your body, wherever you turn, or pivot to, the gun will be right on target. Use a plastic training gun and practice with your training partner. Practice that elbow up, elbow down tactic. Have your partner give you some instant feedback on your technique, and whether or not you’ve aligned your gun on him.

Get a second training partner, and pivot back and forth between the two, keeping the gun barrel on the centerline of your body as you pivot. Once again, you’ll see that wherever you turn or pivot to, the gun will be aligned for a perfect shot.

Since all firearms tactics should be practiced with live fire, head out to the range to practice this technique. Set up one target first, and then progress to using two targets. Stand about five feet away from your target, make sure it’s a paper target, and you’re far enough away from your backstop as to avoid any splatter coming back at you, and practice your technique. Draw and fire one round into the target.

You’ll notice that your round doesn’t strike the bad guy in his center mass area, that’s ok. At this distance all we’re looking for is hits on a man-sized target. Center mass is good, but we’re in close and we want to get this guy off of us as quickly as we can, to stop the threat. That means getting some lead on target as fast as you can. Realistically speaking, you’re not going to have the time, or the room, to try and get a center mass hit. Even if you’re not lucky enough to hit something vital, like his lower spinal column, you’ll still slow him down a little until you can get a better shot.

Take your second target, and place it a couple of feet off to the right of your first target, angled towards you. Draw your handgun using the elbow up, elbow down technique, and fire one round into the first target in front of you. Now quickly pivot to your right and fire one round into the second target. After you’ve done this a couple of times, practice pivoting back to the first target, and place a round into it.

Take this drill to the next level using Simunitions or Airsoft. Have your training partner suit up in his protective gear and stand ten to twelve feet in front of you, (the average distance in a knife attack against law enforcement). Without any notice, or warning, your training partner will charge and attack you with a rubber knife. Use that elbow up, elbow down technique and draw your Simunitions gun and place four or five rounds into your knife-wielding partner as you move laterally to your strong side.

Why our strong side? Because under stress that’s the side we’ll move to. Having done this drill close to 500 times, only four students have ever moved to their off side. Just that little bit of added stress of someone attacking you with a rubber knife from a short distance, will bring out the natural, instinctive, reactions in anyone. We naturally move to our strong sides.

If you don’t believe this, get up right now from wherever you’re sitting, and walk over to a set of stairs, begin to ascend them, and then come back.

Did you do it? Good. I bet your first foot up was your strong-side foot.

Take a different route to those same stairs, and your strong side foot will still be the first one up. We do this naturally, and subconsciously, so therefore we will do the same under stress.

The threat of an edged weapon attack is real; because of this we need realistic tactics, not some “21- foot Rule.” Hip shooting is that realistic tactic.

Michael T. Rayburn is a 30 + year veteran of Law Enforcement, and is currently an Adjunct Instructor for Smith & Wesson. Mike is the author of four books, Advanced Vehicle Stop Tactics, Advanced Patrol Tactics, Combat Gunfighting, & Combat Shotgun. His video, Instinctive Point Shooting with Mike Rayburn, is a top seller in the Law Enforcement and combat shooting communities. Mike can be reached at www.combatgunfighting.com.