Defending Others Against Edged-Weapon Attacks

Please note that we are NOT the original writers of this blog post. All credit goes to the original writers. Find the original post as published at this link: https://www.usconcealedcarry.com/blog/defending-others-against-edged-weapon-attacks/

A crazed offender was stabbing his female companion to death inside of his car as he drove down the street. After the vehicle ran off the road, good Samaritans came to the aid of the occupants. However, the license holder merely fired warning shots to stop the attack. Since the stabber was not impressed and continued to assault, other unarmed men had to subdue him with their bare hands. The victim died.

1. While a handgun can be stripped from a possible assailant by a person with the right training under the right circumstances, the same can not be said of an edged weapon. Unless you are incredibly skilled and lucky, you’re going to get cut — perhaps severely — when you try to strip an attacker of an edged weapon. An edged weapon attack may come from all directions: from down the head or the legs or groin up. It can come from the sides in an almost unlimited number of angles. And double the angles if an attacker uses a double-edged weapon. You don’t have to be stabbed in the center to suffer a collapse from blood loss. Death can easily come from slashing attacks.
2. An edged weapon never runs out of ammo.

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If you choose to intervene in (and succeed in quitting ) a knife assault like the one in Maricopa County, keep a few things in mind:

Intervening in an Attack

Ask most cops whether they would rather face a close-range assailant with an edged weapon or a close-range assailant with a handgun and they will tell you they dread the knife more. Those fears aren’t unfounded:

Edged-Weapon Attacks Are No Joke

1. You will have hardly any time to save the life of the other individual. A 1- to 2-inch arterial slice will immediately turn fatal. It doesn’t take a major edged weapon to do that. Don’t waste time with warning shots or warnings.
2. You need to move in close to deliver accurate fire which won’t endanger the person you’re attempting to save. To obtain that safe angle of passion, you will have to position quickly.
3. Your necessary close proximity to the assault will put you in danger of being cut. Know about that potential and plan to move, reposition and respond. Don’t attempt to pull the attacker. That’s a sure method of getting cut.
4. The bullets you deliver may have no visible effect on the assailant. Plan to shoot multiple shots. Headshots may be required to end things.

After working undercover in narcotics and liquor investigations, Scott W. Wagner settled down to be a criminal justice professor and police academy commander.

The post Defending Others Against Edged-Weapon Attacks appeared on USCCA.
Among the all-time best law enforcement training movies, Surviving Edged Weapons from Calibre Press, functions as a great example of what I’m talking about. Although this video was made in the late 1980s, it is timeless and comprises gut-wrenching, firsthand accounts by officers who were attacked with edged weapons. Your defensive training should include how to get ready for attacks of this type.
To put it clearly, a proximal edged-weapon assault is just as dangerous and potentially deadly as a proximal firearms assault. Today, edged weapons are often downplayed concerning deadliness — unless the assailant is wielding an axe or a machete. Often, law enforcement is wrongly pressured to use Tasers instead of firearms to try and subdue people. A Taser isn’t equal to a knife and should only be deployed in the ideal circumstances (with different officers supplying deadly force backup — a luxury that civilians don’t have). That leaves a handgun as your main and most effective weapon with which to defend others, or yourself, against edged-weapon attacks.