I am an avowed history buff.

I always have been, and to this day I continue to spend a great deal of my reading time on History, biography, and nonfiction type works. One of the first higher level books beyond the early reader “see dick run” type books that I read as a small child was a biography of Jim Bowie (I still have that book by the way).

At any given time I’m reading 2-3 books that are either straight history or biography. I think there is so much to learn because the world is cyclical. Everything that has happened in the past, some version of it will happen in the future. New technology and specific context might create slight differences, but more often than not we can see repeat patterns that occur over and over and over and over again because humans tend to remain the same, and tend to act/react the same.

One thing that I’ve decided to do is to write a series of articles and examine specific historical events and situations and see what we can learn from them, specifically as it relates to self preservation in protecting ourselves from outside attacks. They will all be drawn from extremely well known characters from firearms history or popular culture. All will be based on actual documentation and not guesswork.

The first one we’re going to look at is one of the most well-known and most studied murders in U. S. history. Even people who rarely look at such things know of this particular heinous criminal act, if not specific details then at least the general outline. The case I’m going to talk about are the Tate/ LaBianca murders committed by the Manson family.

I’m not going to talk about the entire situation because that is a waste of time. It is such a well-known event and there are literally hundreds of easily accessed books, articles and wiki pages that anyone can look up and find those things for themselves. I’m going to talk about one specific part during the murders because it illustrates 2 key elements that continually get talked about in the self-defense training community. I will first describe the situation and then we can analyze our takeaways.

During the first set of murders (the attack at Roman Polanski’s house), the members of the Manson family that entered the house consisted of Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, Linda Kasabian, and Patricia Krenwinkel. Watson was armed with a handgun and a knife while all of the women were armed was just knives. In the house that they broke into were Sharon Tate who was 8 1/2 months pregnant at the time, Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, and Wojciech Frykowski. The  murderers broke into the house, gathered up all their victims and put them in a large living room and while tying up some of the victims Frykowski broke away and began grappling on the ground with Susan Atkins, fighting over the knife she had. After some extended time of this Frykowski managed to break away and run outside. He managed to made it to the front porch when Watkins caught up with him, bashed him over the head multiple times with the butt of the gun and then after knocking him down, stabbed him on the ground and then finally shot him a couple times.

So what lessons can be learned by this part of the overall horrific murders? Well, it clearly illustrates two important things that directly address some things that get too simplistic a study in the self-defense world.

Firstly, in defiance of continuing overwhelming evidence to the contrary, there some people who keep trying to insist that entangled weapons fighting never happens. However, when we look at what authentically happens, rather than cherry-picking data and looking through a biased personal prism, what we see over and over again through videos, newspaper articles, documented situations, and throughout specific historical events is that entangled weapon fights happen relatively frequently. And if anyone actually stopped to think about the realities of criminal violence (rather than trying to solidify their own preferred narrative), this only makes sense. Take a second ponder this.  The criminal has to impose some level of control over you, either physically or through intimidation so they can accomplish their goal of taking from you what they are wanting. Even with the firearm they cannot stand 50 yards away and tell you to drop their wallet. While it can certainly happen that the bad guy will try to inflict harm from further out that does a directed and planned murder rather than a criminal wanting some form of payment. Far more likely, and this is backed up by thousands of actual video is them coming much, much closer. And the likelihood of an entangled weapons fight makes even more sense when you realize that the majority of criminal violent does not involve firearms. That is not my theory but actual documented fact as shown by the Bureau of Justice statistics in a multi-year study. Firearms are only used 41% of the time. That means that almost 60% of the time there are no firearms involved which means a contact weapon of some kind – whether that be a knife, a club, impact weapon, screwdriver, a socket wrench, or empty hands – is used, and by definition a contact weapon has to be used at contact range! So the range at which the majority of criminal violence occurs is exactly the same range where the entangled fight can occur. That is not an arguable point. The real world data shows this as absolute fact.

And this above situation with Tex Watkins and his victim illustrates that clearly and for anyone to see. Most of the attackers were armed with knives and the single gun present was used minimally in order to keep things quiet. So all of the murders were within contact distance of the victims, and if the victim fights back it most likely will be some sort of entanglement whether standing or on the ground. This occurs again and again regardless what people would prefer to believe. Not only are the bad guys more likely to NOT be armed with a firearm, there are a graet deal of times when the good guy cannot be armed with a gun either. Frykowski tried to fight back with the only tools available, his own body, and while he managed to escape the entanglement without harm, it was only due to the ineptitude and physical weakness of Susan Atkins, and while he struggled to succeed without the appropriate skill set, it gave Watkins time to close in and execute the victim.

The other typical self-defense trope that is clearly debunked here is the general advice to “just run away” or “make distance from the bad guy”. From the safety of your home or keyboard, this kind of advice sounds great but it usually runs into headlong into reality. Just running away is awesome if you are physically capable of moving at a speed greater than that of the attacker. But how often is that going to actually happen? Does the weak and physically inferior bad guy target the physically superior athlete as a victim, or does he specifically go after the weaker and frailer victim? In this case Frykowski did try to escape and run away but was easily caught and killed. He tried to follow the advice but Watkins moved faster and it failed him miserably and he paid the cost with his life.

Perhaps if he had some grappling skill he could have gotten the knife away from Atkins and used that to fight back more effectively, and maybe that would have bought him the time to actually make good on his attempted escape. We will never, but we do know these things did happen and reality did not match what some subject matter experts espouse.

Why do I harp on these two aspects? Because when we give black and white contextually inappropriate advice in life or death situations, we might get people killed. IF we say the entangled weapons fight does not happen, or that all you have to do is make distance and run away, we can get good people killed. If you do not understand or care that that is the case, morally and ethically you should not give advice. We have a responsibility to others if we are going to comment publicly on self defense issues. Think accordingly, and then speak only after that.

People Can Change

I know there is a general assumption that people don’t change who they are or their actions. For the vast majority of folks, that is probably true. However, I don’t think it is a fact for everyone, and I don’t believe that it is impossible for someone to alter their life. History gives us many examples. My personal favorite may be Chester Arthur.

Chet Arthur was the 21^st President and he is overlooked by historians and popular culture, and that is a shame. His story is very interesting.

He spent the better part of his life a lazy dilettante who only got a government job through the incredibly corrupt patronage system then ruling how civil jobs were granted. He was a crony of the most powerful Republican senator Roscoe Conklin and got a post as Customs Inspector. Eventually he was fired by President Rutherford Hayes who was one of the first Presidents to try to dismantle the “spoils” system.

Arthur made little contribution anywhere and was fairly lazy who liked to enjoy the fancy life. Through political wheeling and dealing by others, he ended up by the Vice President under James Garfield. Garfield was a brilliant man and incredibly moral and ethical and took on the spoils system very aggressively. After only four months in office, he was assassinated and Arthur succeeded him.

Not one person anywhere thought any good would come of this. As a follower of the patronage method of politics, everyone assumed he would reverse all of Hayes and Garfield’s actions and be a minion of the party. Instead, he made a 180 degree turn.

While he was not a friend of Garfield’s before becoming part of the administration, Arthur became an admirer and deeply respected Garfield, and rather than go back to his own ways, he decided to emulate Garfield instead.

Not only did he continue the fight, he actually made the first significant hit that began the actual replacement of the spoils system. He also was an early fighter for civil rights. HE vetoed the original Chinese Act (that stopped Asians form immigrating to the US and took away all of their fights), and he also stopped a racist attempted court martial of a black West Point Cadet. And when the Supreme Court ruled the Civil Rights act of 1875, he badgered Congress to send him legislation to replace it, but they failed.

When he left office, a famous journalist wrote “No man entered the Presidency so profoundly and widely distrusted as Chester Arthur, and no one ever retired more respected by political friend and foe alike”. That is a pretty damn good political epitaph.

So when you don’t think you can change your behavior or actions and are doomed to keep repeating bad things, think of President Arthur and be like Chet.

https://www.eventbrite.com/x/grappling-for-self-defense-2-escaping-from-underneath-tickets-154606830191

My next webinar is now official.

June 22 – 5:30pm-7:30 AZ timeGrappling For Self-Defense 2 – Escaping From Underneath

We can all agree that the nightmare grappling scenario in the street involves a bigger, stronger, more physically dominant attacker on top of us and no help in sight. Being able to get out from the bottom position is crucial for any grappling situation, whether it be self-defense or competitive sport. In this webinar, not only we will look at the essentials of understanding how to escape and improve our position, but we will give the viewer the keys to create their own escapes in the heat of the moment that work best for them.

We will examine how you may find yourself on the bottom on the ground when you have no intention of being there, how to first be safe, then look to get out, and to understand the hierarchy of goals. We will also build the appropriate skill to fight on the ground or to get back to our feet based on the contextual best practice.The first 90 minutes will be lecture and demonstration, and then we will have 30 minutes to go over any questions and clarify any point brought up. The webinar will be recorded and the recording will be available free afterwards to all paid attendees.

I am pretty agnostic on how someone carries the tools that they rely on for self-defense. Mostly that stems from the fact that I’m not a narcissist, nor am I a child that thinks that my personal context and situation are the only ones that matter and that everyone’s lives are exactly like mine. I also have no need to have my own personal decisions validated by anyone else’ choices. 

 I may find a particular handgun carry method to not fit into my life at all but that does not mean that it is a poor method in and of itself. Someone else might find it to be the best fit for their lives. I try to ignore those kind of discussions on the internet where people are told in a very black and white manner on how they should conduct their personal matters and if they don’t walk in lockstep with the original commentator then they are stupid. Or poor. Or lazy et al.Who am I to assume that while I have little use for something like a shoulder holster that someone else may find great use for it and can put it to great effect. And most importantly in the great scheme of things, what they do or do not do in no way affect my life so I don’t need to put any time or effort into thinking about it.

The only issue I have in these discussions is when someone does not think through everything and has left either a positive or negative uncovered. The most glaring example for me that comes quickly to mind is the use of ankle carry for small handguns. 

Now before we go much further I would like to make it clear that I myself have a definite use for ankle carry. There are times when my own personal environment and context dictate that the most functional means to carry the handgun is on my ankle. What I’m about to discuss in no way diminishes ankle carry as a potentially beneficial tactic.

What I’m going to talk about is a very specific part of ankle carry that many people in the Firearms self-defense community will cite as a strong reason for ankle care, when in fact it is the exact opposite.

There are many times when you will hear someone give one of the justifications to carry on the ankle is that should they find themselves on the ground and in a grappling situation, they can easily reach the gun on their ankle and use that to fix the problem. From the comfort of a keyboard and with no understanding of what grappling actually entails, this sounds like a really good tactic. And even better (and possibly more importantly for some folks), it is a way to compensate for a lack of grappling skill which means that we don’t have to spend any time rolling around on the ground with other sweaty people and potentially looking less than John Wick-like.

I know this may be very appealing, however it is completely lacking any foundation in reality whatsoever. All it takes is a month or two of training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu against a variety of training partners and you will quickly see for yourself. Any of the positions you will find yourself in whenever you don’t know anything about grappling and you were up against either someone with grappling skill or superior physical attributes ( or even worse a horrific combination of both) will graphically demonstrate this fallacy. If you’ve never put yourself in this kind of situation against someone legitimately trying to control you it is very easy to drift into Fantasyland. When you don’t know how someone is going to control you from the top you can visualize all sorts of ways to deploy firearm and have no basis in reality to support your construct. 

Please take a look at the accompanying pictures. What I would especially like to point out is that every position shown is straight out of BJJ 101. The top guy is doing nothing different or special for these pictures that he would not be doing normally at any time in any BJJ academy anywhere in the world. When I asked my demo partner to participate, I did not give him any specifics. I just told him to control me that same way he would in order to set up a finishing move such as a choke, an arm break, a shoulder dislocation, or any other kind of end state where I am either unconscious or suffering from catastrophic injury and incapacitating pain . I take the time to explain this because a ton of people will look at these illustrations and they will immediately try to rationalize them away. 

One of the ways non-grapplers attempt to minimize the usefulness of grappling in a weapons based environment is that they will say something along the lines of “BJJ guys don’t train against weapons so they will not see it coming and be totally unaware of the gun”. First of all, that is a mighty big assumption that all BJJ players do everything the same and that none of them will ever think about applying this while carrying a gun. Second of all, as you can easily see from the photos, it is irrelevant. Look at how the top guy is controlling the bottom person. In the mount depiction for instance, the top guy has the bottom guy’s back pinned solidly to the mat, and is stretching forward. Both of those prevent the bottom guy from being able to stretch his arms far enough to reach far, and with the top guy posting on his leg to strengthen the pin and choke, he blocks the bottom guy’s legs from being able to come close to the hands. Without the bottom guy having extraordinary flexibility, he is stopped from accessing the ankle gun. And, to add to the problem, desperately reaching for said gun, he does nothing to prevent the entire weight and strength of the top guy being applied against his neck. The choke will happen in 2-5 seconds at the maximum. For those who have never experienced that particular move – called an Eziquiel choke – it is excruciatingly painful in the couple of seconds of consciousness you have. I guarantee you that your ability to withstand the pain and the choke is close to non-existent. 

For the knee on belly shot, it is similar in pressure and control to the mount. In order to direct the bottom guy and to keep him in place, the top guy has to manage the arms while putting massive pressure into the bottom guy’s diaphragm. Top guy also has an easy view at everything that is going on and the freedom to move and react in any way. Even if the bottom guy can somehow manage to reach for the weapon, the top guy will see it and realize, even if he is not thinking about the gun or pays attention to that possibility, what is happening and can deal with it. And I leave it to you to decide that if the gun does come out, which of these two people is in a better place to use it? 

Finally, for the side control illustration, again take note of the top guy’s control. Bottom guy’s right arm is completely out of the game and is killed. His left arm is being underhooked which means he has little freedom to move or reach, and even if he does, the top guy is looking right towards where that gun will appear and is in a much superior place to dictate the end result. And again, the top guy even in a straight BJJ situation will look in that direction because he has to determine if he can go to a better position (i.e. mount or knee on belly) as well as seeing where he can adjust if he decides to attack the arm or neck. All standard stuff that puts him in the perfect place to deal with a weapon being deployed. None of this is being done because he knows a weapon is in play, but rather because this is how you deal with someone in BJJ. 

So let’s dispense with the demonstrably incorrect argument that the grappler will be easy prey for a trained person carrying on the ankle. It won’t happen, and only serves to delude someone and leaves them defenseless should they find themselves in that situation. Gear will not fix the problem. Software (skill set) will. 

And as I said, this is not a categorical indictment of ankle carry. I have already stated I use it for myself at times. It has a definite place of purpose for many people. However, that does not mean it solves all problems. It may make some things worse. But there is nothing wrong with that as long as we understand the pros and cons of a particular method or concept and can plan accordingly. Fantasy does not help any of us in the world of self-defense.