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The 21'-0 Rule...........Really ?

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After listening to the Dennis Tueller interview and how he just picked 21'-0 as a random distance because that's the available space they had to work with and for no other reason......just WHO was it that determined everything CQB training related is guaged at 21'-0.........is this distance meaningless...?

 

What if Mr. Tueller only had 18'-0 to train in............?

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Right.........but I'm really not concerned with that as much as LE using it as a measuring stick for self defense legalities.......as Mr. Tueller said, I just picked it as that was the distance we had to work with......now the FBI and governmental agencies using this as the legal magic distance.........

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Well I dont know if he just got lucky or what but ive seen it tested enough times that it seems to be, as a general rule, about right. But I dont see how it can be applied as you describe. Bottom line if I have my gun out our or Im about to, it aint because someone is within 21 feet of me. Its more to do with the blood soaked 14" knife in thier hand.....

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Who cares! Its a concept like anything else. I dont take anythingI can easily test myself for granted. Maybe for you its 24 ft. For me its about 14 if Im aware and ready, 25 if Im not.

 

+1 I feel the same way, as I've tested the formula myself, and with about the same distances you mentioned. It all depends upon your situational awareness and whether or not you are tired or wired too!

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One thing to keep in mind. He said that he chose 21' not because it's what they had to work with but because that was the distance they trained with their pistols. AFAIK, the 21' distance was chosen at some point because it covered a vast majority of violent confrontations in police encounters. Given the design of most US buildings, the distances involved in traffic stops, etc. I could imagine that 21 feet or less covers a whole heck of a lot of incidents.

 

This is the interview I am going off of:

 

As for using it for self-defense legalities, who is doing that? I haven't seen the 21-foot rule in any statutory law.

 

It sounds like he experimented to determine something and came up with a pretty good jumping off point. 21 feet is round where it starts to get pretty frikin hard from a holster.

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While I agree that the Teuller drill is EXTREMELY educational, I find it almost useless from a citizen's point of view. Do you really think that you will be mugged/assaulted from 21 feet away?

 

Do you really feel that any competent criminal will be accosting you from beyond contact range? How can you give him your wallet/car keys/etc. if you are that far away?

 

I can hear all of the Tactical Teds saying that they won't allow anyone to approach within 21 feet. I challenge anyone to go through one day without letting any unknown contacts approach within 21 feet of them.

 

The real question is have you trained managing unknown contacts at 0-5 FEET, or any in fight weapon access skills for when you have lost initiative? You may have an world class drawstroke in competition, but can you do that when the bad guy is in your face, fouling your drawstroke with one hand, and shanking you with the other?

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While I agree that the Teuller drill is EXTREMELY educational, I find it almost useless from a citizen's point of view. Do you really think that you will be mugged/assaulted from 21 feet away?

 

The teuller drill is about understanding how deep the doo-doo you are standing in is once an assailant is within a certain range. From a citizen's point of view, it should make two things very clear. 1) That you need something in the way of hand to hand training dealing with weapon retention and 2) that in situations where you aren't just turned into a victim with very little warning, you have to be alert to escalation. If you have a realistic concept of how dangerous someone within about 21' is to you, yeah it is useless. If not, it is useful. If you are not sure, it is useful.

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21' you better have your shoelaces tied tight and the ability to do the backstep boogie.

 

Backstep boogie will leave you flat on your a**. Lateral movement while keeping you hips square to the assailant as much as possible is the key.

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Yup.............one of the reasons why moving laterally of the "X" is so important.

 

Backstep boogie will leave you flat on your a**. Lateral movement while keeping you hips square to the assailant as much as possible is the key.

 

Certain logical, but does it perhaps venture into excessive optimism to count on having room to move laterally? All you've got is backwards in a straight line in a significant portion of indoor attacks.

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Certain logical, but does it perhaps venture into excessive optimism to count on having room to move laterally? All you've got is backwards in a straight line in a significant portion of indoor attacks.

 

 

The problem with moving backwards is that your adversary can move faster forward than you can backward, and while moving backwards your weight ends up on your heels. This makes it relatively easy for your adversary to take you to the ground.

 

Force on Force evolutions have taught me that I don't want to be getting stabbed while standing, but I REALLY dont want to be getting stabbed while grounded with my opponent on top of me!

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I've done some exercises during some training where we had an instructor yell "go" and some students ran from the firing line (away from the targets) while the shooters fired. It was amazing how far the runners traveled by the time the target was hit. We even knew what the drill was and were drawing from an open carry holster. Imagine surprise, concealed under a shirt or grabbed from behind. Hand to hand is primary to get some space and time to draw. Hands first then edged / shooting irons.

 

If you are in a security detail, ie doing EP, Bank Guard, Guard Post, etc., you have a better control of the situation and encounter distances if you are reading and profiling people. FWIW, most people allow a perp to get within 21' before squeezing off a round. When GFH did the first SIMS demo, I watched at how many people waiting way to long before dishing out some hurt.

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The problem with moving backwards is that your adversary can move faster forward than you can backward, and while moving backwards your weight ends up on your heels. This makes it relatively easy for your adversary to take you to the ground.

 

Force on Force evolutions have taught me that I don't want to be getting stabbed while standing, but I REALLY dont want to be getting stabbed while grounded with my opponent on top of me!

 

Certainly and, again, I definetly follow the logic. Given that, is it fair to say that it probably isn't worth retreating and increasing the risk of a fall if an encounter occurs in a tight hallway where the only movement available is linear backpeddling? I'm inclined to say 'yes', unless the backwards movement is done slowly & deliberately before any attack has begun, with the intent of increasing the room you have to work with if the threat does ultimately charge.

 

Luckily, I've got simunitions this weekend, so I may just get the chance to see if I'm operating under any potentially fatal assumptions.

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The 21' is not an original idea of Tueller. I believe the FBI arrived at this distance back in the 60s as the range something like 90% of gunfights occur within. The distance was standardized in the FBI PPC course in the late 60s or early 70s. This was the qual course used by most LE agencies up to the early 80s. This course was 60 rds fired DA at 7, 15, and 25 yds and SA at 50 yds. This was the course I fired in both the police academy and when I started working for the Federal government. Most agencies went to a 25 or even a 15 yd max range in the 80s and 90s.

 

If you are attacked in a hallway or other area by someone with a knife or blunt instrument and can't move in any direction to buy time to get your gun out there is one tactic that hasn't been discussed. Its also something have done usually not intentionally. That tactic is to fall on your a**. You can kick to repel your attacker and you may take defensive cuts or blows to your legs that can be serious but your vitals are out of reach of your opponent. You also might physchologically throw your opponent off as they wouldn't be expecting you to hit the floor before they get there. Yes there are disadvantages to doing this but its something to consider. Its really just based on groundfighting techniques from martial arts.

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I don't recommend intentionally falling and relying on up kick. He will grab a leg, yank it to the side and dive on you with the knife hand leading the way.

 

I'm not claiming it will work for everyone. If you're trained in martial arts or have some other expertise in groundfighting it might be a viable option. One of the points in doing this is the attacker is most likely going to have to use both hands to get a good effect grabbing a leg. Legs are a lot stronger than arms. It also makes your attacker have to come up with a plan b.

 

When I was younger (about 100 years ago) and actively training in martial arts I did use groundfighting to fend off multiple assailants (no weapons only physical force) a few times and was able to get away okay. I. Am also personally aware of circumstances where the bad guy was going for a gun and the good guy hit the bad guy with good effect rather than go for.his gun because hitting him was faster.

 

This is a good time to bring up alternate training in self defense if you are serious about it. Every situation is not a lethal force encounter and even if you are armed you may wind up without a weapon. I noticed the last few years before I retired that in this touchy feely society today there are a lot of people (not only new LEOs) that have never been in a fight of any kind. The agency I worked for developed a continuing program of defensive tactics to address this.

 

 

 

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This topic is being discussed on another forum thanks to the mythbusters episode. Here's a dated but educational video on the subject. There is a point in the video where the LEO (defender) tries to fall on his but to defend himself. It does not go as planned for him.

 

 

"there are a lot of people (not only new LEOs) that have never been in a fight of any kind." Crazy how true that is. It is also suprisingly hard it is to find martial arts school that offer realistic self defense training.

 

This is just for laughs.

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It looks to me that the guys in the video "fell" down or were pushed down by the attacker instead of "choosing" to go down.

 

All I know is purposely hitting the ground has saved my a** more than once.

 

Other results may differ.

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