Which is better to have for self defense,

Status
Not open for further replies.
Gary Kleck did a study that compared the chances of emerging from a criminal encounter uninjured based on the methods used for self-defense/to resist the criminal.

Resisting with a gun was the most effective and offered the best chance of remaining uninjured.

Resisting with a knife was one of the least effective methods of resisting if the goal was to remain uninjured. The only two strategies that were worse in terms of getting the defender injured were to resist with force but without having any weapon at all, or to try to frighten the criminal away without having a weapon.

Resisting with a knife was nearly twice as likely to get the defender injured as when the defender didn't try to protect himself at all.

http://www.firearmsandliberty.com/kleck.study.html
 
Staying with what JohnKSa said for a moment: 1) with a gun, you have the opportunity to stop the attacker before he gets to within arms length whereas with a knife, . . . it won't be arms length, . . . it will be much closer and 2) you can count on getting hurt if you are in a knife fight.

You will be cut, . . . you will bleed, . . . and you may be the winner only because he bleeds out first. Which means you may only survive the knife fight so you can die in the ambulance.

Knives are for spreading peanut butter, . . . cutting bread, . . . or carving turkeys (no pun intended), . . . guns were originally intended for defensive purposes.

Make mine a 1911, . . . thank you, thank you, thank you vurry much !

May God bless,
Dwight
 
1) with a gun, you have the opportunity to stop the attacker before he gets to within arms length...
Click to expand...
Maybe, maybe not. Tueller pointed out, that even when youre armed with a gun, your opponent doesnt have to be "arms length" away to be a threat. Based on the above, you do practice drawing your gun and moving off the line of attack and shooting in under a couple of seconds, right? I would say for most, and even those who do strive to make that goal, theres a very good possibility, your gun will never clear the holster before the threat is on you.

If that occurs, whats your next plan?

2) you can count on getting hurt if you are in a knife fight.
Click to expand...
Same can be said for a "any" fight, even a gun fight. That gun isnt a magic shield.

I know this is a "gun" board, and the solution to all problems is likely to be "the gun" over most other tools, but believing only your tool is the best, and by just having it along you will be protected, is a really poor mindset to get into.

Ive seen a lot of people at the range "practicing", who base their skills on shooting tight little groups on bullseye targets, but have never drawn their gun from a holster and shot quickly while moving off line. How well prepared do you really think you are against a target that is proactive and aggressively moving on you, if you dont regularly prepare for that?

Like a map, compass, and GPS are a well rounded navigation set, your "martial" skills and practice need to be as well rounded (and realistic) as possible as well. The gun is only one part of that set. If its all you got, youre likely to come up short when things go bad.


Knives are for spreading peanut butter, . . . cutting bread, . . . or carving turkeys (no pun intended), . . . guns were originally intended for defensive purposes.
Click to expand...
As weapons, I believe if you look into it, knives predate firearms by a good bit, and have proven to be quite deadly. ;)
 
Gun for me, but I have a knife resistant prosthesis on my left arm!!!:D

Sorry, I had to say it! I could also shoot though it, if required!
 
Posted by AK103K:Maybe [(with a gun, you have the opportunity to stop the attacker before he gets to within arms length)], maybe not. Tueller pointed out, that even when youre armed with a gun, your opponent doesnt have to be "arms length" away to be a threat.
Click to expand...
Then let's turn it around.

With a knife, you do not have the opportunity to stop the attacker before he gets to within arms reach,

As weapons, I believe if you look into it, knives predate firearms by a good bit, and have proven to be quite deadly.
Click to expand...
As has already been noted, that is not a criterion in self defense.
 
A lot of scenarios can be fantacized. At arms length it is already too late to make much of a decision.
Best defense in that case would to be a well conditioned, 40 year old karate expert dressed in kevlar.
I carry knife and gun. The knife isn't thought of (by me) as a weapon, it is used for simple chores. The gun is my defensive weapon. I am 35 years too late to be a well conditioned anything.
Do inform yourself on the 21 foot rule.
 
With a knife, you do not have the opportunity to stop the attacker before he gets to within arms reach,
Click to expand...
Agreed.

My point here is, that you may not always get that opportunity with your handgun either. You need to be prepared to improvise, and flexible enough to go with the flow.


As Wyosmith said...."The weapon is 1% of the equation. The warrior is 99%.

Just having the 1%, doenst make you a warrior. From some of the responses, I dont think that is understood.
 
The best defense in the situation you describe is Situational Awareness: Recognize the situation, be prepared, and best of all don't be there.
 
America has a strong cultural prejudice against the use of knives. Think about the action heroes we watched as a child on television and the movies, the hero almost never used a knife, and if he were attacked by a man with a knife, he simply disarmed him. The knife was portrayed as the tool of the weak, and the evil, and I think the stigma lingers.

If you have the time and the distance to make the draw, I can't imagine anyone taking the position that the knife would be the better tool, but at grappling distances a knife could save your life in a situation where you couldn't reach your gun.
 
I carry both, and while I do not think of my knife as my primary defensive weapon, it certainly can, at arms length, give me something to fend off the attacker and create a "space" so that I might be able to deploy my firearm.

While John's point is spot on (chances are you will injure yourself as well as the attacker) To me, it is a better advantage than no weapon at all.
 
Obviously you need one of these:
PPQbayonett.jpg


But in all seriousness, it depends on your plan. I've harvested enough critters with both to know both are very effective.

I'd say if you're trying to close distance, and grappling, a knife is probably more effective. The problem with a knife is that it's only effective at very close range.
If you're trying to stop the attacker's advance and then retreat, a gun would be better.
It would probably be easier to convince a cop/judge/jury that you were only intent on defending yourself if you used a gun. Right or wrong, people tend to associate knives with fighting rather than defending.
 
doofus47 said:
I guess it depends if you prefer to meet a threat at arms' length or farther.
Click to expand...

I was under the impression the original post was assuming you were already at arms distance for whatever reason. Say "no one should get that close to you" all you want, but the fact remains, in a civilized world, people WILL get within touching distance of you...probably every day.

There are a myriad of variables as to why you're that close, and any number of them could change your desired weapon.

And yeah, if you're in a knife fight (even if you're the only one with a knife), odds are you're going to get cut. I'd rather get cut with my own knife than shot by my own gun because I drew with the threat too close and we got into a grappling match. Although, I'd rather opt to just use my hands to create some distance if possible. And then the variables kick in again as to the best choice...

Like most situations, there's a lot of right answers (and wrong) depending on the specifics. Training and practice increase your odds to choose the right answer in more situations.
 
With all due respect to the statistics offered above, the only way to make an informed opinion on this is to do force-on-force training with a trained 'knife guy', and then hold steady while your world rocks.

Larry
 
DT Guy,

I have done quite a bit of force on force and other types of training with a trained "knife guy." My observation has been that nobody can attain that level of skill from one or two weekend classes, and very few people will put in the effort it takes. Those who have attained that level of skill know who they are, because they have worked to get there and they know what they themselves can or can't do. The rest of the folks reading this thread, the ones who are wondering – they are not that guy. They will fit easily within the norms shown in the statistics.

pax
 
Your point is taken; my point was directed, I suppose, more in terms of people assessing the risk from a knife, rather than contemplating its use for defense. "Don't bring a knife to a gunfight" works for the majority of attackers, but can go wildly astray when you encounter someone serious about a knife.

Having faced three knife attacks and managing to emerge (somehow...) without a scratch, I have to admit that a trained knife guy is still far more frightening to me than a trained marksman, if we're at arm's length. It's the difference between being shot and being disassembled, essentially.

Larry
 
I don't think anyone was claiming that you couldn't hurt your attacker with a knife.
The point was that if you do, it's probably going to turn into a knife fight, and when it does you're most likely (whether trained or not) going to get cut/stabbed.
Knives can be very effective offensive weapons, but don't work so well as defensive weapons.


Statistics are not absolute facts.
There are certainly scenarios where you'd be better off defending yourself with a knife than offering no resistance.
It's just that there are fewer of those scenarios than there are scenarios where you wind up trading the $40 in your wallet and some calls to your banks for a $8000 hospital bill and an really painful couple months.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top