Illuminating Reality

There’s an old saying around defense circles: don’t bring a knife to a gun fight.  The obvious point is that if you’re going to engage in combat, make sure you’re matched on at least an equal level with your weapon, otherwise you’re choosing to fight with an inherent disadvantage.  I should mention that a variation on this saying came from soldiers making fun of law enforcement’s obsession with sub-machine guns:  don’t bring a pistol caliber to a rifle fight.  But I digress.

There’s an interesting story going around gun circles today about a blogger who reacted to a potential mugging by tossing his hot cup of coffee at his knife wielding aggressor as he reached for and drew his concealed pop-gun (sorry, I can’t help but call tiny .25 Autos pop-guns).  You can click the link to read the full story, but I’ll just comment on some snippets here.

The blogger was walking to his car with a cup of coffee when he was approached by a man with a knife.  The blogger carries a very small, concealable Berretta Jetfire (yes, concealed carry is legal in many states).  Once he determines that the knife wielder is threatening him and is within a close enough distance, he decides to toss his hot coffee at him.  This is actually a really smart move.  People will often raise their hands when threatened as a natural reaction to show that they in turn are not a threat, but throwing the hot coffee at the guy turns the tables a bit.  He has now taken the initiative, forcing the mugger to react to him and not the other way around.  By reacting, whether that means moving out of the way or unconsciously flinching to avoid the hot coffee, this allows the blogger a split second to get ahead of the mugger’s OODA loop.  He uses that time to draw his pistol, thereby establishing himself as the dominate threat to the mugger.  In a way, this is also a form of posturing – like a lizard that puffs up its neck to scare off a potential attacker.

But the important thing is that he doesn’t fire.  The blogger makes a split-second assessment now that the tables have been turned and acknowledges that he is no longer under threat – the mugger is running away.

Why do I comment on this incident?  Well, I think this is a good example of reacting to a potentially threatening situation and turning the tables against the attacker without skipping directly to lethal force.  Instead, a lightning fast escalation of force was applied with a very clever use of a “beverage you’re about to enjoy is very hot.”