Real World Weapon Retention Strategy
by Jake Phillips
As a police officer, weapon retention was always a big concern. This was amplified when I actually had an attempt on my weapon one dark night, grappling in the grass, on a highway on-ramp. As a martial artist I had a mind for that type of problem solving, and over time developed my personal strategy, and plan on how to retain my weapon. This was not a technique list, but rather an overall mindset, and strategy for survival.
I have since passed that strategy on to a multitude of police cadets, when I was employed as a police academy defensive tactics instructor. This strategy kept me calm and safe, and I hope it has for many of the police cadets I trained over the years. My hope is that you might get something useful out of it, that you can incorporate into your weapon retention safety plan.
The plan was simple, and progressive in nature. I would start with the ideal, and as the situation digressed, I would implement a mitigation strategy based on what was happening. This was what I decided to do and it worked very well for me:
MAINTAIN DISTANCE:
My first objective was to maintain distance from a potential threat. Keep a reactionary gap. Attackers are often opportunists, and lack even the basic footwork, and confidence needed to maneuver and attack simultaneously. Maintaining distance works until it doesn't of course!
As a police officer, you find yourself intentionally and unintentionally in very close proximity with people. Even if you put up barriers and fences with your hands and arms(which is a good idea), a determined and aggressive attacker will work to close the distance. Once the fight starts, kicks can be useful to maintain distance, but in my opinion, being a confident/experienced kicker is important to successfully employing even simple kicks. If it is a skill you want, become proficient at kicking! But the reality is, once a fight starts you can quickly find yourself at bad breath distance from an attacker.
GET BEHIND YOUR OPPONENT:
If I found myself in a physical fight, or a situation where I had to take control of a suspect, I would always hear the words of my judo instructor in my head, “Always work to get behind your opponent. And when you get behind him, never give up that position!” This proved to be a good idea, on many occasions.
In one incident, the opponent was actually drawing his own handgun, from his hoodie pocket. This resulted in a gun disarm situation that I had to mitigate. The good news was, being behind him, and controlling his hands, made it very challenging for him to fully draw the weapon, and point it at me. There are just a lot of advantages of being behind your opponent, including the fact that he can not see what you are doing back there, making it harder to resist and counter your techniques. Get behind him and let him know you are the boss of this situation!
CONTROL THE HANDS:
If I can’t get behind my opponent, for one reason or another, I would focus on dominating at hand fighting. One thing they hammered into us at the police academy is that there is always a gun involved in a physical confrontation! Even if the suspect is unarmed, you have a gun on your hip. This “hand fighting” strategy comes down to priorities, my highest priority was never to win an unarmed fight, or to control a subject. Rather my highest priority was to accomplish the mission, while also going home safely at the end of my shift. Yes the result always ended up with the subject controlled, but if he got away, and I didn’t get shot, that was a win also.
This is a mindset that needs to be developed. It can be challenging for warriors to prioritize ANYTHING over dominating and winning, but you must redefine what winning might look like. By prioritizing maintaining accountability of his hands, it limited many of the techniques that I could employ, and ultimately made it more challenging to dominate, but it was a great trade off in my opinion. This is where modification needs to take place between how you fight without a weapon in a gym or dojo, versus how you employ those skills while having a weapon on your hip. It's a good thing to figure out!
My priority was his hands by blocking, grabbing, squeezing, trapping, or pinching them so that he couldn’t access my weapon, or potentially his own weapon. If I couldn’t control the hands, then at least accounting visually for what he was doing with them. Now that I train Muay Thai in Thailand, I wish I knew then what I know now, regarding the ability to neutralize an opponent's limbs in the clinch. Judo was great for almost all of my needs, but the way the limbs are controlled in the clinch in Muay Thai is a beautiful thing, and would have been very useful to me for weapon retention.
CONTROL THE WEAPON:
If I was unable to control the hands, there was a good chance the opponent was more skilled and more dominant than me. Uh-ou! Despite how much time I have trained in martial arts, those guys are definitely out there! Luckily as a former Detective, I was trained to recognize clues, and when I can’t control his hands, I recognize that as a big and important clue that I need to pay attention to! Perhaps this guy may be better than me! Or it's possible we are on a more equal fighting skill level, but that is a VERY dangerous thing when a weapon is involved! Because losing a fight where a gun is involved is just not a reasonable thing to allow to happen. You have a responsibility to yourself and others to stay in control of that weapon!
At this point, my priority would shift from controlling or dominating the subject, to a more defensive mindset of controlling and protecting my weapon. This might involve putting both hands on my holstered gun to ensure that he can not grab it. A basic principle with gun disarming is that “two hands on the gun wins” so I wanted to be the first to get two hands on the gun.
Prioritizing weapon safety might take many forms, this might just mean angling my body in a way that makes it harder or impossible for him to grab it. Or I might need to establish a post with my outstretched arm to keep him at a distance. The point is it wasn’t about winning or dominating at that point, it became about not being hurt or seriously injured.
The fact is, he may not be trying to hurt me at that point, he may be using his skills to try to get away. But if I can not dominate and control him safely, I’m more inclined to prioritize the security of my weapon and give him that space to escape. If he runs, I can foot chase him or not, that is up to me, based on a multitude of factors. But what I don’t want to happen is to get so fixated on controlling him, or even dominating in a fight, that I lose sight of the security of my weapon.
CONSIDER LETHAL FORCE:
But it may not be that simple, I may be losing this fight! I may be in danger of having my weapon taken, getting knocked unconscious, or otherwise seriously injured or killed. I told myself if I ever felt like I was unable to secure my weapon or I can’t intelligently protect myself and protect my weapon at the same time, I would consider if the weapon was needed to solve the problem, to avoid death or serious physical injury. My priority is now on what my judo instructor would call, “Getting out of trouble.”
To be clear, if an opponent was throwing bombs at my head, that is a situation where I am not in control of his hands! Does that mean I automatically draw and fire my weapon? No, that is not what I am saying. What I am saying is there is a checklist going off in my head at that point.
Internal dialog is so critical in surviving confrontations in my opinion. Perhaps it isn’t always internal dialog, but sometimes a conscious awareness, or even unconscious awareness of priorities and tasks. The dialog is, “Is my weapon safe?” Maybe it is, perhaps it is a long way from his grasp. Great, we might be good at the moment, but the awareness and focus is there.
The next question is, “Do I need to employ my weapon?” Maybe the answer is no, at this point. Maybe I can still safely work to control his hands and get behind him. But the point is, when I am in front of my opponent and unable to control his hands, I start prioritizing weapon security and considering how to best not be seriously injured or be killed. That may mean blocking a punch and keeping the weapon away from him, it may mean putting both hands on the weapon to secure it, or even drawing the weapon and giving verbal commands, or shooting the weapon. It all depends, but the goal is the same.
The bottom line is when I am carrying a weapon, getting knocked out, or having my weapon taken from me is just not something that I will allow to happen. Luckily with training you can dominate most physical confrontations and do it in a way that keeps your weapon safe. But there are skilled and determined attackers out there. If you face this type of threat, where your plan A, B, or even C is not working, you need to have a plan D to insure your safety. This plan has to be implemented in a timely manner, because fights are competitive. Implementing the plan in a timely manner requires benchmarks for pivoting your strategy and goals, keeping the highest priority in mind, which is to accomplish the mission and go home safely at the end of the day. Just like in retirement or boxing timing is critical, if you pivot when the situation pivots it will be difficult for an attacker to hurt or kill you with your own weapon.
To be clear this is not “the way” to protect yourself from having your weapon taken from you. It is just a strategy and mindset that worked very well for me in my career and I wanted to share it with you. I believe that people of various skill levels can employ this progressive strategy with success. As always, be safe and thanks for reading.
I have since passed that strategy on to a multitude of police cadets, when I was employed as a police academy defensive tactics instructor. This strategy kept me calm and safe, and I hope it has for many of the police cadets I trained over the years. My hope is that you might get something useful out of it, that you can incorporate into your weapon retention safety plan.
The plan was simple, and progressive in nature. I would start with the ideal, and as the situation digressed, I would implement a mitigation strategy based on what was happening. This was what I decided to do and it worked very well for me:
MAINTAIN DISTANCE:
My first objective was to maintain distance from a potential threat. Keep a reactionary gap. Attackers are often opportunists, and lack even the basic footwork, and confidence needed to maneuver and attack simultaneously. Maintaining distance works until it doesn't of course!
As a police officer, you find yourself intentionally and unintentionally in very close proximity with people. Even if you put up barriers and fences with your hands and arms(which is a good idea), a determined and aggressive attacker will work to close the distance. Once the fight starts, kicks can be useful to maintain distance, but in my opinion, being a confident/experienced kicker is important to successfully employing even simple kicks. If it is a skill you want, become proficient at kicking! But the reality is, once a fight starts you can quickly find yourself at bad breath distance from an attacker.
GET BEHIND YOUR OPPONENT:
If I found myself in a physical fight, or a situation where I had to take control of a suspect, I would always hear the words of my judo instructor in my head, “Always work to get behind your opponent. And when you get behind him, never give up that position!” This proved to be a good idea, on many occasions.
In one incident, the opponent was actually drawing his own handgun, from his hoodie pocket. This resulted in a gun disarm situation that I had to mitigate. The good news was, being behind him, and controlling his hands, made it very challenging for him to fully draw the weapon, and point it at me. There are just a lot of advantages of being behind your opponent, including the fact that he can not see what you are doing back there, making it harder to resist and counter your techniques. Get behind him and let him know you are the boss of this situation!
CONTROL THE HANDS:
If I can’t get behind my opponent, for one reason or another, I would focus on dominating at hand fighting. One thing they hammered into us at the police academy is that there is always a gun involved in a physical confrontation! Even if the suspect is unarmed, you have a gun on your hip. This “hand fighting” strategy comes down to priorities, my highest priority was never to win an unarmed fight, or to control a subject. Rather my highest priority was to accomplish the mission, while also going home safely at the end of my shift. Yes the result always ended up with the subject controlled, but if he got away, and I didn’t get shot, that was a win also.
This is a mindset that needs to be developed. It can be challenging for warriors to prioritize ANYTHING over dominating and winning, but you must redefine what winning might look like. By prioritizing maintaining accountability of his hands, it limited many of the techniques that I could employ, and ultimately made it more challenging to dominate, but it was a great trade off in my opinion. This is where modification needs to take place between how you fight without a weapon in a gym or dojo, versus how you employ those skills while having a weapon on your hip. It's a good thing to figure out!
My priority was his hands by blocking, grabbing, squeezing, trapping, or pinching them so that he couldn’t access my weapon, or potentially his own weapon. If I couldn’t control the hands, then at least accounting visually for what he was doing with them. Now that I train Muay Thai in Thailand, I wish I knew then what I know now, regarding the ability to neutralize an opponent's limbs in the clinch. Judo was great for almost all of my needs, but the way the limbs are controlled in the clinch in Muay Thai is a beautiful thing, and would have been very useful to me for weapon retention.
CONTROL THE WEAPON:
If I was unable to control the hands, there was a good chance the opponent was more skilled and more dominant than me. Uh-ou! Despite how much time I have trained in martial arts, those guys are definitely out there! Luckily as a former Detective, I was trained to recognize clues, and when I can’t control his hands, I recognize that as a big and important clue that I need to pay attention to! Perhaps this guy may be better than me! Or it's possible we are on a more equal fighting skill level, but that is a VERY dangerous thing when a weapon is involved! Because losing a fight where a gun is involved is just not a reasonable thing to allow to happen. You have a responsibility to yourself and others to stay in control of that weapon!
At this point, my priority would shift from controlling or dominating the subject, to a more defensive mindset of controlling and protecting my weapon. This might involve putting both hands on my holstered gun to ensure that he can not grab it. A basic principle with gun disarming is that “two hands on the gun wins” so I wanted to be the first to get two hands on the gun.
Prioritizing weapon safety might take many forms, this might just mean angling my body in a way that makes it harder or impossible for him to grab it. Or I might need to establish a post with my outstretched arm to keep him at a distance. The point is it wasn’t about winning or dominating at that point, it became about not being hurt or seriously injured.
The fact is, he may not be trying to hurt me at that point, he may be using his skills to try to get away. But if I can not dominate and control him safely, I’m more inclined to prioritize the security of my weapon and give him that space to escape. If he runs, I can foot chase him or not, that is up to me, based on a multitude of factors. But what I don’t want to happen is to get so fixated on controlling him, or even dominating in a fight, that I lose sight of the security of my weapon.
CONSIDER LETHAL FORCE:
But it may not be that simple, I may be losing this fight! I may be in danger of having my weapon taken, getting knocked unconscious, or otherwise seriously injured or killed. I told myself if I ever felt like I was unable to secure my weapon or I can’t intelligently protect myself and protect my weapon at the same time, I would consider if the weapon was needed to solve the problem, to avoid death or serious physical injury. My priority is now on what my judo instructor would call, “Getting out of trouble.”
To be clear, if an opponent was throwing bombs at my head, that is a situation where I am not in control of his hands! Does that mean I automatically draw and fire my weapon? No, that is not what I am saying. What I am saying is there is a checklist going off in my head at that point.
Internal dialog is so critical in surviving confrontations in my opinion. Perhaps it isn’t always internal dialog, but sometimes a conscious awareness, or even unconscious awareness of priorities and tasks. The dialog is, “Is my weapon safe?” Maybe it is, perhaps it is a long way from his grasp. Great, we might be good at the moment, but the awareness and focus is there.
The next question is, “Do I need to employ my weapon?” Maybe the answer is no, at this point. Maybe I can still safely work to control his hands and get behind him. But the point is, when I am in front of my opponent and unable to control his hands, I start prioritizing weapon security and considering how to best not be seriously injured or be killed. That may mean blocking a punch and keeping the weapon away from him, it may mean putting both hands on the weapon to secure it, or even drawing the weapon and giving verbal commands, or shooting the weapon. It all depends, but the goal is the same.
The bottom line is when I am carrying a weapon, getting knocked out, or having my weapon taken from me is just not something that I will allow to happen. Luckily with training you can dominate most physical confrontations and do it in a way that keeps your weapon safe. But there are skilled and determined attackers out there. If you face this type of threat, where your plan A, B, or even C is not working, you need to have a plan D to insure your safety. This plan has to be implemented in a timely manner, because fights are competitive. Implementing the plan in a timely manner requires benchmarks for pivoting your strategy and goals, keeping the highest priority in mind, which is to accomplish the mission and go home safely at the end of the day. Just like in retirement or boxing timing is critical, if you pivot when the situation pivots it will be difficult for an attacker to hurt or kill you with your own weapon.
To be clear this is not “the way” to protect yourself from having your weapon taken from you. It is just a strategy and mindset that worked very well for me in my career and I wanted to share it with you. I believe that people of various skill levels can employ this progressive strategy with success. As always, be safe and thanks for reading.