Draw, Move or Both

A normal Saturday at the mall, a busy parking lot filled to capacity with cars; Dozens and dozens of shoppers about, a glimmer catches your eye, is it a shopping cart, a cell phone…GUN.  Threat 25 meters away, what do you do?  Draw, let the bullets fly and what happens happens.  Move to cover, possibly run away, or move and draw cooking off rounds as you go.

How fast can you move and draw your weapon simultaneously?  Can you do two things as fast as one?  How many bullets will be flying towards you in the time it takes to draw?  How can you make yourself more difficult to hit?  Are you really going to fire rounds while running away, in a crowded parking lot? 

All of the aforementioned questions will undoubtedly flash through your mind and must be addressed (best to be thought out before the situation arises), but which technique is best?   Draw Move or Both.

First option, move and draw.  Movement will make you a more difficult target to hit, but are you moving the fastest you can while performing another task? ­­­­­­­ Will your draw be the smoothest it can while moving and will your shots be the most accurate while moving?  The answer to all questions is no.  Moving will make it more difficult for you to get hit but moving will also make it equally difficult for you to shoot and hit your target; it’s simple, with an increase of difficulty comes a decrease of accuracy.  Bad guys have no such restrictions.  Accuracy is of no concern to them, they will continue to fire until stopped or their pistol runs dry.  While lying down a high volume of inaccurate fire is a necessary evil for Soldiers of [insert your favorite war here], it cannot be tolerated by citizens in a busy mall parking lot.  Shooting from the hip while making a dynamic movement seems to be the preferred technique of enemy fighters around the world (invariably from watching too many VHS copied 80s movies starring Stallone), it doesn’t work (regardless what your local hillbilly says).

Next option is another favorite of movie stars filled with too much bravado, Draw.  While “Make my day, Punk” works in Hollywood, pushing the limits of your training with your life on the line is not the preferred technique.  Game day is no time to take unnecessary risks, if you’re wrong, you don’t get paid, get the hot model wife or try again because you’re dead.  How fast can you draw from concealment?   [Insert time here]  Every second it takes you to react, draw your weapon, acquire the target and fire, is a second worth of bullets flying towards your head.  Simply put, standing and trading bullets produces three outcomes: you get shot, bad guy gets shot or you both get shot (two of those are bad).  Avoiding getting shot is paramount to winning the gun fight and winning is all that matters.  Thus you must give yourself the best chance of not getting shot and winning the gun fight

Shooting or not shooting is irrelevant to winning; both have the possibility of achieving your goal, winning the fight.  Therefore, if your threat is 25 meters away moving, moving to cover or running away will put you in the best possible situation to win; by moving you make yourself more difficult to hit placing time and distance between yourself and the threat.  Distance and time are your allies.   Safe to say most thugs aren’t dedicating time honing the fundamentals of shooting a gun (There are not many Mike Seeklanders out mugging people).  The more time you have to draw your weapon and acquire the target the more likely you are to stop the threat; in order to obtain more time you must create space, to have space you must move.  Moving to cover provides you protection from bullets and gains the initiative; if the threat charges there will be an easy shot by leaning from behind cover and chopping him down.  A flanking movement allows time to run the opposite direction or to set an ambush as he makes his approach.

Moving first, gives you the best chance of winning the fight.  Moving provides you with space and time which are both critical pieces to the puzzle of survive and win.  There is no honor when fighting for your life; you either die or win and WINNING IS EVERYTHING!