Distance and Reaction Time

You all have heard of the Tueller drill. It presupposes an attacker armed with a knife rushing a defender with a holstered handgun. Through the drill, it was determined that the shortest distance the average police officer could draw his handgun and fire on the attacker was if the attacker was 21 feet. But what about shorter distances? 

    In "Understanding the distancing and reaction time continuum" by Brian K. LaMaster at Buckeye Firearms Association, the author notes that most attackers will probably be initiating an attack at 10 feet or less. "On the average," he relates, "reaction times can vary from .4 seconds to .8 seconds. This means you have very little time to perceive their movement and react to it. Alright, you have about three-fourths of a second to react to someone who is moving towards you at ten feet away. If your reaction time is one half to three-fourths of a second, that leaves you with little or no time to react!"

    Unfortunately, the author continues, lateral movement does not create as much additional space (and time) as you might think. He conducted some tests, the gist of which is that at distances closer than 21-feet, even when attempting to create space, the defender was generally able to react fast enough to draw his handgun. For instance, moving the attacker to a 10 foot distance from the defender:

... The attacker made the first move and within one second the attacker was on the victim and had cut him at least once. After that, we had the defender move laterally by sidestepping. About one-half second into the attacker's movement the defender started his lateral movement. On the average, the defender was only able to cover about four feet of ground. Moving laterally does not created distance away from the attacker fast enough in order to survive especially when using the sidestepping method of footwork. In some instances the defender drew their gun only after being cut multiple times by the attacker.

A more experienced gunman did better, able to get off at least one shot even with the attacker at 5-feet. This was because:

When moving laterally the defender used cross-stepping method of footwork which kept the defender ahead of the attacker and out of reach for the most part. The defender was able to create about ten feet of ground before finally getting cut. I might ad that for the most part the defender only received cuts on his free side arm since he was drawing and shooting one handed! All of this happened in just a little over one and one-half seconds and it took that long only because the defender was able to create so much distance by cross-stepping.

Also, the experienced attacker was familiar with pre-attack indicators which gave him an edge. 

    At 5-feet starting distance, none of the inexperienced defenders could even get their gun out and the experienced gunman could not get a shot off. The foregoing was in normal lighting conditions. In dim light, even if a handgun could be drawn, the defenders were not able to hit their target.

    What the experiments did show, however, is that if the defender resorted to unarmed combatives first in order to give them time to create distance, and then to drawing their firearm, they did much better. 

In short, responding with unarmed combatives [to a knife wielding attacker] will keep you in the fight longer than by going straight for your gun. Going straight for your gun most of the time is not going to be a wise idea. And, if you move laterally or other directions with a step-n-drag method of footwork, you will not create enough distance to survive!

Related: But what about someone armed with a firearm? "Get to cover? A requiem for common sense." by Aaron Cowan. A good discussion of what is or is not cover (along with illustrations) with an emphases on what cover is offered by different parts of a vehicle.