YOU DID IT! HE DROPS THE KNIFE! WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
Convergence knife. Knife combatives. Converging the law and rules of engagement with knife training. If you achieve a disarm, and the criminal drops the knife, ever wonder what to do next, I mean legally? What might some legal issues be? It could be tricky, depending upon the who, what, where, when, how and why of your situation. You might ask:
-Who Knife?
-What Knife?
-Where Knife?
-When Knife?
-How Knife?
-Why Knife?
You could write a book about these big and small answers. (Wait a minute. I already have! See below.)
I do want to start off here by either introducing or reminding everyone that knife training in ANY martial art or combatives is usually done situation-free. Just moves and drills. No surrounding story. No drama. No trauma. Some duel just for fun and history. Just know where you fit in the big picture.
I usually grimace when I see these video clips of instructors absolutely butchering unarmed opponents or Bob dummies. I know the videos are only slices of life and I can only hope their actual courses have great depth in law, crime, war and situations. But, I also know that some of them are depthless schools for thugs and future prison inmates who will act reflexively and thoughtlessly as they were taught from muscle memory. Using a knife, even in what seems to be a perfect survival, self-defense predicament, still has a terrible stigma and legal expenses with consequences.
Let’s burrow down on only on this one topic. The disarm of a knife and what happens next. Probably the most useful, practical disarm of a knife is an impact disarm. Much training smartly centers on this common sense category – whacking the head, the neck, his weapon bearing limb hard with your hand, forearm knife (or stick, or whatever). He loses the knife!
Now the knife is grounded. Man disarmed. His lethality greatly diminished? You charge in to kill, kill, KILL!??? As taught and seen from macho instructors? Slice and dice. Blood and guts? What looks so cool on film can be your ticket to the penitentiary.
So one of the big “where” questions is “where did this fight, this disarm happen?” London, England? Berkeley California? Any jurisdiction of liberal nitwits? There, people will say,Are there prosecutors, courts and juries around the world that will prosecute and even persecute you for stabbing and slashing open this suddenly, newly disarmed-unarmed person? Oh, yes there are. In many naive eyes too, a dropped knife is no longer a lethal force situation.
“but he no longer holds a knife. The lethality is over.”
This action could become an arrest and expensive troubles for you and maybe a death sentence? Also the legal system will investigate the name and material in the knife course you take and the name of your knife. Some knife courses are horribly named! Why is it called “Berserk!” Or, why does it have a prison-related name? And some knives names too!
But I like to remind people that the dropped loose knife is just right there on the ground, nearby to some extent on the floor, and all the bad man needs to do is pick it up (in a second or two) and it is a lethal force situation again. Instantly. So, remember that when explaining yourself later. A knife at your and his feet is still a very deadly dangerous “lunge and reach” situation. Juries need to hear this possibility. They are just flat out dumb about these things.
How about YOU picking up the knife versus this newly disarmed person? Needless to say, this suddenly disarmed man might be a young, muscular giant compared to you, and still very much an overwhelming, if even a “serious bodily injury” and a deadly threat. You are compelled to save yourself and use the knife.
Can you “get out of Dodge?” the legal system will ask. If not, are you trained, is your system smart enough to include “less than lethal” applications of knife use? Mine, Survival Centric: Knife ALWAYS has. Since the 1990s. Methods to wound-only. Trying to wound only. Concerned about wounding only as an option. Are these things in your knife program? Your knife doctrine? Or do you look, act, talk, teach and present yourself as a killing thug? A military only teacher? Does your instructor?
In this regard there are three kinds of knife instructors:
- One is shallow and oblivious to the law, crime and war and just teaches martial artsy drills and dueling. Which I feel are dangerous, because practitioners need to know how to stay out of jail and lawsuits.
- The other is the shallow thug version, showing death and destruction, oblivious to the law, oblivious to the situation. The oh-so-tough guy, that is legally dumb, leaving you the same.
- The third includes before, during and after, mature situational survival. You may never reach mature self-control, use of force, but you have tried, and your system tries and has methods to do so.
A well proven idea is that the mere presentation of a knife (or pistol) versus armed or unarmed attackers have scared many a criminal off over half the time, in U.S. Department of Justice/FBI studies year after year. The average was 69% of the time, the solo criminal leaves.
In summary, when his knife hits the ground, what will you do? leave it there and fight? Kick it out-of-range? Let him pick it up? Interrupt his pick-up? “Enquiring jury minds” want to know. Be prepared to explain yourself, with logic. Situations! Details. Motives. The police. The prosecutors. The court. The jury. Location, location, location, as they say. The fact that your system and you are inherently worried about use of force issues may help you in a legal jam. For almost 30 years I’ve worked criminal cases. I have testified in weapon’s cases for decades and stand ready to do so in yours.
There is a story, a drama and a trauma with EVERY single act of violence. You have to survive the legal aftermath too. Pick your knife course, your knife instructor. Stay the heck out of trouble.
Read the knife book! Find it, click here….
