I recently wrote an article about keeping your self-defense handgun without a round in the chamber, so-called “Israeli Carry”.

My opinion is I think you should keep a round in the chamber, because there’s no reason not to given that modern guns are so mechanically safe.

Some people chimed in to defend carrying without a round in the chamber. Some points were well thought out, but there still appear to be many people that think they will possibly h

ave time to recognize a life-or-death situation … and then … have time to rack the slide before defending themselves.


Today, I want to look at a video making the rounds on the internet — from Israel no less — that shows how quickly a situation can turn deadly and the disadvantages of “Israeli Carry” in such a situation.

The Palestinian-On-Israel “Crash and Stab” Campaign of Late 2015

Maybe these things are happening all the time in Israel and we’re just now reading about it because we have the internet, but in late 2015 in Israel there has been a wave of violence, mostly in Jerusalem.

As we go to press, Palestinians have killed three Israelis and injured up to 22 in attacks using cars, knives, guns, and meat cleavers.

Today, we’re going to look at this video …

Israeli police were checking out suspicious characters at Damascus gate.

In the picture below you can see the officer in the middle of three standing officers, holding a blue object, which are the papers the seated guy (in a blue jacket) gave him.

He appears to hand the papers back and then question the seated person more …

The seated man stands up, casually pulling up his pants and adjusting his clothing as he looks away from the police officer and his two friends that are questioning him.

As soon as he gets standing, it appears that he drew a knife with his right hand from somewhere on the back of his body …

And in way less than a second, he reaches out with his left hand and grabs the officer’s head, and brings the knife up getting read to plunge it down into his neck and upper torso.

You can see the officer’s friend has already started to react to the first stab by reaching out with his hand …

But it’s too late as you can see the officer’s body react to the stabbing in this freeze frame …

But the attacker loses his left hand hold on the officer’s head, and the officer backpeddles away from the attacker — making too much space to get stabbed anymore and the attacker follows him as the other officers react.

Now, he’s turned to face the other officers …

And it’s interesting to note that it appears at last 3 of these 5 other officers look like they’re reaching for their handguns to begin their drawstroke …

It looks like the officer directly in front of the attacker throws a front kick at the attacker (that the attacker parries with the knife in his hand), as the officer behind him draws his sidearm …

Pay close attention to the officer who drew his gun first (it appears)– that I drew a red arrow pointing at. You can see he has the gun out of the holster at this point and it’s even pointing in the direction of the bad guy. At this point he could of begun shooting …

Except that, it appears he is carrying Israeli style and had to rack the slide on his handgun to chamber a round before he could engage the attacker. Again, look at the red arrow I drew you can see him turning the gun horizontal, and reaching over with his support hand to rack the slide with a slingshot grip (if you watch the video in slow motion, and pay careful attention, you can see the whole process)

In the time that it took for him to rack the slide and then reacquire the sight picture on the attacker, the attacker had moved quite a bit and started going towards the other officers …

Of course he eventually shoots, and they all swarm him and shoot him to the ground eventually …

What Can We Learn From This?

Number one, it appears that it’s still popular to carry Israeli style in Israel. Go figure …

Number two, I don’t know much about the equipment that Israeli Police in Jerusalem carry, but these cops were kitted out. Here’s a picture of two others that I found online and it appears that drop leg holsters are popular (it’s what the guy who I pointed arrows at in the video was wearing as well).

I point this out because I can almost guarantee you that your concealed carry draw is slower than drawing from a drop-leg holster like this.

Which means in a life or death situation, the time it takes you to

1. Realize you need your gun

2. Draw your gun

Is going to be a lot slower than even this officer was able to react.

And finally …

In Self-Defense Situations, You Often Find Yourself Way Behind The Power Curve

In fact, this video is a perfect example of knife stabbings …

Why?

Because, contrary to movies or what is commonly taught as knife defense in most martial arts schools — you generally find out you’re in a knife fight after you realize someone is stabbing you.

You see, most traditional martial arts train for knife defense with a “start” position like this — where the guy with the knife is standing a couple feet away — holding the knife, letting you know “Hey! I’m about to stab you! Are you ready?”

In real life, this is usually the “start position” for defending against a knife attack — when you realize there’s a guy who’s stabbing you :

In other words, you are WAY behind the power curve in real life because you’re the good guy.

Again to quote Jeff Cooper’s Principles of Personal Defense:

“In defense we do not initiate violence. We must grant our attacker the vast advantage of striking the first blow, or at least attempting to do so. But thereafter we may return the attention with what should optimally be overwhelming violence. “The best defense is a good offense.” This is true, and while we cannot apply it strictly to personal defensive conduct, we can propose a corollary: “The best personal defense is an explosive counterattack.””

I will note that in this video, you’ll notice the police officer that was stabbed was out of the fight. He never had a chance to draw his gun. In fact, if he did not have 6 other friends with him, with their own guns, he might be dead.

Something To Think About …

In short, it’s hard enough to even get your gun out and on target when you’re being attacked, why make it harder on yourself by carrying an unloaded gun too?