Do you know how to survive a gun fight?
Here’s the situation: some people want your stuff, or they just plain out want to kill you. Whatever the cause of the escalation might be, all you’ve got is a gun lying on the ground next to you. What shooting techniques and tactics would you use and how would you survive a gun fight?
So first, you’ve picked up the gun, pulled out the magazine and checked how many rounds you’ve got spare. This is all while rounds are flying over your head and bouncing off things around you. But they’re not hitting you because you’ve already ducked behind cover to figure out your tactics right?
Let’s just say that if there were a group of people firing at me, my first thought would be to get out of there as quickly as possible, regroup with some gun-savvy would-be John Wick volunteers and come back. One big tip that might help, in a gunfight, 3 on 1 is better than 1 on 3. So work with those odds and round up some friends who would be worthy of a gun fight and are up to scratch with these 14 things to remember to survive a shootout.
1. Have yourself a merry little sidearm pistol
Weapon fires weapon stops. This is a thing they teach to soldiers in initial weapons training. They teach this because guns are not like a weapon in Call of Duty, in a real gun battle they stop. You could fire one shot and the weapon might not automatically reload because you have a chunky piece of metal 5.56 jacket jammed in your ejection port.
Now while any good shooter might pull out the magazine, cock the weapon and give the gun a right old nudge and shake just to free up the jam, you’re not going to do that. In an immediate jam, you are going to sling that weapon (everyone should have a good adjustable sling) and whip out your pistol to keep firing.
You might have seen John Wick make his way through a soiree of larger weapons before working his way down to his pistol range, that’s because when you’re in the heat of a shootout, using your next loaded weapon is quicker than fixing a jammed gun, or doing a magazine change.
That pistol is your merry little backup present when the first one wasn’t good enough. It is loaded and ready to dump out the 15-30 rounds you might be carrying in your glock magazine.
In this case, you’d probably use this secondary weapon to work your way through a pistol fight while you find cover and get your boomstick back into the game.
For a demonstration on the quick sling of the primary to secondary weapon, we can look no further than to the training given to Keanu Reaves to become John Wick by Taran Tactical for this one:
2. Know where your ejection port is
While we all love the John Wick films and other great shooting movies, those films aren’t always that accurate. Especially when it comes to bullet casings. Every weapon has an ejection port. Out of that comes the bit of bullet that never leaves the barrel of a gun. It’s called a casing and it is damn hot.
The first reason you should know where your ejection port is would be in the case above where your weapon jams up. Most of the time it’s going to be a bullet that hasn’t been struck properly and has not fed into the gun correctly, you will see this stuff up in the ejection port. It is about this time that if you are only carrying one gun, you should know how to fix a weapon jam pretty quick.
The second reason, and one quickly learned by shooting beginners, is that some weapons have ejection ports that can fire hot bullet casings onto your skin causing a nice little bullet tattoo to be burnt into your skin. Generally, the ejection port is on the right side of the weapon, so when your would-be volunteer buddies in the gun fight are on your left you are going to get sprayed with burning hot bullet casings.
What should you do about this? Suck it up. They’re on your side and you’ve got bullets coming at you. But if you’re like this lady with a bullet casing down the top, you’re probably going to be burning.
3. I shoot, you run
If you are not shooting you should be running. Tell your buddies in the gun fight the same thing. Try to synchronize it. If you are retreating, one person shoots while the other runs, repeat this until you are in your abandoned building, bunker hideout.
This works the other way, in the attack. If you have sized the enemy as being reasonable for your capacity and you decide to attack, shoot in their direction while your buddy runs. Let’s hope he is smart enough to figure out he should do the same.
The process of your buddy shooting while you run is called ‘covering’. This is why you hear that great term, covering fire.
This gunfighting technique also referred to as ‘fire and movement’ and if you’ve been in the military you’d cringe just hearing these words as that is a lot of the combat practice in the field which turns to elements in urban training.
When you are making those shots, sure, rounds placed near an enemy’s position is going to keep them pinned behind cover, but make sure you control your breathing, which in turn helps with your aim. The military uses a method called Box Breathing for this. Learn it and use it as it is a great way to de-stress and take control of any given situation.
4. Keep your eyes on three things at the same time
While you are ducking, diving, and firing well-aimed shoots in your gunfight survival, there are three other things (I know, it’s a lot) that you should be paying attention to: the guys shooting at you, your buddy, and possible cover. These three things are the only things you should be looking at. You should be watching where your enemy is, where you last saw them or where they sound like they are shooting from. You should be watching this because when your buddy is moving, this is where you are shooting.
You should be watching your buddy and listening out for his gun. If he is shooting, you move, if you don’t hear any shots from him, that probably means his weapon is jammed or he is just plain useless. In some cases that uselessness can also cause a jam – be warned.
On top of this, you should always be looking for the next place you are going to move to. If you are in a retreat, this is basically putting solid things behind you, if you are attacking, this is stuff in front of you. Always be looking for covering spots. Why? Because the next point is why.
5. I’m up, he sees me, I’m down
This is what you say when you run. As soon as you take your first step you should say to yourself: “I’m up, he sees me, I’m down”. This is enough time to move, and not allow your enemy to take a steady aim and kill you. If you run longer than this, anyone with a sense of aim can take a quick sighting and put some metal your way and possibly land a hit. So don’t let it happen.
When the phrase says ‘down’ this doesn’t just refer to dropping to the ground, it is whatever you deem a safe place to fire from. If it is a wall or over the front of a car, use it as cover and shoot while your buddy moves.
You can see how these guys from Polenar Tactical work in unison to provide covering fire for their buddy running. Eventually, this would get you close enough to the enemy to grenade them, or get closer to get your buddy in a flank.
This phrase is something that is regularly repeated in initial combat training for a lot of the world’s forces. It is taught for the reason which is to keep you alive. But this will fail you if you don’t adhere to the next part, which is once you are down, move for an extra few meters. Why? Next point.
6. Don’t be a rabbit
Ever seen a rabbit in the grass? It bends down to eat, pops its head back up and bends down again. You give your friend a nudge in the arm and say “check out two meters left of that tree, there’s a rabbit”. And before you know it, the rabbit has popped his little head up in the exact same spot. Boom, if you were the rabbit you would be dead. The same will happen in a real gun fight.
In a shootout, if you see someone running you are going to aim at their last seen place and wait until they pop out to shoot them. So with the principle mentioned before, once you leave the visibility of your enemy whether it be behind a car, wall… or whatever, move and crawl a few meters before popping up to shoot. Make sure that movement is lateral to the enemy. Think of it as getting out of the X.
In an urban environment, this can only work so well as you might be behind a car or a single-spaced object with very little crawl distance. Make do with what you can but remember the idea of the rabbit popping up in the same place.
