Should all police officers be trained in martial arts combat or are guns the only way to handle conflicts?

Question

No matter what the weapon, isn't the best policy to disarm people and prevent any firing of guns. Police and law enforcement people should get the best training in every available method to prevent violence of any kind. Is that realistic or fairytale stuff? What do you think??

Answer 1

This is the biggest fairytale joke I have ever seen. Sorry for being rough, but this is the type of mantra that gets police in trouble when they use justifiable force.

If somebody points a gun at me, I'm not giving him a crane kick and risking bullet holes in my head. He has shown a disregard for life at this point, including his own. If a suspect pulls a gun, they have initiated the shootout.

Police are generally trained in basic martial arts to begin with, and quite a few pursue much greater training.

Let me ask a question to you. You are an officer. You come across a traffic stop. On your way to the vehicle, the suspect opens fire on you. Do you think that a karate chop is going to solve the problem, while your being shot at from inside a car?

What about if your at a convenience store, buying a cup of coffee. From across the store (let's say 40 feet) a man pulls a gun un you. Superman himself would have trouble disarming that man. Karate would certainly not help at all.

I am really having trouble believing that you actually think it's easy to disarm someone before they fire. Only at point blank range, while facing head-to-head, can it be possible to disarm. Even then, in the struggle for the suspect's gun... it will more than likely go off. Officers are trained to always position themselves away from the gun and control the gun away from innocent civilians. In the heat of the moment, though, anything can happen.

If the officer is shot trying to disarm the gunman, where does that leave everyone? A gunman with clear intent to kill on the loose, a dead officer and a very scared and vulnerable public.

Hey, as much as we hate to admit it... sometimes the bad guys have to be killed.

Answer 2

Maybe I'm reading this differant than every one else seems to be, but you seem to be asking if Police are trained only in firearms yes or no?
Most police academies cover many forms of hand to hand combat, what ever the style or system is called. Most officers will continue this training because you never know when the situation will become that personal.
As for going straight Jackie Chan on somebody and forgetting the gun? Forget that! Even in corrections if they show a weapon we will use O.C. or call for back up with O.C. and bean bag rounds in a shot gun if we can.
Unfortunatly alot of the time it is just hands on old school ground fighting, this is where the grappeling and control styles work better than hard striking forms, we don't want to injure the poor darlins just control them!

Answer 3

Ya! take my gun honey! I saw Matrix! Maybe I can run up a wall flip and catch a bullet with my thumb and index finger! Or maybe verbal judo will work when someone is shooting at me!

I wonder if judo would have helped my friend Frank Fabiano!

Kenosha -- Deputy Frank Fabiano Jr., an 18-year veteran of the Kenosha County Sheriff's Department, was fatally shot Wednesday night during a traffic stop in the Town of Somers.

"He was well-respected by the public, well-respected by the deputies here," Sheriff David Beth said of Fabiano at a news conference Thursday at the Kenosha County Center. "It's going to be a very tough time for us."

The suspect in the shooting was apprehended after what Beth described as a massive manhunt that involved sheriff's deputies and officers from the Kenosha, Walworth and Racine police departments.

Two police helicopters, a tactical response team and several police dogs flooded the neighborhoods near the 1300 block of45th Ave., the cul de sac where Fabiano was killed.

Tips from area residents eventually led to the man's arrest, which came approximately three hours after Fabiano was shot, Beth said.

Answer 4

Seems like a great idea, however, what happens if there are shootings from a building or from across the way? You simply just cant run up to the bad guy and disarm him. You put yourself in danger. Plus police use their guns only as a last resort.
Lots of them if not all do learn and take some sort of hand to hand combat, theres no such thing as a cop without combat training.
So my vote is for more class options as well as keeping their guns. If the bad guys have guns its going to be very difficult for the good guys to fight them (unless they're ninjas ).

Answer 5

We are trained in impact weapons, OC spray, fire arms, and my agency also has Tasers. We also are trained for unarmed combat (Subject Control). Personally, I like my Taser. I have used it in the field several times and it works like a charm. I have been tasered several times, in training, and that made a believer out of me.
The best thing is to have several options for subect control. Not every problem is a nail that needs a hammer. Tasers won't always replace firearms, sometimes you need your firearm, and sometimes you just need to take a guy to the ground.
The whole disarming and shooting guns out of people's hands is pretty much a fairytale.

Answer 6

I think that all police officers should be ready and physically fit to perform the job adaquately. That being said, I think it is unfair to require all cops to be black belts and/or know martial arts. For one, the union wouldnt let that happen and two, not all cops feel that those skills are absolutely necessary. But to answer your question, firearms are a last resort but police can use them without moving directly up or down the use of force options (simple active and passive countermeasures to tasers, oc , baton and firearms)
Like you said, it is unrealistic to think that all cops could be fully trained in martial arts but all cops should be able to overcome and resistance they encounter with their hands and weapons if required to do so.

Answer 7

Let me tell you something, I have been trained in hand to hand combat, but if most of todays citizens thinks I am going to try and disarm someone with a weapon with my bare hands while I have a perfectly functioning firearm on my side, Then all I have to say is: I'm way late in collecting my pension.

Answer 8

Many police agencies offer some sort of martial arts training. Most of it borrows from several different disciplines.

Most fights are not what you see in the martial arts movies. What usually wins in the fight is the quickest, most disabling blow; not matter what or how ugly the technique.

Answer 9

I studied karate for a little over 4 years (the cost of the school kept going up, and I kept staying poor, hence, no more lessons...).

The only move I ever learned that MIGHT work against an armed assailant:

1. Go down on your right knee, while keeping your left hand open, fingers straight up, above that knee.
2. In one sweeping motion, bring the other hand up, fingers straight, while going down on the left knee.
3. Clasp fingers together in "begging" form, and beg the shooter for your life.
4. Groveling might help, too.

Answer 10

The academy gives some martial arts training, mostly holds, pain compliance techniques, gun take aways, etc.
I study karate on my own; because as a female officer, I want to be able to hold my own in a fight. I don't have the superior upper body strength that men do, and if I am alone in a fight, I need something to compensate, or I could be killed.