21 FOOT RULE
One of the patterns we have noticed lately is how intense the tactical community’s relationship with fads can be. The Sheepdog analogy is a useful way to help a young soldier or cop begin to understand that they have to be prepared to do violence, but in a constrained way. It tends to fall apart when taken too far, though. The Spartan legacy is useful in inspiring toughness – but that doesn’t mean you have to run around wearing a helmet and shield. In the tactical training telephone game, good ideas can morph into rules and then into obsessions, and in the process, they can lose their utility. One of the big ones is the 21-Foot Rule.
By: Jim
Jim has a background in military aviation, specializing in combat rescue and close air support. His opinions are his alone and do not reflect the policy or position of the Air Force or Department of Defense, and no references here should be interpreted as an endorsement of any product or service by any government agency.
OODA LOOP
One of the popular models in tactical decision making is the OODA loop, which stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. A lot of people tend to over-simplify this concept. They view it as a linear cycle, or a checklist–as if you move from one step to the other. It is a lot more complicated than that. Our individual orientation–which is a product of our identity, training, experience, and our moral compass–drives each step of the process. It controls not only what we see, but where we look. It controls not only what we decide, but provides us with an index of solutions. It describes a two-way interaction with our environment, and shows us that our adversaries have an Orientation, too.
Teamwork
If you look around any professional workplace, you will see several types of leaders–by that I don’t just mean differing leadership styles, although that is part of it–I am talking about the types of leaders in a group who make the difference between a “loose gaggle” and a high-performance team. This discussion is going to focus on the informal leaders–the unappointed low- or middle-man who makes a difference. A new or inexperienced member of the group might be the type of person who owns their mistakes, never makes excuses, and humbly accepts criticism. You might be asking yourself, doesn’t that just make them a good follower?
Burning Alive
If you read some of the news articles about the recent apartment fire in London, you’ll see quite a bit of commentary about the panic encountered by people trapped on the upper floors of the building. Similar to the attacks on 9/11, people can be seen in YouTube videos jumping out of windows from heights that would seemingly guarantee their death.
Over 20 years ago, a researcher in Utah ran some tests to gauge how long it would take a police officer to draw and fire on a knife-wielding attacker – and found that generally if the attacker was within 21 feet, he could lunge into the officer before the officer could mount a meaningful defense. That has become the basis of a number of shooting drills and qualifications all over the world in military, law enforcement, and civilian circles. It is a useful guideline in reminding us that the person reacting is at a disadvantage, but it isn’t an absolute and it shouldn’t be treated like a “rule.”
It is useful because it takes a couple seconds for the victim of an attack to realize there is an attack in progress, to sort out what to do about it, and bring a defense to bear. Further, 21 feet is just a little over the length of a car or residential room, it is about the distance where you can talk in a conversational voice, and where you can realistically assess threats and intentions – and therefore the vast majority of LE and civilian confrontations will happen within 21 feet.
So, there is nothing wrong with training with some deference to 21 feet, but that doesn’t mean you should shoot a guy simply because
A. He has a knife, and
B. He happens to be 19 feet away.
It also means that you need to regularly train to shoot at bad breath distance and also at football field distance.
The real value of the 21 foot rule is to remind our little ape brains that distance and reaction time are related, and that an attacker can close that gap pretty quickly.
https://www.forcescience.org/2019/09/the-21-foot-rule-is-back-in-the-news/