Holding cellphone during gunfight

[MistWolf]

Walk in the center of the lane? You mean where people drive? So you're one of those.....

I don't walk down the center of the parking lot lane, but I do keep my distance from the parked cars in case one starts backing out and to give myself more room if someone pops out unexpectedly from between the cars.

Why should I use a cart to take two bags to my car? I can open my fingers and let the bags drop as I move my hands to the gun or knife.

How in the hell do you get out of a grocery store with only two bags of goodies?!?

Even so, I use the shopping cart because it's faster for me to let go of a shopping cart than to toss the bags I'm carrying. Yes, toss. I'm a technician by trade and typically, anything I drop (tools, heavy/sharp objects, cords, hoses), will injure my feet and/or tangle me up. When I drop something, I have to get out of it's way or get it out of mine.

As for the cell phone, mine is hands free, thanks to the fancy hearing aids I got from the VA.

[Eli]

My response is that if I need my pistol (WML mounted), I will drop the light by necessity to draw the gun two handed vs a one handed grip as a result of sympathetic response.

This is 100% the reason that if I have few enough shopping bags to carry in one hand (more than that, and I use a cart), I carry them in my gun hand.

In FoF, I've found that I'll do a one handed presentation and shot, rather than dropping whatever is in my non-dominant, but have no problem dropping whatever is in my dominant hand and doing a proper, two handed, presentation.

[Blades]

I have a Tasker profile that turns my camera on when I shake my phone. I'm thinking of changing it to turn on the voice recorder. If I drop my phone, it starts recording. Maybe helpful, maybe not.

[scw2]

I'm actually one of the few guys at work that intentionally holds my flashlight in my right hand during calls except traffic stops. Every now and then someone points out my "rookie error." My response is that if I need my pistol (WML mounted), I will drop the light by necessity to draw the gun two handed vs a one handed grip as a result of sympathetic response.

I do something similar where I will try to consciously keep my left hand empty and hold stuff in my right hand. For example, if I'm walking back to the car with grocery bags, I try to remember and put them in my right hand so that if the need arises I would naturally drop them.

That said, more dry/live practice with items to drop would likely help since no one is going to be perfect 100% of the time.

ETA: ooops looks like Eli beat me to it

[Hieronymous]

Here’s an Active Self Protection video from yesterday which illustrates this issue and actually shows a security guard holding(not dropping)his cellphone when he has to engage robbers.

[El Cid]

I do something similar where I will try to consciously keep my left hand empty and hold stuff in my right hand. For example, if I'm walking back to the car with grocery bags, I try to remember and put them in my right hand so that if the need arises I would naturally drop them.

That said, more dry/live practice with items to drop would likely help since no one is going to be perfect 100% of the time.

ETA: ooops looks like Eli beat me to it

This is 100% the reason that if I have few enough shopping bags to carry in one hand (more than that, and I use a cart), I carry them in my gun hand.

In FoF, I've found that I'll do a one handed presentation and shot, rather than dropping whatever is in my non-dominant, but have no problem dropping whatever is in my dominant hand and doing a proper, two handed, presentation.

That all makes sense but I wonder what the stats are on victims having to do a quick draw of a weapon vs a deliberate draw? I try to maintain good situational awareness and keep my strong hand free as I want to be able to surreptitiously draw if I need to. I want to say I read somewhere about a retired LEO (May have been Mr Sanow) that in 9 of his 10 shootings (or similar numbers) his gun was already in his hand. If I’m having to quick draw my gun I’m already behind the curve and probably missed some body language or other warning signals. Obviously it can happen and I agree practicing the drop of something is something we should out in our rotation.

[SoCalDep]

I’m glad for this thread. I watched the ASP video the other day and this is something I frequently see in training and when reviewing gunfight videos. In one particular law enforcement shooting I believe two of the three officers had items in their hand (radio and Taser) that did them no good in the shooting but they maintained control of them. I get the idea that there are things we don’t want to drop, but I think in many of these cases the person is simply unable to drop the object due to some sympathetic grip/stress/ mental overload, etc.

So my question, which involves some physiology/psychology, is whether this is a phenomena that can be trained away (ie: training to drop things on the draw) or if it should be trained around (ie: if you don’t need it, carry in dominant hand). Would carry of items in the dominant hand serve to make the draw less effective? I’ve gone through my carreer constantly being reminded to “keep your gun-hand free”.... so is it contextual (sometimes keep it free or sometimes not)?

Any thoughts? I’d really like to incorporate this reality into our training but I don’t want to solve one problem by creating a worse one.

[txdpd]

I maintain that cell phones are one of the biggest officer safety threat faced today.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3584251/

The science on cell phones and distracted driving (and being distracted from life) is pretty solid. If you're on your phone, you can't really pay attention to the world around you. If you're thinking about your phone, you can't really pay attention to the world around you. People think they can multitask with a phone and pay attention to something other than that phone, they can't. The whole hands free stuff is based off of research that people just holding their phones think about their what they are going to do with the phone and stop paying attention I'm not trying to a make a that you can't walk and chew bubble gum, it's entirely possible to simply carry a phone and not be distracted, but if you're not planning on using it, just put it up.

I've played around with holding tennis balls in one or both and having to drop them as the first step in the draw process. It's a surprising mental demand to have to incorporate that step. Personally I'm in the camp of keeping my gun hand empty. With no real science to back it up I don't think it's possible to teach people to subconsciously open their hands as a reaction to a stressor, and if we could that sword could cut a lot of ways.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

This is a touch of sidewise topic shift but in the same vein. Ever talk to your significant non-fighting partner NOT to grip you if bad things are going to or are happening. When stressed, the kids will cling and I doubt you can get the little ones to stop. How about the older ones. I bring that up from an incident we were driving on I-5 in Portland with several lanes of traffic filled in a row, including us. It was a wet night (what else in the PNW) and a big old station wagon (years ago) spun out across all the lanes in front us. We drivers looked at each other as there was no where to go. By the Grace of God, the guy straightened out after a 360 and went forward. However, while this was happening, my SO grabbed my right arm in a strong grip. I was driving stick too. I basically threw her off to maintain control of the car. Later we had a spirited discussion of my noncaring rude behavior. I explained that I wasn't James Bond in a sportscar and needed my hands. I was to understand she was scared. Nowadays, we have discussed that if a bad thing is looming, I need my hands (unless of course, I need to move someone to help them). If it is just a threat, hands off.

When something bad happens, you clench, that's in the ND literature for why no finger on the trigger for a slip or a sympathetic clench if the non gun hands clenches.

[Tactical Black Belt]

When something bad happens, you clench, that's in the ND literature for why no finger on the trigger for a slip or a sympathetic clench if the non gun hands clenches.

True. I accidently touched an electric fence with a beer can in my hand and squeezed it so hard that the top of my head got wet.