This is a fascinating video to watch because it shows the idea that “entangled gunfights for private citizens never happen” for the falsehood it is. Everything that is the typical internet wisdom is shown to be, at best, incomplete in its reality.

As you can see, the altercation is between two private citizens. Big Dude In Red starts throwing down with Smaller Dude In Gray and the clinch happens almost immediately. Gray Dude does an okay job of trying to get some control but has no sense of how important base and hips are, and consequently, is thrown around by Big Dude. Eventually they go to the ground (again, because Gray Dude has no concept of where his head goes to prevent it) and the going to the ground is exacerbated because Gray Dude decides it is a good time to go for the gun. He makes what Craig Douglas calls a bad timing decision. The reason he does is the same reason we see bad timing decisions over and over – people think the gun is a magic talisman and that it is a piece of cake to draw and deploy when the opponent is at bad breath distance. This is a perfect crystallization of why that fails most of the time. As soon as Gray Dude makes a play for his pistol, Red Dude has nothing impeding him or his control over the fight and what he wants to do. So he continues driving Gray Dude and lands on top and can easily see and feel Gray Dude going for his waistband and knows exactly what that means. Red Dude then, because he is on top and in complete control, takes the gun away. Not only that, since he is in control, he can then stand up on his own volition with Gray Dude having little say in the matter, and calmly checks the gun and makes sure it is loaded and starts firing. Gray Dude’s only chance at this point is to run and trust that the other guy is not a good shot.

There is a reason I harp on the concept that it does not matter who brings the gun to the fight, the man who has dominant positional control owns the weapon. Ignore this – as Gray Dude did here – at your peril.

Entangled gunfights happen. Do they happen every time? Of course not, but they do happen a great deal, and if you have no idea of what to do, you are not suddenly going to learn in the middle of the chaos. You are going to Gray Dude, hoping luck is on your side, or praying that the opponent takes mercy on you. I personally don’t think that is a good life plan.