The knife and its use as a defensive tool are always contentious topics — not only with respect to if and when you should use one but also with respect to how.

When I wrote about knives in my book Combatives for Street Survival, I was a subject-matter expert for the defense in a homicide case in Virginia. Here are the facts:

A young man was horsing around with a much larger, older man who was known to be a violent, ill-tempered felon. The horseplay evolved into a far more serious confrontation, and the larger man began to severely beat the young man.

Having knocked the smaller man down, he grabbed a plastic lawn chair and started hitting him with it. The young man, in fear for his life — or, at least, a terrible beating — drew a folding knife and thrust it out repeatedly in an attempt to make the attacker back off.

The larger man continued to attack, however, and the knife eventually struck a lethal target. The young man was found guilty of manslaughter. He wound up serving time for doing what he believed was necessary to protect himself.

Introducing a Weapon

Introducing a weapon into any confrontation is problematic. Many times, it’s viewed as an escalation of violence instead of a legitimate means to stop an attack.

It’s difficult to get a judge or jury to internalize the terror a person was experiencing when he or she felt compelled to draw a weapon in self-defense. And then there’s the inevitable “Well, why didn’t he …?” and “Why couldn’t they have …?” second-guessing and rearview-mirror conjecturing.

I’m not sure there’s a formulaic, reliable answer to when you can legally use a knife in self-defense. There certainly are many anecdotal, emotional and impassioned answers to the question, but do you really want to rely — truly rely — on the axiom “Better to be judged by 12 than carried by six”?

Suffice to say there are numerous self-defense scenarios that seemingly justify making the decision to use an edged weapon to protect yourself.

So the next question is, what are the conditions in your particular situation and what is your intent?

Intent Matters

Your intent should always be to stop an attack, not to kill or wound. Obviously, gratuitously injuring an attacker is never acceptable or lawful.

When you’re being judged after an incident that compelled you to draw a weapon, intent is very important — it’s second only to the factual details of the event. Your actions are the only things that can be considered in determining your intent.

Why is all that important?

Because it translates to what you will do with your knife, which translates to what techniques you need to know right down to how you should hold it to achieve your goal, which is to defend yourself.

Techniques and Tactics

As I said at the beginning of this column, it’s always contentious when people start arguing about the best ways to employ a knife.

My opinion is that it’s most important to consider range and let that drive your tactics and techniques.

For example, if you believe you're justified in drawing your knife based on the situation and your attacker is at range, holding him outside to stop an attack would be reasonable and best accomplished using Western techniques such as snap cuts and slashes that are intended to prevent him from closing.

In a more confined situation, where the attacker is right on top of you, ergonomics, range of motion, space availability and motor efficiency dictate a different approach. In situations like these, the pikal technique makes more sense because it enables you to clear, fend, trap and stab effectively.

Which, of course, means a change of grip. That inevitably leads to arguments against your changing grip once you’re in a fight for your life. It also ignites discussions about which type of knife is best for self-defense and if you’re unnecessarily hamstringing yourself by committing to a purpose-built knife for one style or another.

No Absolutes — Only Training

As in all self-defense discussions, there are no perfect or absolute answers. Training is ultimately the key to unlocking your personal best performance under duress and achieving that elusive balance between utility and variety of techniques.

I feel strongly that the best way to accomplish this with regard to knives is not necessarily training knife on knife. Although knife-on-knife situations are possible, they’re improbable.

As such, some portion of your training should focus on this, but it’s more important to focus on the myriad other situations that might compel you to draw your knife.

Examples include multiple-attacker scenarios in which you're defending your space against repeated attacks, ground fights in which you're being choked (potentially to death), and carjacking situations in which a weapon is deployed inside the vehicle or as you enter your vehicle and you can’t escape.

As simple as a knife is, the situations in which you might have to use one aren’t.

Yes, stabbing and slashing are brutally simple, but knowing whether you should do that — or use a better tactic — never is.

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