Thread: Harris Technique with a knife?

Okay, so, I'm sure many of you are familiar with the Harris technique, in which you can easily use a pistol and flashlight for nighttime shooting. Fairly standard thing, you see it in movies, magazines, so on and so forth, taught to LEOs the world over.

But I'm also seeing, mostly in two videogames, an adaptation of the Harris technique where instead of having a pistol and a flashlight, they use a pistol and a knife.

Okay, you know, thats cool and all, but realistically speaking, how effective and/or safe is this? I'll mess with it with my airsoft 1911 and a rubber knife, but it seems like if you went to reload too fast, you'd stab yourself in the stomach.

If anyone else wants to mess with it, the common method seems to be with the knife held in a hammer grip, point forward, and if you only have one sharp edge, then blade out. You see this in the latest OMG VIDEOGAMEZ, namely Modern Warfare 2 (Not a bad game, but not very accurate).

Another variant we saw a few years back was OMG NAKED SNAKE in Snake Eater, where he often carried the knife in a hammer grip, but with the handle parallel to the grip of his pistol, so that the ends of the fingers on his left hand wrapped around onto the grip. Seems like it would share the same issues as the first method.

Anyone have any thoughts on this ZOMG KNIFE KILLS technique in the real world?

Originally Posted by SleepyDave

Okay, so, I'm sure many of you are familiar with the Harris technique, in which you can easily use a pistol and flashlight for nighttime shooting. Fairly standard thing, you see it in movies, magazines, so on and so forth, taught to LEOs the world over.

Me thinks you speak of Harries, named after Michael Harries not Harris?

I think it would hinder your gun handling and not add much, if anything to it with the knife there.
In that position you don't exactly have the best mobility, let alone the mobility to use the knife effectively, which admit it would be if someone got the drop on you and you were unable to shoot them first and you would need that mobility.
I'd say it's setting yourself up for failure to some degree.
Flashlight sure, but a close range weapon like that, doesn't seem practical.

http://www.michaelharries.com/

In November of 2000, J Bartell registered this domain name. He had been talking to Michael about it since 1995, but just didn’t get around to it. When Michael died, J knew he had to do something to honor his long time friend and partner. J registered the domain name and started to create a layout of what would go into the website. He told us about week later he could not go through with the site at that time, because of all the memories that kept coming up about Michael.

If you have a flashlight pointed at someone, and then CLOSE enough to stab them with a knife.. it would be a whole lot faster to use the butt end of a 4 D cell Mag light or a swift smack with the hard / serrated edges of a tactical flashlight then to do something with a knife. A properly placed jab or hit with either type of flashlight could inflict enough pain on the attacker to either run.. or stand your ground continue with more pummeling, (there in your house.. or your space and no need for you to run) I wouldn't bother walking around with a knife and a light if a having a gun was an option. I always laugh when I see movies of a guy breaking into a house with a gun.. and homeowner thinks a baseball bat is going to defend against it.... (although.. I hear most people, cops included, miss with a gun at close range so what do I know)???

I think the general idea is that you would probably be using a pistol with a mounted light, or that you would be using the technique in the daytime, when you didn't need the light.

Honestly, I'm pretty sure that its a bad idea, but I was wondering if others felt that it was a bad idea. The further idea is that you could, again theoretically, use the knife instead of the gun to quiet subdue an attacker, although its damned near impossible to do a quiet kill with a knife with just one hand.

Killing someone with a knife is a loud affair, whether you want it to be or not. I know of just one way to do a (theoretically) completely silent kill with a knife, and you wouldn't do it with a gun in your hand, and it'd be completely wrong, physically, to do it from that grip.

The only rational solution to this dilemma:

It seems like if you weren't really good at it, it would just get in the way. And be dangerous. If you get hit, you could drop your knife on your foot. Depending on your quality of shoes this may more may not turn out well for your circulation.

Plus, I don't think I could get an effective cut holding a knife like that anyways, and a gun would be much quicker to take a person down in close quarters. Knifes take seconds, minutes, or hours depending on where you hit and how deep you cut. Gun can knock them down right away.

Originally Posted by Jaybo

If you have a flashlight pointed at someone, and then CLOSE enough to stab them with a knife.. it would be a whole lot faster to use the butt end of a 4 D cell Mag light or a swift smack with the hard / serrated edges of a tactical flashlight then to do something with a knife. A properly placed jab or hit with either type of flashlight could inflict enough pain on the attacker to either run.. or stand your ground continue with more pummeling, (there in your house.. or your space and no need for you to run) I wouldn't bother walking around with a knife and a light if a having a gun was an option. I always laugh when I see movies of a guy breaking into a house with a gun.. and homeowner thinks a baseball bat is going to defend against it.... (although.. I hear most people, cops included, miss with a gun at close range so what do I know)???

I've heard of a guy missing with an AK at that range. He had a really warped barrel or had to try to miss I guess.

Try a Hide-Away-Knife (HAK).




http://www.hideawayknife.com/concept.php

I dont think it's very effective in real life... but it sure helps me with my melee streaks in mw2.

Marathon + lightweight + commando + tactical knife = loads of fun

Originally Posted by Riot

Try a Hide-Away-Knife (HAK).

Your gonna poke your eye out

Seriously, don't trip while doing that or your going to end up stabbing yourself. Thanks for the definitive proof that this should be kept to video games.

Originally Posted by Riot

Try a Hide-Away-Knife (HAK).




http://www.hideawayknife.com/concept.php

I seriously don't see how you would inflict any serious damage holding a small knife like that.

You need the other hand to make a small knife like that effective.

Here's how it's done