Some of my favorite movies while growing up were the Indiana Jones movies, starting, of course, with Raiders of the Lost Ark. It was incredibly fun watching Harrison Ford make archaeology looks adventurous and exciting (I have my doubts if it is anywhere near that dangerous in real life).
If you were a fan (and even if you weren’t), you may remember an iconic scene from the first of those movies in which Indiana Jones is running through a bazaar looking for his love interest, Marion. During the scene, the crowd parts, and you see Jones at one end of the opening in the crowd and a tall, imposing, apparently evil character at the other end. That evil character, then, starts waiving a sword around with apparent proficiency. It’s the kind of thing that would be threatening or intimidating if you had no defense against it.
Of course, if you know the scene, you know what happened. And if you don’t know the scene, you can catch that short clip below.
Not you may laugh and joke that you should never bring a sword to a gunfight.
You’d be correct about that, of course, but a guy in Arizona didn’t get that memo, it seems. And he decided to do things with a sword that caused law enforcement to be called on him. It went about as well as in the movie clip above. Except this happened in real life, and video of the incident was caught on surveillance video and police cams.
In the video, the guy (acting very strangely, possibly high on something) was in a hotel parking lot waiving a katana (Japanese sword) around. This caused other people to call the police on him. When the police came to the scene to talk to the guy, he attacked them with the the katana. And was shot.
Now, the commentators on the video made some good points that are worth remembering. Especially worth remembering is that when aggression starts to be expressed, it can be wise to step back and away from the aggressor. Remember, your first choice in a potentially violent encounter should always be to get away from the situation (if possible) unless you need to stay to intervene to save a life.
In fact, in some states, if you don’t try to leave, that has legal consequences for you if you have to shoot in self-defense.
Remember, your gun is vitally important to protect your life, but it is always the absolute last option to choose.
But, like in the video from this incident in Arizona, sometimes the aggressor doesn’t give you any other choice. And that’s why it’s useful to remember the “Indiana Jones Gun Rule.”
NEVER forget that a sword in the wrong situation can be extremely deadly as more than one LEO figured out far too late. The same applies to knives, especially when the victims are unarmed.