Tale of the Russian Rambo

Before the next post is on, I will wish to make certain notes for US-based readers of my blog.

For one, real pistols are not legal in Russia for regular civilians. What is legal is “traumatic pistols” – silly little contraptions that shoot a rubber bullet at low, low speeds. One of these is the T-10, of which you can read more here.

Second… skill, equipment, even brains are not always very important.

Here is the story, which appears to be true, and has been posted on the guns.ru firearms forums.

Well, I used the T-10 to rescue a buddy.

It was in the morning of January 1^st. I got a phonecall from an unfamiliar number. An acquaintance is calling me and tells me he’s being murdered at a given address, and that my friend is with him. I hear the sounds of a fight through the phone.

As it turned out, the acquaintance escaped while my friend was being beaten up on an upper story. At least he was smart enough to call me! …although maybe he shouldn’t have. He explained briefly the point:

They came because a girl we knew called them – she had the ‘brilliant’ idea of celebrating the New Year wi some people she’d not known well. They took away her digital camera – and she called my friend and asked him for help, without bothering to find out how many people were there. By the time my friend and two acquaintances arrived, the gang had already been beating up the guy she had come to the party with for 20 minutes or so. My friend and the two acquaintances have also been beaten up. The attackers were about 18 in number. The whole thing went down at an apartment rented especially for the New Year – the owners weren’t home. This was all very confused on the phone, I did not understand much, but heard by the voices that it was a serious situation.

I called another friend, and came over to pick him up. We drove up to the address. In the lobby we saw two girls and the first fellow that got beaten all bloody. I ask him what the apartment number is, and get up the stairs. The apartment door is open, and I can hear the noises of a scuffle. I get in – everything is dark, and the only light is coming in from the left, from the kitchen. I draw my T-10 on the move, making a step toward the kitchen. There are 7-8 men there, and they begin walking towards me, looking very unfriendly. I order them to stop and lie down and fire 3-4 warning shots into the floor. They sober up a bit, stop, some stand still, pressing themselves to the walls, someone lies down. I turn to the hallway and see two men – one with a raised knife. I shoot him in the back (later we will find out I shot through the scapula. He drops and falls sideways. Another step – and I am in a room (a small, typical panel-house room, again – no light). I enter a hall – someone jumps on me from the back – I push him away, turn around and shoot him as he falls (I cannot say if he fell before or after the fell). I take a few steps back – a room is behind me. A door opens suddenly and another man jumps out. I shout “stop!” and make another shot. I shot towards the stomach and legs at all times. In the hallway I hear my friend’s voice – I go there and find him, all bloody (a concussion, multiple bruises, at least one cut on the face, and something wrong with his lumbar area – he’s still being treated. I grab him, and we drive away.

I should have probably called the police immediately – but it was of course a very stressful situation. I called the police in the evening and reported my use of the firearm. They told me that the case was already investigation and that I should turn myself in immediately. The case was firearms use case, for a piercing wound to a stomach, with no internal organs damaged. (Article 111, part 1 of the criminal code). Part of the witnesses were already questioned. It is bad, of course, they were so many of them – they will of course tell their own version of the tale. I will try to get this to go as a self-defense case.

http://talks.guns.ru/forummessage/69/571954.html

Now I am no self-defense expert, but I find this a great story.

Of course, this would not happen in a modern country that has actually functioning police forces – even in the small town in the US you could probably find a SWAT team to deal with such a situation. This fellow lived in a country where police sometimes take up to 45 minutes to react to people being robbed across the street from a police station. I can see how you might want to do it yourself.

He clearly had no real training, no real gun, and I’m not sure he was very smart, either. But what he did have is the complete belief that he was doing the right thing, and he acted just as Jeff Cooper would have suggested – all the principles from his book are here. Decisiveness – check. Alertness – check (even reacting to people approaching from behind, in the dark!), Speed – check (in and out, grabs his friend and goes), Coolness – check (anybody not completely calm about this would have dithered and failed), Surprise – check, Agressiveness and Ruthlessness – HOLY SHIT CHECK.

His only fail was in calling the police later on – in a country with a badly malfunctioning legal system it seems a stupid idea.

Of course, I expect input and replies from my readers.