Zeraph

Good stuff! Especially twistedmosaic! This is the kind of discussion I was hoping to generate.

Greg700, I still maintain that *I* at least could close the distance in this situation with at worst one shot getting off before I disabled him. Several factors I'm assuming here that you may not be
-by safe position the firearm at least has the safety on and probably doesn't have one in the chamber
-or if it's a revolver it's stuffed down his pants or some such
-I'm not using official jargon here, it's great that you know it, but by safe position and whatnot I don't necessarily mean safe carry for a pistol.
(again as I tried to state, I get that a prepared expert will have the advantage)
-that the assailant is *not* an expert
-that he can't back up as it's in a 15ft hallway
-that its 15ft and not 21ft
-I suppose I'm also thinking of it somewhere between an identified threat and surprise but I can see how you'd read it that way
-etc
And I know the motion it takes to draw a sword and strike, I've had some (I'm not pretending to be an expert) training. And while it's not like in anime, one can still do plenty of disabling damage on the first stroke. I can and have drawn and attacked while sprinting. The main problem is there's very little power (compared to a full stroke). But the sword I'd be using would be plenty sharp enough to do enough distracting damage on the first stroke on an unarmored assailant. Again, I'll restate, drawing a sword is much faster than you'd think so long as you're fast and have had some training.

Edit: I just timed myself (several times to make sure) and it takes me 1 second exactly (like +/- 0.01) to cover 15ft and strike. And that's without adrenaline or being warmed up.

Edit again: Just to be totally accurate, blade length was 13 inches.