Weathering the Broken Links

MostlyGenius has it mostly right with these Top 10 Self Defense Myths.

I was recently at a park that I had never been to.  It was in, apparently, not so great an area.  My wife and son were with me.  They wandered of together to some playground equipment some 100 yards away leaving me eating my takeout alone on some rocks.  Not too long after, a scruffy looking guy comes my direction and at about 50 ft asks, “Hey you here alone?”

Having spotted him before he opened his mouth, I was already on alert.  I said firmly and loudly, “No, go away!”  When he replied, “huh?” I reiterated, “go away, get out of here!”  He changed course about 15 feet from me and started muttering something about me being a “whacked chracka” and being nuts.

No sooner than 5 minutes later, another scruffy guy came toward me looking to talk.  I gave him the same treatment and he quickly vectored away while telling me to chill out.

When the wife and son returned a couple minutes later, we left that sad excuse for a public recreation area and I did my after action analysis with my wife.  She agreed that there was absolutely no reason other than trouble for these guys to be approaching me; I’m that big huge, but at 200lbs with longish hair, goatee and stubble, I don’t look particularly cuddly to anyone but my family members.  She approved heartily of my use of simple, assertive, yet conceivably rude instructions to immediately dispatch with these trouble causers.

I recently came about a interesting thread (membership required) on a forum I visit a lot: DefensiveCarry.com.  If you opt not to get a membership on the side in order to read the thread, the synopsis is that a guy who claims to be just out meeting people and acting a bit odd, gets a little close to the original poster in his garage.  The poster indicates how his spidey senses are all on full, and when the unwelcome visitor reaches for something behind him, the poster postures for the gun he carries (he didn’t draw), and the visitor eventually beats tracks.  He never found out if the guy was up to no good or just odd.

What was very notable is the poster’s wife told him, “You scare yourself sometimes,” and “You’re not friendly.”

Leaving the issue of when and why to reach for a defensive weapon out of the picture, the main issue to focus on in retrospective analysis, is why so many folks, this poster’s wife included, are afraid of being rude to a complete stranger who is giving you unwanted attention.

I have to guess is that people are either in denial that something bad is present or they’re afraid of embarrassing themselves.  The poster’s wife certainly sounded like she was both in denial and embarrassed at her husband’s response.  I certainly feel his frustration at her naivety.

It’s really simple.  You’ve got a complete stranger who’s approached you.  You’ve ruled out that they don’t belong (e.g. they’re not a neighbor, a rep for someone you do business with, etc).   Unless they are clearly a sales person and you want what they’re offering, they have no value to you.  Tell them as much, clearly.

A good sales person should be able to understand that and realize their time is spent better elsewhere. Anyone else is simply unwanted and if they ignore your first request they’re dumb or up to no good.

If they’re dumb, you need to be more blunt with them; that’s the only way they’re going to get it.  If they’re up to no good, you need to be blunt with them.  Your resistance will demonstrate that you aren’t just going to roll over and readily be their victim.  Hopefully, they’ll be bright enough to realize you’re a bad mark and move on.  If not, well that’s another topic of discussion…

Regardless, a stranger is gone, and since they’re a stranger, does it really matter if they’re irritated with you for being rude?  I’d rather overreact and occasionally make a mistake that I can talk with others about afterwards than to fall victim to a criminal because I was too embarrassed to be assertive.

I just started this blog recently and I’m still laying my cards on the table.

I believe self defense is a human right.  Efforts to disarm law abiding people infringe upon this right by reducing the individual’s ability to maintain primary responsibility for his own safety.

Governments and organizations all around the world stigmatize weapons by treating them as if they are solely for causing trouble.  Whether they ignore the constructive uses for weapons intentionally or not doesn’t matter because society has largely been conditioned to ignore them as well.

Instead, most folks blindly assume that they’re not at risk of anything bad happening.  Worse, a lot of them don’t consider what if something bad did happen?  They don’t have a plan.  At best many of them might try to comply when confronted with the threat of violence and/or call 911.  These reactions aren’t necessarily wrong, but they are unlikely to help if a criminal is intent on doing you harm; compliance gives them a greater opportunity to control you; if you call 911 when seconds count, the police are at best minutes away.

As I said, compliance and emergency responders are certainly useful to have as part of your toolkit for maintaining your safety.  There are situations where the threat is not as imminent and they can help.  However, if you have no other part of your staying-safe-toolkit, then you are simply at higher risk of becoming a victim.

Good additions are awareness and avoidance.  A large majority of people walk around in condition white, unaware of the innocuous and not so innocuous things going on about them.  If you are unaware, you are in denial that bad can happen to you.  If you are in such denial, you are less likely to avoid situations that can lead to trouble.

And any good self-defense advocate knows that avoidance is a lot less expensive than ignoring a threat or facing it unnecessarily.  You can pay with your health/life for ignoring it.  You can pay with your pocketbook (legal) and freedom if you don’t avoid it when you could have.

That said, not everything can be avoided and eventually tools of self defense will come up: guns, knives, chemical sprays, martial arts, etc.  Too many people think that these are crime causing tools or fashion accessories for the insecure.  Sadly, criminals use them as force multipliers and some people carry weapons for the cool factor.  But a lot of other people responsibly train with them and carry them as tools of last resort, for when awareness and avoidance don’t pan out.

I will, from time to time, be posting on issues surrounding self defense, firearms, etc.