The Rangemaster February 2010 newsletter is posted.

Half of the newsletter talks about the upcoming Polite Society conference (wish I could attend this year, but scheduling won’t work out).

The other half of the newsletter contains an excellent article by Tom Givens titled “Intelligence Gathering for Personal Safety”. A snippet:

In this article we will examine some of the facets of personal intelligence gathering and processing, to assist you in a realistic threat assessment of your environment, and to provide forewarning in street encounters with likely threat sources. While this will not be an exhaustive examination of every threat, it will at least expose you to the main elements of some of the more common criminal types with which you will likely deal.

The purpose of this endeavor is to allow you to recognize subtle danger signs that will be present prior to an assault. By recognizing these cues, you can place yourself on alert, and be thinking about a planned response. As we discussed previously, being aware of a threat and having a plan in mind to deal with it greatly decreases reaction time, and helps overcome the mental inertia that slows down our response. When interacting with strangers, these subtle cues, once learned, can assist you in evaluating the proper degree of vigilance and readiness to act.

The article goes on to talk about street gangs, drug abusers, mental cases, and plain old criminals. There’s discussion of behavioral cues to impending aggression as well.

If there’s nothing else you read today, you need to read that article. The information therein could someday save your life.