13 Self-Defense Myths Busted… well, sorta

Adam at Low Tech Combat wrote an article busting 13 self-defense myths. As with everything LTC produces, it’s good stuff.

But I do disagree with a few of his points.

1. Never walk around with your hands in your pockets

I do agree this is one to bust, because there can be times when having your hands in your pocket is a good thing. For example, if I’m carrying a snub revolver in my front pants pocket, putting my hands in my pocket allows me to get a proper grip on the snub to facilitate drawing… else pocket draw is really slow. So, there’s one to bust “never” walking with your hands in your pockets. 🙂

But how likely is it really that you will be attacked suddenly when out shopping at the local mall in the middle of the day?

I don’t know how likely it will be. If you have the ability to make such predictions, and do so accurately, then perhaps armed with that knowledge you should do your best to be elsewhere!

Saying that you should never have your hands in your pockets at any time is being extremely paranoid. That is being hyper alert. You simply cannot maintain such a level of alertness for too long without visiting the local psychologist.

So being prepared is paranoid? This could be a fun “where do you draw the line” debate. 🙂  He’s right tho… it’s hard to be in “code yellow” all the time; it’s impractical. But we have to accept, hands in the pocket could put you at a disadvantage.

Can we do something about it?

Well, just learn to live life without your hands in your pocket. Eventually it will be normal to be out of pocket. As well, you could have pockets that aren’t restrictive or permit a greater freedom of movement.

So… I’ll bust this, but I’ll also say it’s “plausible” yet something you can work around, if you’re willing to work.

2. Never walk around with your earphones in

I’ll disagree with this, because life isn’t always about being attacked.

What about cars zooming by?

What about just being able to hear people around you, like someone maybe just saying “Excuse me” because they wish to move around you.

There’s no question that having earphones on and music blaring will shut out the sounds of everything else around you. Yes it has self-defense implications, but it also just has greater implications about life and that tuning out what’s going on around you could have all sorts of other negative repercussions.

Same goes for things like texting…. and you’ve seen the YouTube videos of people walking while texting and falling into fountains or knocking themselves out as they walk into a lamp post. You get too engrossed in something, and it tunes out the world around you. And then, you open yourself up to bad things happening to you.

And the Rest

Everything else I’m in pretty strong agreement with. And even on the above two points, I don’t fully disagree with Adam, but I just don’t see it quite the same way he does. Still, good article, well worth your time to read.