self defense

Your door isn’t soundproof

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Did you know the front door to your house isn’t soundproof?

It’s true!

You can talk to the person on the other side of the door just fine – and you never have to open the door.

Why might you want to keep your door closed when speaking with someone on the other side of it?

Maybe you don’t know who the person is on the other side of the door, they don’t have Girl Scout Cookies, and you don’t know what their intent is. Yes, chances are fair it’s just some solicitor wanting to sell you something or get your signature on a petition. But how can you be sure?

Why open the door?

First, it’s probably hotter or colder out there than it is in your climate-controlled house, so why let the A/C or heat out and the hot or cold in? Second, there’s bugs out there — I don’t like flies and mosquitos in my house.

But I also don’t like cockroaches, and I’m talking the 2-legged kind.

It’s not uncommon for doors to be opened, and assailants to then barrel through into the home.

Or maybe they don’t do anything… other than get a good look inside your home. What valuables do you have? Where are things laid out? Who might be in the home (that would be a problem)? Are there any dogs? Alarm systems? Then they come back later, maybe when you’re not home, maybe with more friends.

Why invite this trouble?

Yes, it can come off a bit rude to yell “Who is it?” through your door and carry on a conversation through a wall. So what? Which is of greater concern to you? your safety or your manners and how some stranger perceives you?

There will come a time when you must open the door. Until that time, leave it closed (and locked!) and talk through your door.

(for more information on home invasions, check the May 2014 issue of the Rangemaster newsletter)

So apparently violence CAN be the answer

/ hsoi / 6 Comments

In a 2005 report commissioned by [National Institute of Justice, a U.S. Department of Justice agency], researchers examined a variety of sexual assaults and other physical assaults against women. The study did not focus specifically on college students. The researchers found that potential rape victims who resisted their attackers physically and verbally significantly reduced the probability that a rape would be completed and did not significantly increase the risk of serious injury.

Most self-protective actions significantly reduce the risk that a rape will be completed. In particular, certain actions reduce the risk of rape more than 80 percent compared to nonresistance. The most effective actions, according to victims, are attacking or struggling against their attacker, running away, and verbally warning the attacker.

In assaults against women, most self-protective tactics reduced the risk of injury compared to nonresistance. According to the researchers, the only self-protective tactics that appear to increase the risk of injury significantly were those that are ambiguous and not forceful. These included stalling, cooperating and screaming from pain or fear.

A separate study found that even when a rape was completed, women who used some form of resistance had better mental health outcomes than those who did not resist.

From a 2005 report, that Certain Self-Defense Actions Can Decrease Risk. (h/t Michael Z. Williamson)

So sure. It’s important to teach people not to commit crimes; to not violate the property, rights, and dignity of others. It’s also important to realize that while civilized society has worked towards this end for thousands of years, there are still those who chose to deviate and not do what you or society-at-large desires and deems appropriate and acceptable. We haven’t yet been able to eliminate from society bad people doing bad things.

Given these bad people still exist and likely will continue to exist for some time (if thousands of years of history are any indication), it’s prudent you take additional steps towards your own self-protection and self-preservation.

And yes, if the above report is any fair indication (along with thousands of years of recorded history), sometimes violence is the most effective solution.

Remember, violence isn’t bad, it just is what it is. While often violence is used – and most often reported – in a negative manner, certainly violence can be and is used in a positive manner. Do not overlook the fact that a woman fighting back against her rapist, that she is using violence as a tool to preserve her dignity and life. And apparently, a violent response is demonstrated to be the most effective means of avoiding assault, sexual assault, and rape.

Your life is most precious. Act like it.

/ hsoi

Carry your damn gun!

From Tom Givens, of Rangemaster:

Carry Your Darned Gun!

Rangemaster students’ success rate (at least on events I know about) is 61/0/2 for 63 incidents. That’s 61 clear victories, zero losses and 2 forfeits. The two forfeits were people who died as a result of not being armed on The Big Day. Both were killed in separate street robberies. Essentially, both were executed for the contents of their pockets. They were not able to defend themselves because they chose not to be armed that day. They made a poor choice.

Of the 61 students who won, only 3 were injured, and all recovered from those injuries. They did not know they would need a gun that day, but they chose to be armed, anyway. Based on my interviews with the winners, I believe the two MOST important factors are:

1. Having your damn gun on you when the event occurs, and
2. Being willing to use it to save your life.

Everything else– gun model, caliber, ammo choice and Yes, even amount of training, seems to be a distant third after these primary two. Three of the shooters in our group were trained to our instructor level, four or five more to what I would call competency, and the rest had only had an eight hour carry permit course.

One of the things we stress at ALL training levels is the need to actually carry the gun daily, as one simply cannot make an appointment for an emergency. An emergency, in this context, is a sudden, unforeseen crisis in which one’s life is in immediate mortal danger. The key words are “sudden, unforeseen”, so making carrying a handgun a daily routine assures that it will be there when needed. I believe that because we stress this heavily, our students tend to be armed, and thus win when attacked.

I believe a big factor is the Bad Guy’s training, education and life experience. Most BG’s go through their entire careers without ever running into an armed citizen on the street. Only about 4% of the US population has some kind of carry permit, and I’d bet less than 1% of them actually carry on a routine, daily basis. So, when a Bad Guy confronts a citizen who is actually armed and produces his weapon, the resulting mental lag time for the Bad Guy allows even an untrained or minimally trained defender a golden opportunity. The one who starts the fight has an enormous advantage. In this context, the BG started the incident, but the student starts the fight.

This is not to say that more advanced training is not desirable. Several of my students have been in rather difficult extreme cases and still won. Fortunately, they had training beyond a permit course.

Here’s what I take from this.

First, it seems Tom’s student count keeps rising. That’s a bad thing, but from it we can glean good things. It’s bad because good people are being violently assaulted. It’s bad because there’s so much violent crime, and it shows no signs of abating. But it’s good because we can gather hard, real data, and from that learn how to improve, how to be better, how to succeed. We can learn about reality.

Second, “have your damn gun”. I think that’s become Tom’s patented phrase, and with good reason. When you have a 97% success rate, you look for patterns that contribute to that high success rate. This is what we can call, “a clue”.

You see, these violent encounters tend to be “sudden and unforeseen”. I previously wrote about violence unfolds very quickly, and if the only response you have is “I don’t know”, that will not bode well for you. You have to be prepared, and you have to be able to respond swiftly, without hesitation. Which means, 1. carry your damn gun, 2. being willing to use it to save your life.

Third, mindset matters. To make the choice to carry it on a daily and regular basis. Else you could wind up like Tom’s two forfeits, or like Tommy. To make the choice that your life is worth preserving. To understand, acknowledge, and accept there are horrible people in this world that will kill you for your pocket change, which is totally unthinkable and irrational to you, but consider people you encounter in your daily life, the news stories you read, the Facebook posts you see… and how you shake your head wondering how someone could do such a thing… and then realize there are people in this world that will do things 100-times worse. No, we don’t want this, we agree the world would be better off if we didn’t have such things and such people, but we do. And you can either be in denial, or accept it and be willing and able to cope with it when they decide to infringe upon your life and ability to go home tonight and see your family.

Fourth, please stop listening to all the crap on Internet gun forums, Facebook comment threads, or whatever, about what people think is important. Because your gun, your caliber, and all that stuff really doesn’t matter. As the old saying goes: “In ten years nobody will remember the details of caliber, stance or tactics. They will only remember who lived.” What’s going to help you live? 1. having your gun, 2. being willing to use it to preserve your life.

Fifth, yes… as professional trainers, we like people coming to classes. It’s how we make money. The more classes, the better, right? But you can see, that it only matters to a limited extent. I believe Claude Werner has a lot of data that demonstrates that most often what matters is again, 1. having a gun, 2. being willing to use it (which may not necessitate pressing the trigger, perhaps merely showing it with the obvious resolve in your eyes to use it). I do think that more education is never a hindrance in life (tell me any facet of life where you are better off being ignorant or un-/under-educated). However, we’re back to the key points that show even some level of training is better than nothing — in part because that good training should reinforce 1. having your gun, 2. helping you gain the resolve to use it.

Ultimately what comes from this is accepting that the world isn’t fully of shiny happy people holding hands. There are degenerates that are willing to kill you for no reason — even if you do what they tell you. They will take your money, your phone, your keys, your sexuality, your dignity, your life. To them, your life means nothing. To you, your life is everything. To your family, your friends, your life is most precious. Act like it.

 

Problems, and Solutions

/ hsoi

This person looked at me for a moment and with a bit of exasperation and said, “Violence is never the answer! It never will be and we must stop violence throughout our society!” I looked at this person for a moment and said, “You know, you are right…violence is never the answer to society’s problems. But, unfortunately, all to often, it is the only solution.”

– Dave Spaulding (emphasis added)

A good way to phrase it.

The above was the ending of an anecdote from Dave Spaulding. He was telling of a conversation he had with a person, that upon finding out what he did for a living began to chastise him saying how what he does promote violence, and because people receive this sort of training they are more apt to resort to violence as a solution instead of non-violent solutions.

It’s probably safe to assume this person has no experience in such training. Never took a class, sat in on a class, or has any idea what goes on in such classes. So I’m not sure how this person can speak with such authority about what goes on with that training. Speaking as a professional trainer, I can tell you that certainly there is emphasis on firearm handling skills, but there’s also a great deal of emphasis on seeking alternatives. It is preferred to not resort to violence, because violence is costly. There’s a great deal of teaching about non-violent resolution, including walking away or even avoiding the situation in the first place. Look at trainers like SouthNarc and his Managing Unknown Contacts work. Look at Massad Ayoob and his MAG-20. Texas CHL curriculum is required to teach non-violent resolution techniques. But the difference is we accept that sometimes violence is the only solution.

Prior to the above, Dave wrote:

Knowing this person had never faced a violent situation in their lives and would have no concept of what fear does to a person I responded, “What would such a non-violent solution look like?” I was told, “I don’t know, but it would not result in a death.” “Whose death are we talking about here?” I said, ” You see, the person attacking you has already made up their mind to hurt or kill you…you can’t reason with them as they do not think like you do. The biggest mistake anyone can make is to apply how we think about a particular situation and apply it to a predator. The death you are referring to could be yours.”

This is what people often overlook or don’t even consider: it could mean their death. That yes, you are a reasonable person, but this other person — by virtue of attacking you — has already demonstrated they are unreasonable. Read this recent story for a perfect example of how random acts of violence occur, how they are performed by unreasonable persons, and how if not for a lot of luck and a will to fight and win, this person wouldn’t be alive to recount his grave error.

So what would you do?

If your answer is “I don’t know”, that’s not good for you. Think about every other aspect of life, every other thing you do from your family to your job to even your hobbies. You prepare. The better prepared you are in advance, the better you can handle the situation when it unfolds. Are you going to get up and give a speech, cold, to a room full of people? Or would you prefer to know your topic ahead of time, gather some notes, and practice a few times? Well, now you have a response should someone ask you to stand up and say a few words. But if you were asked cold and could only muster an “I don’t know”, how well do you think you’ll fare on the spot? Can you see how “I don’t know” isn’t going to serve you well?

Violence unfolds very suddenly and quickly. When recounting a violent encounter, so many victims start out with “I never saw them” or “They came out of nowhere”. It takes you by surprise. It’s sudden, swift, and you can only react. Why do so many people freeze when bad things happen? Because they have no response and their brains are frantically searching for a response; meantime, time — and the attack — continue forward, the situation ever-changing, and your brain having to reset its OODA loop constantly as it searches for a new response to the new situation. You will be perpetually behind the curve, and will suffer for it. If you prepare beforehand, you’ll be better off. This holds true for everything in life.

And yes, if your preparation is for a non-violent type of response, that’s fine — at least you prepared. But now take a step back and honestly assess the effectiveness of your non-violent solution. Place yourself in the above story and honestly assess if your solution would have been effective. And yes, you have to honestly examine this and not look to self-justify or make excuses, because this is your life at stake. If your solution works, great! Share it with us to help everyone learn solid solutions. Let the solution be vetted in the labs and field to see if it actually works out. Don’t be afraid to contribute, because we all want the same thing: to live peaceful lives. The more we can do to achieve it by less costly means, the better.

In the meantime, remember what Dave said: “You are right…violence is never the answer to society’s problems. But, unfortunately, all to often, it is the only solution.”

Homicide Trends

/ hsoi

The following information comes from Tom Givens. It’s a copy/paste (with minor edits only for formatting/posting). Take it for what it’s worth.

Homicide Trends

The US Department of Justice gathers and reports information on a number of crime classifications from all over the United States. They recently released a huge amount of data on homicides occurring during the time period 1976-2005. This is a 29 year period, so there was a lot of data to examine. Here are a few tidbits from that information.

Males are almost four times as likely to be murdered as females. Males are also far more likely to be the offender.

Among male victims, they were killed by:

  • Spouse, ex-spouse, or girlfriend 5%
  • Other family member 6.8%
  • Acquaintance/known person 35.3%
  • Stanger or unknown killer 52.9%

Among female victims, they were killed by:

  • Spouse, ex-spouse, boyfriend 30%
  • Other family member 11.8%
  • Acquaintance/ known person 21.8%
  • Stranger/unknown 36.3%

Cases involving:

  • male offender/ male victim 65.3%
  • male offender/female victim 22.7%
  • female offender/male victim 9.6%
  • female offender/female victim 2.4%

Age of victims:

  • Under 18 9.8%
  • 18-34 52.7%
  • 35-49 22.8%
  • 50+ 14.7%

Circumstances of murder, 2005 only:

  • Felony murder* 2,432 15%
  • Argument 4,787
  • Gang related 955 5.7%
  • Other ** 2,223
  • Unknown ** 6,295

Felony murder is a murder committed during the commission of some other felony, such as armed robbery, car-jacking, rape, etc. “Other” and “Unknown” accounted for 51% of all homicides. “Other”, “Unknown” and “Felony Murder” together comprised 66% (2 out of 3) of these homicides. These are the ones we go armed to prevent.

Please note that gang related murders were the smallest percentage. The common notion that most murders are gang members killing each other is nonsense.

A couple of other quick facts:
Each year about 4,400 unidentified human bodies are recovered in the US. About 1,000 remain unidentified after one year. At any given time, there are approximately 100,000 active missing person cases in the US. Many of these are soon found, as they are voluntary disappearances due to marital discord, domestic violence, credit issues, etc. However, several thousand each year disappear without a trace and are never seen again. Obviously, these are undetected homicides that add to the data detailed above.

Other Violent Crime
These figures are also from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, a branch of the US Department of Justice. These deal specifically with 2006.

Total Violent Crime Incidents for 2006 = 5,685,620 (1 for every 54 people)

A common fallacy is that this violent crime takes place in the wee hours, after midnight. Wrong!

  • 6 am-6 pm 52.4%
  • 6 pm-midnight 32.8%
  • midnight-6 am 10.9%

Robbery = 645,950 with injury to the victim= 232,380

Rape = 255,630 Victim’s advocacy groups believe about 1 rape out of every 6 is reported to the police. Do the math.

Aggravated Assault = 1,209,730 (an assault involving a deadly weapon and/or serious bodily injury to the victim) Many Aggravated Assault victims are permanently disabled, have to have multiple surgeries, or are permanently disfigured, they just didn’t die and become homicides.

Minimum Competency for Defensive Pistol – Revisited Again

/ hsoi

I just re-read an article from Claude Werner on “Practice priorities for the Armed Citizen“. (h/t Greg Ellifritz). As I was reading it, it reminded me of my article series on “Minimum Competency for Defensive Pistol“. I did revisit the series a few months back, but Claude’s article gave me a few more things to think about, and perhaps revise/refine in my suggestions for practice and skills progression.

Claude speaks about a progression, a “where do I go from here?” sort of thing. Claude offers his own suggestions, like the NRA Defensive Pistol Qualification. But what really got me was pointing out a key problem most people have when it comes to live fire practice:

Most people have to limit their livefire practice to indoor ranges where drawing from the holster is not allowed. This presents an issue to those who carry pistol in holsters. There are solutions, though.

Indeed this is a problem. I’ve gotten quite spoiled at KR Training and with the host of good ranges around Austin where you can do things like practice drawing from a holster. Of course, there are still those people that go to one of the local indoor ranges that have these restrictions, and of course others around the country tend to have these restrictions as well. I overlooked that reality. Claude offers:

Like many of my colleagues, for a long time I said the hard part of the drawstroke is establishing grip. I’ve changed my opinion on that. The hard part of the drawstroke is getting the pistol indexed on the target enough to get a good hit with the first shot. John Shaw, a World Champion shooter, clued me in to this many years ago. Note that I didn’t say a ‘perfect’ hit.

Indexing the pistol to the target (presentation) is easily practiced from a high ready position starting at the pectoral muscle of the body’s dominant side. Starting this way is not generally a problem at an indoor range. And since I recommend practicing one shot per presentation, the ‘no rapid fire’ limitation at many indoor ranges isn’t an issue either.

This is one of those smack your head because you wish you could have had a V-8 sort of moments. What Claude writes is so true. The press-out, the presentation, whatever you want to call it, it’s the hardest part and such a vital skill. When you draw? You then must press-out. After a reload? You must press out. Clear a malfunction? You must press out. The press out is such a vital skill (it’s a key thing stressed in so many of the KR Training courses). And yes, you can practice this at the indoor ranges. You can start from that high, compressed ready position (step 3 of the 4-step drawstroke), and press out and break one shot. While you might end up eventually moving fast in doing this, your single-shots will still be “slow” relative to each other (i.e. you’re not double-tapping) and thus no range rules broken. So so so true, and so important.

Thank you Claude for my “V-8 moment”. Regardless if you take a progression like Claude recommends or I recommend, the underlying issue remains the same: that you’ll use some particular course of fire (e.g. TX CHL test), assess your skills, then focus on improving the areas you identified as weak. For example, my last live-fire practice session I shot numerous drills not so much to shoot the drills (i.e. throw lead in a semi-organized manner), but to exercise the fundamental skills I consider important and identify what I was doing well and what I needed work on. I saw I needed to move faster, and doing a lot of one-shot draws are in my future. So yes, working that press-out is in my future.

Another thing Claude touched on.

…to get a good hit with the first shot…. Note that I didn’t say a ‘perfect’ hit.

Also:

What I like about it most is that it is a 100 percent standard, not 70 or 80 percent like a qualification course. We need to accustom ourselves to the concept that if we shoot at a criminal, ALL the rounds we fire must hit the target. That’s being responsible.

These remind me of my concept of “(un)acceptable hit“. I just prefer that phrasing over “good hit” or “miss”, because like Claude said, it’s not necessarily a “perfect” hit. It’s also understanding that all the rounds must hit what we need it to hit; we must make acceptable hits.

Thanx, Claude!

One simple step to deter crime – lock your doors

/ hsoi

I’ve kept track of reports of the thefts from cars in the city where I work (an upper-class suburb with around 35,000 residents) for the last 30 days. While I earlier referred to them as “car break-ins” that is truly a mischaracterization. Here’s how the numbers work out:

Number of vehicles entered- 24

Unlocked vehicles- 20

Locked vehicles- 3

Unknown or unreported status- 1

More than 83% of the vehicles with items stolen were unlocked! In only three cases did thieves actually break a window to steal something. In each of those cases, the item(s) stolen were expensive and clearly within view from the outside of the vehicle. You can safely assume that if there is nothing visible to steal in your car, thieves won’t break windows just to check. On the other hand, if you leave your doors unlocked, thieves will open the door and see what they can find. As the title of the article says: Lock your damn doors! If you don’t want your crap stolen, keep your doors locked and valuables out of sight.

From Greg Ellifritz

I’ve written about this before, about how to keep your car safe.

Locking your doors is a primary deterrent. Second is to keep things out of sight, or better, not in the car at all. Don’t even keep cigarettes and gum, as that may well be desirable (yes, I had a neighbor whose unlocked car was rummaged through, and the only thing taken was their pack of gum).

I have had mixed feelings about locking car doors due to an old friend who worked in the legal system for some time. He never locked his car doors, but also kept the car empty from all things (only thing in the car was the car itself). From his experience, it was better to keep the doors unlocked and avoid the smashed window. As well, if they really want the car itself, it doesn’t matter because if they want something that big that badly, they’ll get it regardless. I see his logic and where it comes from, but still — I’m a door locker and car emptier.

It holds for houses too:

The same advice also applies to your house as well. We had at least four burglaries last month where thieves entered through an unlocked door. The standard M.O. for these burglars is to find a house that appears unoccupied. They’ll knock on the door and if no one answers, they will walk around the house looking for an unlocked entrance. If they find a door unlocked, they go inside.

The thieves go straight to the master bedroom and steal jewelry and all the small electronics they can gather on the way. They are in and out of the house in only a few minutes.

I’ve seen countless surveillance videos to back this up. BTW, ever have someone knock on your door and when you answered gave a strange response? You may have been cased. I had this in my younger days: someone knocked, I answered and they said their friend needed a glass of water. I gave them one, then when I went to go look they were no where to be found. A teachable moment for myself.

If you have an alarm on the house? I sometimes question the utility of it for the above reason: by the time they are in and out it’s only a few minutes and police will not respond in time. Nevertheless, I have an alarm system — and use it — because I think every layer of deterrent is useful and adds up towards making my car, my home less of a target. Locking doors and windows, well-lit exterior, having and using an alarm system, attentive neighbors, dogs, etc.. Note that most burglars aren’t undertaking a major heist: they just want a quick and easy score. The harder I can be to score against, the better. One just cannot have a false sense of invulnerability, no matter how thick one’s layers may be.

This is especially true regarding dogs.

I have a big dog. She’s a livestock guardian dog, so by nature she’s extremely protective. She’s certainly another layer to our home and family security system. But reading this gave me pause:

The thieves saw the dogs and concocted a plan. They entered the (unlocked) detached garage. One of them grabbed a yard rake and the other grabbed a scrap piece of lumber. They used the rake and lumber to drive the dogs back into an area where they could close a pet gate and isolate them to a small area of the house. With the dogs walled off, the criminals went straight for the bedroom and stole the jewelry. They left the rake and the piece of lumber in the house entryway.

I don’t know what sort of dogs, or even if the dogs’ temperament played a possible role here (e.g. a friendly lab vs. a protective pit). Still, it shows that a determined burglar (or group of) can get what they want. Nothing is bulletproof, so the more layers you can have, the better.

Bottom line: lock your doors. It’s a simple step, and will prevent a lot of problems.

Six Reasons You Will Lose a Street Fight

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

A short, to-the-point article from Razor Fighting Dynamics. Since I know people don’t like to click through, here’s a summary:

  1. You let your attacker throw the first punch
  2. You don’t walk away
  3. You judge a person by how they look
  4. You let your attacker get to close
  5. You think fighting is fair
  6. You got into a fight in the first place

Pretty much. Yes, click through and read the article, because the elaborations of those points are important.

Truly, avoidance is the best strategy.

Pepper Spray 101

/ hsoi

Greg Ellifritz writes a great article on Pepper Spray — what to buy, how to carry it, how to deploy it.

Many people buy pepper spray, hook it on their keychain, and think they’re good to go. That’s a first step, but you do need to know how to use it — a little training, a little practice, goes a long way.

If nothing else, whatever you choose to buy be willing to buy at least three of them. Take the first one somewhere where the wind is calm and the spray won’t hurt anyone or anything. Now, spray it. See what your product does: stream? cloud/mist? how far does it go? did it blow back into you? If this isn’t sufficient for your situation, buy another product and try again. If it is sufficient, spray it a few more times to get the feel for how it works and how you can deploy it. Once you have one that works for you, discard the first used can and carry the second (tho give it one spray as a function check). Then keep the third as a backup at home so when the second runs out you have an immediate replacement (and then order more).

Do test and replace your spray regularly. Yes that means you’ll eventually deplete and have to replace it, but if the whole reason you bought and carry it is for your personal safety, aren’t you worth it?