self defense

What would you do?

/ hsoi / 9 Comments

Watch this video.

Here’s intro story (not much text, watch the video).

Here’s follow up.

Now let’s take in a few things.

The people in the video have no respect for the law.

The people in the video have no respect for (your) life.

They understand how to do what they want, that suits whatever makes them happy and don’t give even half a fuck about you — unless you get in their way, then they’ll hurt you (evidenced by the guy that got run over).

The people in the video understand gang mentality, in the sense of strength in numbers.

They have no fear of the police. In fact, the police feared for their own safety and left.

They don’t fear repercussions from “the system”, given they aren’t hiding their faces on the video and in fact are uploading these videos to YouTube.

Granted, you may not live in Oakland, but that doesn’t mean where you live is immune from people who celebrate their disregard for you. People like this, obviously, exist in this world. Heck, just a couple weeks ago a nasty beating was caught on tape in downtown Austin.

What are you doing to keep yourself safe in the face of this reality?

Do you leave it to others to manage your safety? Again, the police didn’t and couldn’t deal with this and left (I don’t blame them one bit). According to the follow-up article:

“This has been going on for years,” said Alameda County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Sgt. J.D. Nelson.

“The powers that be in Oakland have depleted the Oakland Police Department, so, this is the kind of activity you’re going to get.”

(Oh, and that Austin beat-down? Happened 2 blocks from APD headquarters).

So what can you do? The police can’t save you. The government can’t save you. Tell me, what can you do? Tell me how constructing a legal system that abridges the law-abiding from protecting themselves from such animals creates a better, more peaceful, more enlightened society? Tell me how banning guns, knives, and other useful self-defense tools is a wise course of action, given what you saw in that video. Tell me how not getting education, training, skills, and knowledge on how to keep yourself safe is not worth your time or money (because just having a gun isn’t enough).

You must accept there are animals in this world.  You must accept there are horrible people who do not hold the same standards as you. That because you cannot fathom behaving in some savage way doesn’t mean such savagery doesn’t exist. Once you overcome denial and ignorance, then we can start talking about real useful solutions to these problems.

AAR – Paul Howe’s Civilian Response to Active Shooter

/ hsoi

Karl Rehn and a few other KR Training assistant instructors recently attended Paul How’s “Civilian Response to Active Shooter” course.

Karl’s AAR can be found here. Good stuff.

Don’t deny the less capable

/ hsoi / 6 Comments

“Just run away.”

“Just kick him (in the crotch).”

“You’re a young/strong/big guy, who would mess with you?”

These suggestions tend to be predicated by either your current situation or my current situation.

When you think about ways people might defend themselves if attacked, you think what you could do, like run away or kick him or being able to put up a physical fight — because YOU (or I) can do those things. There often lacks consideration for others that may not be as able as you.

When my ankle problem came up a couple weeks ago and rendered me essentially cripple, I went from capable to incapable in the unexpected blink of an eye.

Run? I couldn’t even stand up, let alone walk or run.

Kick? If I can’t stand up, how can I kick someone?

Big and strong mean nothing. If I could get around it was with a cane and then heavily leaning on it; my gait made it evident I was crippled.

You’ve seen the shows on Discovery Channel. Who do the predators go for? The young, the old, the sick, the injured. I’ve become prey.

For all those who seem to know better about how we are to keep ourselves safe, please tell me what I’m supposed to do? Am I supposed to keep a cell phone programmed with 911? so while I’m crumpled on the ground getting my head stomped in I can try to call for help? Oh wait, that’s right — I’m supposed to pee on my attacker.

Don’t just consider someone with a temporary injury. Consider those with permanent disadvantage: smaller, weaker, older, younger, frail, crippled, wheelchair bound, other disabilities. Even consider some of us may not have the resources you have, like money, gated-communities, or personal bodyguards and security detail. We’re not all as (potentially) capable as you.

Thus, your solutions may not work for me.

Being human, we are tool users. We have limits, and we use tools to overcome them. That’s why most of us use hammers to drive nails, and phones to communicate beyond shouting distance. We use tools to overcome our limits. And when some of us have greater limits, we may need better tools.

Do not deny us the use of better tools. You may someday suddenly find yourself in a new and less-capable context. You’ll want those tools.

Or at least, when you start suggesting solutions, and want those solutions to be applied to everyone, make sure you take everyone into consideration, because we aren’t all like you.

It happens in seconds, but you’ll pay for it for a long time.

/ hsoi

Smash and grabs are happening in Austin (not surprising, given Austin’s crime rate):

“Apparently it just takes a minute to shatter that glass and grab a purse,” said Sharon McMillan.

She was picking her son up from a birthday party at Brentwood Park Saturday afternoon. “So, I quickly parked and left my purse in the car, knowing I would only be just a couple minutes,” she said.

She locked the car doors. But when she came back, a window was shattered and her purse was gone.

(h/t Michael Cargill)

Only gone a couple of minutes. I’m sure you’ve done this too. We think nothing of it. Just running in really quick — to the house, to the convenience store to buy a drink after gassing up, whatever excuse. Crime only takes seconds to unfold.

“I never leave my purse in the car, but of course that day I did, thinking, the car was in sight, and we were just a few hundred yards away,” she said.

The women say they tracked their credit cards, and found that the cards were being used at a few businesses on West Anderson Lane.

“Immediately, we got on the phone with our credit card company and the bank and canceled the cards,” Spradling said. “It was probably 40 minutes from the time we got to the park and until everything was canceled, and already they had $600 on the credit card.”

And the subsequent crime continued very quickly, faster than you could respond. Within 40 minutes, already $600 in fraudulent charges rang up.

Think about it.

You thought things would be safe. That it’s just a couple minutes. But what would it have cost you to pick up your purse (or put your phone or wallet in your pocket, whatever) and bring it with you? Just another second or two, if that? But failing that, look at the cost you now have to deal with. Smashed car window. Time off to get it repaired. Dealing with insurance, and certainly the cost of repairs/deductible. Losing all your credit cards and other identification, whatever else might have been in the purse. Now you have to replace everything, monitor your credit and identity for further fraud. Whatever the specifics wind up being, it’s certainly a FAR greater cost in time, money, emotion, energy, to deal with the aftermath than it would have been to just take your purse or wallet with you.

Learn from their mistakes.

Austin’s crime rate

/ hsoi / 5 Comments

I recently came across a bunch of data about the crime rate in Austin. I’m not sure where city-data.com gets their raw data (and apparently they don’t disclose it), but let’s just take it at face value.

Austin’s crime rate seems to have declined. There’s fluctuation from year to year, but if you look at the span from 1999 to 2011, it’s gone down overall (using city-data’s “crime rate” number).

But if you look at some specifics, it’s gone up. Over that time span:

  • Murder has held steady
  • Rape is lower, but only after a number of years of significant rise (the low 2011 number may be an anomaly)
  • Robbery is hard to call. The 1999 and 2011 numbers are about the same, but in between there was a significant rise.
  • Assaults are up.
  • Burglary is again one of those where 1999 vs 2011 are about the same, but there’s a massive rise in between
  • Theft is up
  • Auto theft is down
  • Arson has weaved up and down, and after a significant drop, appears to be on the rise again

And using City-Data’s numbers, Austin’s crime rate is significantly higher than the US average.

City-Data then breaks some numbers down.

Violent crime rate? Almost always higher than the US average.

Property crime rate? Significantly higher than the US average. I know property crime is a big problem in Austin.

Austin is lower than the US average murder… but murder is so statistically rare, whereas property crime and assault isn’t. And note that while some assaults are just as simple as that, “aggravated assault” used to be called “attempted murder”; basically they were trying to kill you but you lived — can’t call it murder unless they die. And due to our improvements in medical and Emergency Room care, there’s a high probability that if you are attacked but get to an ER with vital signs, you have a high likelihood of living. So, consider that when you look at violent crime numbers.

Rape has generally been higher in Austin. I do wonder what role in the data the University has.

Robbery is higher than the US average, every year.

Assault fluctuates year over year vs. the US average, but it’s still high.

Burglary is significantly and consistently higher than the US average.

Same with theft.

Austin is a high crime city. It may be getting better, depending who you ask, but it’s still high.

Here’s another tidbit.

Full-time law enforcement officers? Lower than the Texas average.

Hrm.

Well, if you break the crime down in Austin, it seems we can see a few things:

  • Crime rates are higher than average (vs. the US in general)
  • Crime rates are generally rising
  • Theft is the most likely crime you will encounter, followed by burglary, then assault.
    • While you have to take care to secure your person (you are more important than “stuff”), you should also take steps to secure your stuff and make your stuff-holding-locations (house, car, etc.) to be less tempting targets.
  • Not enough police to really stop and prevent crime. You are on your own when it come to the first line of prevention.

Take the data for whatever it’s worth.

Target fixation

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

Sasha, our dog, was sitting in the kitchen because of course it was food time!

I was eating a sausage patty, and her eyes were glued to the patty in my hands.

When Wife tossed a bit of sausage at Sasha, it bounced off her head (Sasha’s very good about catching food in mid-air)… because her eyes were glued to my sausage patty.

This is what we call “target fixation”, and how it can cause you to miss important things in life. 🙂

 

For once, can we get some USEFUL advice?

/ hsoi / 6 Comments

A horrible event in Houston. A woman is jogging, is followed into the bathroom by two scumbags, and they rob and sexually assault her.

And as usual when things like this happen, “advice” is offered up on how to stay safe:

They are urging people who use Terry Hershey Park to make sure they walk, jog or bike with a friend and always carry a cell phone programmed with emergency numbers.

I’m not sure who “they” are (the police, the neighborhood association, or the coffee shop employees… the article’s use of pronouns wasn’t the best), but regardless, what use is that advice?

Watch the first 30 seconds of this video:

(h/t Chuck Rives)

The key I want you to focus on is how fast an attack unfolds.

In fact, watch the rest of the video and see how one thing the attackee (defender) has is a gun, but he’s never able to deploy it. Attacks happen so fast.

Do you really think having a cell phone programmed with emergency numbers is going to help you? If the national average police response time is 11 minutes, how is that going to do you any good when you’re being sexually assaulted right now?

Please, someone explain this to me, me because apparently I fail to grasp this concept.

What if instead the woman had pepper spray? In fact, while jogging she should have the can of spray in her hand ready to go. This would actually be a better first step than even having a gun, because you can’t go jogging with a gun in your hand to gain that advantage; but pepper spray you certainly can and I dare anyone to deny a woman to carry pepper spray in a readily-deployable manner. I’m not saying it would have stopped the attack, but it’s likely to have given her a better chance.

Also, what was awareness like? Many people jog with headphones on. Was there awareness of being followed? Did she make herself more vulnerable by being unaware of her surroundings? I don’t know, and I’m not trying to scold nor minimize what this woman went through, but I am hoping we can use it as a learning experience so others do not have to undergo what she did.

Where’s advice on fighting back? Where’s advice on how to prevail? Where’s advice on how to avoid being a victim in the first place? Bullshit suggestions like “jog in pairs” and “carry a mobile phone” are certainly useful things, but when you consider the actual reality of what goes on, they really don’t do much to help you avoid problems in the first place, nor deal with the problems if they happen. If we really want to reduce violent victimization, let’s start giving — and then heeding — actual useful advice, eh?

Improvised Weapons, and kids

/ hsoi

Of all the presentations at the 2nd annual SDS Conference, the 3 kiddos were unanimous in what their favorite presentation was.

Leslie Buck‘s presentation on improvised weapons. (yeah, it should have been Dad’s presentation, but I’ll let them slide). 😉

Not only was it just a fun presentation, with lots of good video. It was something that was really valuable to the kids.

Because I got to thinking.

The purpose of the presentation was primarily for us adults that probably carry a gun normally, but for some reason cannot. So what else could we have at our disposal.

But think about kids.

Kids are vulnerable. They are generally physically smaller, weaker. When it comes to force disparity, usually kids are going to get the short end of the stick. Weapons are tools designed to help us overcome force disparity.

However, look at how our legal structure denies children the ability to use and possess these tools.

Look at how schools and other groups and places kids go will deny them.

If the mantras are “won’t someone think of the children” and “if it saves just one life, then it’s worth it”, then why are we doing things to make our children even more vulnerable?

And while it wasn’t necessarily a new topic to the kids (given their father), sometimes things make more impact when it comes from another teacher (especially one that isn’t Dad), or due to the presentation. From talking with kiddos afterwards, it sounds like Leslie’s presentation made a lot of positive impact on them and really opened up their minds to the possibilities. Even Wife took something from it.

So, when it comes to your kids, think about how they could use improvised weapons to help them defend themselves. Temper it of course (it’s not license to bash the bully upside the head with hammer), but help them realize there are things they can do when the situation arises and they may need it.

The bullying experiment

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

There’s been a video going around about “the bullying experiment”.

The premise of the video is a couple guys act out a bullying scenario in front of random people, filming on hidden camera. They want to catch how people react, which ranges from ignoring it to walking away to getting involved.

I agree this is an interesting social experiment.

I agree it seems sad and terrible that people will not get involved to help someone that appears to be in danger.

I agree that bullying is a problem, but it’s not just a problem of this generation because bullying has been around forever — it’s nothing new. Still, that doesn’t make it right.

But I have to take issue with the video and the suggested advice.

What they are wanting is for people to intervene. I’m not sure that’s wise. All you are seeing is a slice of the greater picture, and is that slice enough to know what’s really going on? As I’ve discussed before, you cannot always know what the whole story is based upon the small slice you see.

It appears they are performing this experiment on a college campus. It’s a fairly homogeneous group of people, in a fairly contrived and “safe” environment. What if they tried this in other areas of town? like on the rich side of town? poor side of town? downtown? in the city’s violence hotspots? That might bring about some interesting different responses… one of which could end badly for the actors.

And that’s part of why people don’t want to get involved. They have their own lives to preserve. It goes back to things like “beer & tv time” and asking “is this worth dying for?” because your getting involved may well bring you unwanted harm.

It could also be that people don’t know what to do, how to react. They’ve never experienced this before so they freeze because that’s all they can do as they try to process what’s unfolding before them. Or perhaps they were raised to just always avoid trouble, so they flee. Shall we persecute them for their self-preservation?

So, I think it’s a bit naive for the video producers to suggest the solution to bullying is for people to get involved. Yes I understand their motive, and I do think that being silent about bullying is a way to allow it to perpetuate. Just realize that “fighting” bullying doesn’t necessarily have to involve physical intervention, and not everyone is willing to physically intervene.

But that’s also where I have a greater issue with this campaign.

It seems the suggestion is the solution is for you to get involved.

That bullying perpetuates because of your fault. That this is someone else’s fault, and it’s someone else’s responsibility to stop it.

What happened to teaching people to stand up for themselves? It used to be the way you handled a bully wasn’t to have someone else fight your battles, but for you to stand on your own two feet and stand up to the bully. And yes, that might mean you have to take them down a peg. Modern anti-bullying solutions seem to revolve around others making changes, with little focus on you improving yourself and your own condition.

If as the video producers say “change starts with the people”, the first person you can change is yourself. Start there.

 

Safety tips

/ hsoi / 7 Comments

I received this list of “Christmas Safety Tips”. But really, these tips are solid all year round.

The original list of tips is in plain text, and my comments follow in italics.

· Always stay alert to your surroundings and the people around you.

Keep your head up, eyes looking around – not looking at your phone.

· Lock your vehicle and close the windows,even if you will return in a few minutes.

There’s mixed data on locking and closing (some say you should, some say it doesn’t matter), but the key remains the same: do not make a tempting target. Do not have things in your car that make it tempting for theft. If you must (e.g. out shopping), locking doors and rolling up windows, keeping packages and “tempting items” out of sight, etc. work to minimize and deter.

· Park in well lighted areas.

Well-populated too. However, don’t be complacent, as stuff happens in crowd in the middle of the day.

· Remember to take your keys with you. Place valuables,(e.g.Mp3players,G.P.S.),and packages in the trunk. If the trunk is full, place the items beneath covered inside the car.

If you can, make trips home to drop off packages.

· If you become separated from your children, teach them to go to a store clerk and ask for help.Try to always have a way of directly contacting people you shop with.

This depends in part on the age of your children as to the actions you take, but fundamentally it comes down to planning and discussing with your children what to do before things happen. While it’s good to discuss well in advance, it’s also good to discuss immediately upon arrival. For example, when you first walk into a store, point out the clerks and how to find and identify them (name tags? uniforms? register stations?). Immediately establish and verify the plan with your child so it is fresh in their mind.

I have found that if the child is too young to remember your contact information, take a small card (business card, index card, etc.) and print your relevant contact information (name, mobile phone number, etc.) on the card such that the child could just give it to the clerk for them to use to contact you. When my kids were really young, I put the card in their shoe or sock, so there was less chance of the card being lost, but the child would know where it was.

· Avoid carrying large amounts of cash.And don’t flash your wallet or money.

Be discrete.

· As a reminder,theft is one of the easiest ways that thieves can steal your identity.

Please remember to review the contents of your wallet or purse before you go shopping.Think about what information you carry in excess.Don’t bring any credit cards with you that you won’t be using.Have all of your personal information written and stored to report documents you lose.

This is a good one. Because if you do lose your wallet, if you are mugged, or whatever, it’s less information to go around.

· If your credit card is lost,stolen, or misused, notify the issuers and credit reporting agencies immediately.

And keep an active eye on your bank statements, eStatements, if the bank and/or credit card has an online account mechanism, watch the account. The recent data breach at Target stores shows that much is possible, even if your information wasn’t directly taken.

· Keep receipts separate from purchases. If your shopping items get stolen, this makes it harder for a thief to cash them in at the store.

· Don’t carry too many packages.It is important not to overload yourself with packages,to have clear sight of your surroundings and a good range of motion.

Distribute the load. Do you have others with you? Let them carry some packages too. Can you request a store employee help you out to your car with your packages?

Wife and I tend to follow a pattern where she carries things and I don’t. I know it looks bad, but it allows me to keep my hands free and unencumbered.

· When returning to your vehicles have keys in-hand.

I don’t like to do this, because it makes my intent evident. However, the point is to have your keys easily accessible and not something that you must rummage around for 5 minutes trying to find. This will cause your head to be down, your eyes to be averted, and be unaware of your surroundings. Just ensure your keys are easily and quickly accessible.

What Predators Look For

· Someone looking friendly, timid, lost, absent-minded, or intoxicated – thus more easily manipulated.

· Someone wearing earphones or distracted with a cell phone – unaware of surroundings.

· Someone unaware their being followed until their isolated.

· Someone parking close to trucks that prevent witnesses from seeing you – predators seek that kind of cover.

· Someone “handcuffed” with both arms loaded with packages or a child.

These are true things, regardless of time of year. The common factor? Unawareness, either by action (e.g. nose glued to a phone screen) or distraction (packages, children). Awareness is your #1 defense, because the sooner you can be aware of potential danger, the sooner you can work to avoid it.