self defense

Instructor Ethics

/ hsoi / 5 Comments

Here I sit in the too-early morning — even too early for me (stupid daylight savings time). Later today (at the time of this writing, which isn’t the same as the date of publication) I will be sitting in a classroom to renew my Texas Concealed Handgun License Instructor certification.

I dug back through some emails I sent to myself, finding an article Kathy Jackson wrote titled Instructor Ethics 101:

When you step up to teach a self-defense class, you are literally asking students to bet their lives on the quality of the information you have and on your ability to teach it to them. This is no exaggeration, but just the simple truth.

[…]

I have even heard some handgun instructors deny that they are teaching self-defense. “It’s just a carry permit class,” they say — as if people carry guns for any other purpose. Or, “I’m just teaching them to use a handgun, that’s all.” But if your students think otherwise, if they come to you to learn skills they think they can use to protect themselves and their loved ones, you’re still on the hook. It’s so tempting to engage in these kinds of denials, and maybe that’s a more comfortable place for us to live as instructors, but it does our students no good.

As I prepare myself to sit in a room full of other CHL Instructors, I hope every single one of them understands it’s not “just a carry permit class”. That they take the gravity to heart, and will go forth and teach accordingly.

Even for myself, it’s a good reminder.

There may not be enough time for someone else to respond

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Greg Ellifritz writes about the recent Sparks, Nevada school shooting.

4) Time.  The entire attack, from the time the first child was shot until the shooter killed himself, lasted less than three minutes.  Think about that for a second.  You don’t have much time to act.  Don’t expect the police to be able to arrive in time to save you.  You won’t be able to get to your vehicle glove compartment to get the gun you don’t carry “because it’s too heavy.”  You are on your own and will be forced to use whatever gear you have on your person to stop this kind of attack.

Just let the reality of that sink in.

And for those who think there are other strategies you can take:

3) Talking is a poor strategy. The heroic teacher in this case attempted to talk the student down after the student shot his first victim. His heroic attempt was rewarded with a bullet in the chest. Historically, begging, pleading, and talking to the killer has not resulted in positive outcomes. In general, talking should only be considered as a last resort when no other options are available.

So as you go through life, as you make decisions for yourself — and for others — should you make them based upon contending with your dreamy ideal of how the world should be or how you think it is? or contending with the realities of how the world really is?

 

Busting misconceptions

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

It’s always healthy to bust misconceptions. Truth is stronger and better.

When it comes to violence, there are lots of misconceptions out there.

“Why couldn’t the police shoot the knife out of that guys hand? Why did they have to kill him?”

“Why did they pile on top of him with five cops? Poor guy got crushed! Police brutality!”

“Why did you hit him first? He was only yelling,he didn’t even touch you!”

“Why did he hit me? All I did was say that he’s an idiot!”

Or my favorite, that he was unarmed, implying that he wasn’t or couldn’t be a threat.

I think it was through a “like” by BobG that I found this article: “Everything you know about violence is wrong“.

Well, that depends on who “you” is, but for the general public, yes in fact everything you know about violence is wrong. It wasn’t until some years ago that I became more educated on the topic.

The article works to bust the four misconceptions presented above. Why? Because education and truth are better than ignorance, especially if you’re going to discuss — and make policy — relative to the issue.

Be honest [with yourself] in admitting that they [people who deal with violence daily, police officers, soldiers, EMTs, security officers, bouncers, etc.] have relevant experience with a subject that is primarily academical for you. So it would behoove you to consider their responses as more accurate than your uninformed opinions.

There is nothing wrong with that, by the way. It’s a good thing that you haven’t been exposed to violence all that much. I am not promoting people go out and be violent to learn what it is really all about. What I am promoting is that the large majority of modern society has a flawed understanding of the topic. Personally, I blame politicians and Hollywood for creating a false image of it, but that’s another discussion.

What I am also not promoting is a “kill or be killed” attitude. On the contrary, the most practical and useful self-defense tips have nothing to do with punching the other guy’s lights out. But before you can form an opinion on violence and how to handle it, you need to understand the problem first. Doing so means confronting your own biases and views on this subject with what it is actually like in real life.

Indeed. You get all upset when people with a demonstrative ignorance of science attempt to explain or deny global warming. So can you understand how we feel when you talk about “how to stop (gun) violence” when you have a demonstrative ignorance about violence?

Could you look him in the eye and deny him? – A couple more points

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

To follow up on my prior article, “Could you look him in the eye and deny him?” here’s a couple more points to consider.

First, Kee Whan Ha was prepared. He had his guns before the riots started. He wasn’t paranoid, he was prepared. And rightfully so. No one expected riots to ever break out in L.A., but they did. And his preparation paid off.

Second, you need to let go of the illusion that we’re some highly civilized society. The veneer of civilization is thin and fragile. It doesn’t take much for our primitive monkey brains to kick in, and for things to go south.

Look at the L.A. riots. Look at Hurricane Katrina. Heck, watch various cities after a sports team wins or loses. Heck, Axl Rose caused numerous riots because of his behavior at concerts.

Society breaks down pretty quickly. We get upset, we get scared, we panic, we feed off the energy of others, and shit gets ugly really fast.

I know you like to comment on how everything around you is so peaceful. And true, right now and in your past it may have been. Congratulations on making good and fortunate choices throughout life. Not everyone is as fortunate as you. And remember that past performance doesn’t guarantee future results: your luck may run out.

What are you going to do when that happens?

Be a victim? or be a survivor?

 

Oh yeah… you’re on your own

/ hsoi

And to follow up on the little Austin riot….

[Cpl. David Boyd with the Austin Police Department] says they normally have a special crowd management team to prepare for large and potentially unruly crowds.

“We weren’t expecting anything, so we didn’t have the team on standby ready to be deployed at any time.”

So, there wasn’t enough police presence. And they didn’t have a team on standby. And so, response took time. In fact, while the video in the original report did have footage from APD’s helicopter, so what? It’s not like the pilot could stop anything (nor was the presence of the helicopter nor police on the ground being any sort of deterrent). In fact, they had to wait for some cars to clear before they could go in.

Suppose you were caught in the middle of that (very possible, given it was happening outside a Halloween attraction), what would you do?

Obviously APD wasn’t set up to save you.

And for those that think we’re paranoid, it’s not that — it’s preparedness. APD, by their own admission, wasn’t prepared. Look at the result. Bad things can happen at any time any where. That doesn’t mean they always will, but that’s of little comfort when you happen to be caught in that rare moment when it does happen.

Have a plan beforehand. Have tools to manage your situation. And better yet? take Farnam’s advice on risk management.

Riot in Austin

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

So a riot broke out in Austin.

Around 11:30 p.m. on Saturday, a crowd of more than 200 people became confrontational outside the House of Torment haunted attraction.
Police say people were throwing rocks and ignoring officers’ commands to leave. They also reportedly refused to back away from police who were dealing with fights. Those brawls spanned from Highland Mall Boulevard around the parking lot to Airport Boulevard.

Read the whole story and watch the video too.

Remember what John Farnam says:

Donʼt go to stupid places; donʼt associate with stupid people; donʼt do stupid things. We will add to that, be in bed by 10 oʼclock.

Looks like failure on all 4 counts.

Could you look him in the eye and deny him?

/ hsoi / 8 Comments

In a prior posting I linked to this video:

It’s footage from the 1992 L.A. Riots (after the Rodney King verdict). It’s about the Korean shopkeepers arming themselves, standing on the roofs of their stores, defending them from the rioters and looters.

While searching for that footage, an NPR interview with Kee Whan Ha came up. He’s the store owner that organized and motivated the Koreatown shopkeepers to undertake their defensive action.

Why would he do such a thing? I mean, why didn’t he just give the looters what they wanted (because “just give them what they want” is the refrain we’re supposed to abide by):

MARTIN: I understand that, as the disturbance was beginning, you heard hosts on Radio Korea – which is L.A.’s major Korean-American radio station – tell people to leave their businesses and go home and pray. And you told one of our producers that that made you upset. Could you talk a little bit about that?

HA: Yeah. I was so upset. So I know the owner of that Radio Korea, so I brought my handgun and I put it on the table. I told him that we established Koreatown. It’s been more than 20 years (unintelligible) riot, even to be able – insurance and everything, but I want to protect my business, as well as all other Koreatown business.

He was one of the founders of Koreatown. He wasn’t going to see his life’s work, what defines him, be put to ruin.

Oh it’s just property, oh it’s just stuff. That’s true to you, but not to him. It was more than his castle, and it was something that, to him, was well-worth defending. Are you telling me he’s wrong? he’s unjustified in trying to preserve his legacy? his positive contribution to society? That the world would be better off if he gave in to the criminals, the leeches, the destructive forces?

So why didn’t he just call the police? Because the police are supposed to defend and protect us, right?

HA: From Wednesday, I don’t see any police patrol car whatsoever. That’s a wide-open area, so it is like Wild West in old days, like there’s nothing there. We are the only one left, so we have to do our own (unintelligible).

[…]

HA: …I was standing a few feet away, so I see that [our security guard’s] body has fallen down on the ground, but I was so scared. I – we tried to call the fire department. Please help us. But nobody listen. Then maybe after five or six hours in the evening – it start around the afternoon, about 1:00 or 2:00 p.m. But actual – the fire truck coming about 7:00 o’clock, late evening. So five hours, of course, is sitting between us and them.

Five hours with no response. No one could come to save them.

Can you imagine the fear, the stress, tha anxiety felt during that time? One hour goes by and still nothing. Every minute watching the chaos unfolding, wondering when someone will come to save you. How scared would you be if you were in his shoes?

But at least they had guns.

But at least they were able to do something for themselves. To pluck up their courage and stand firm. They weren’t helpless victims.

How would you have fared that day? Would you have been a helpless victim?

I would have been.

In 1992 I was in undergrad. I never was anti-gun, but I sure didn’t understand it. I recall questioning my pro-gun friends as to why anyone needed an automatic rifle to hunt Bambi. Looking back, I can see the many facets of my ignorance.

MARTIN: Did you have to fire your weapon?

HA: Yes. Actually, we are not shooting people. We are shooting the – in the air, so make afraid that these people coming to us. You’re not actually targeting people, so…

MARTIN: Sure. You were trying to create a – sort of a protective barrier, and you did succeed in saving your store.

HA: Yes.

So without guns, Kee Whan Ha and the other families of Koreatown would have lost everything. Not just their stores, but their legacy and contribution towards a better society.

Could you look Kee Whan Ha in the eye and tell him you want to deny him his business? his contribution? his legacy? The banning of effective tools of self-defense is precisely looking into the eyes of people like Kee Whan Ha and saying you will deny him.

 

A tidbit on handguns, from the 2012 FBI UCR

/ hsoi

I got this from Chuck Rives. From the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report for 2012, we have the Expanded Homicide Data Table 15 – Justifiable Homicide, by Weapon, Private Citizen (the killing of a felon, during the commission of a felony, by a private citizen.) 2008-2012. Link here but the link is kinda weird so hopefully it works for you (it ends in .xls, but opens a web page…). Anyways, here’s a screenshot:

So basically, this is what good people used to defend themselves.

Now, you have to be very specific in taking what this table tells us. There are a lot of unanswered questions, and a lot of deeper things that’d be interesting to know. For example, it’s only about the killing of a felon during the commission of a felony. What about the felons that didn’t die during the commission of a felony? That might provide a greater picture about what good people use to defend themselves in general. What was the nature of the crime? was it a drug deal that went bad (because I reckon some of those could wind up in this table, and then is that really a good statistic?)? was it muggings? how about rape? home invasion vs. “on the street”? There’s a lot of things that would be great to know. Alas, we can only take this table for what it’s worth.

You can look at the politics. Handguns are a primary tool in self-defense. Ban handguns, deny people (men, women, straight, gay, white, black, Christian, Jew, Muslim, whatever minority group you favor) the right and ability to keep themselves safe from harm.

I like to look at the practical.

One possible conclusion to draw from this is if you’re going to be attacked, a handgun is the more likely tool you’d use to defend yourself. Long guns (rifles, shotguns) tend to be a tool of the home-front; private citizens generally will not have them as they walk down the street. Long guns aren’t exclusive to the home; recall the Korean shopkeepers during the LA Riots in 1992 standing on the roofs of their buildings with long guns. But you get the point – long guns cannot be as ubiquitous as a handgun.

I know we prefer to have long guns for home and office defense. Why? Because we can, and they are a more effective tool. But if the one thing you can have all the time is your hand gun, doesn’t it make sense to be proficient with it? You carry it on your person all day. It’s in your bedside safe at night. It’s the one thing that’s always most accessible to you. If you have limited training and practice time, should you divide it amongst various tools? or focus on the one that has the most universal applicability?

Just having a gun isn’t enough. Just carrying it every day isn’t enough. To have passed some state-mandated test isn’t enough. There are issues of minimum competency. Is a handgun good enough for home defense? If it’s the tool you’re most proficient with, sure. It’s better to use a tool you know well and have confidence in using.

Detect, Defuse, Defend – do we need more emphasis on the first two?

/ hsoi / 6 Comments

Tony Blauer asks the question: “What would it cost you if you didn’t fight back?”

I’m referring to the emotional/psychological taxes. Most people never consider violence’s deeper impact. The noxious effects that create PTSD, the memories that stain our mind’s-eye and silently agitate our nervous system.

When bad shit happens close-up, everything can change.

So what would you pay to avoid some of this? What would you pay to feel safer?

His answer?

Pay attention.

Some days ago, a man on a San Francisco Muni train pulled out a gun and flashed it around. A lot. There was nothing covert, hidden, or non-obvious about what he was doing – he was quite obvious and blatant. However, everyone around him was oblivious, noses buried in their phones and tablets. No one saw what was going on until the guy shot someone.  Apparently it was a random encounter, thus anyone on that train could have been the victim, and they never would have known… they never would have had a chance to do anything.

Now, everyone is quick to blame mobile devices. We have to remember that books and newspapers and Walkman’s existed long ago, and people found themselves just as engrossed and oblivious with those. However, I cannot deny that we’ve changed and find ourselves with our noses buried on the glass screen a lot more these days. In fact, people tend to consider that device of primary importance, more so than driving or walking. I admit, I’ve watched people walking around with their eyes on their phone and not on where they were going, and I’ve been tempted to step in front of them or simply insert my hand between their eyes and their phone. It’d be to make a point that perhaps they should pay more attention to the world around them, alas, I’d just be seen as an asshole and no lesson would be learned. *sigh*

Mr. Blauer talks about the 3 D’s:

1) DETECT (to avoid)

2) DEFUSE (to de-escalate)

3) DEFEND (to protect).

Two-thirds of your personal safety takes place before you even step on the “X” (The “X” being symbolic for the time & place of an ambush).

The Three D’s is the basis of your ‘ Personal Defense OS’.

Two-thirds of confrontation management relies on awareness, mental toughness and fear management strategies before any contact is made. Avoiding danger should be the primary directive.

Col. Jeff Cooper has his color codes of awareness. Insights Training has their street & vehicle tactics course. SouthNarc teaches about Managing Unknown Contacts (MUC). Karl Rehn has done much to further the utility and use of force-on-force training. Any good trainer in this area is going to stress the importance of such things. Granted, it’s #3 that sells the most because we all like to shoot guns, or practice kata and joint locks, or whatever. There’s not a lot of sexy appeal in #1 and #2, but it’s precisely those that will do the most to keep us alive and out of trouble.

Yes, this is where “force-on-force” training pays off. The thought of “FoF” scares a lot of people because it makes it sound like it’s going to be a UFC battle. Yes, there’s FoF classes (like SouthNarc’s ECQC) that are about going to some physical extremes. But a lot of FoF training is just scenarios, role playing, with little physicality (and a lot of people finding their inner thespian). What it does give you is a lot of understanding of how Detect and Defuse play a big role in your own personal safety. If the only training you’ve had is to “draw your gun” or “palm strike to the nose”, you only know how to do #3, and that’s not always going to be the right answer.

This sort of training helps you make a mental shift. It sinks in a lot of reality, and should enable you to give yourself permission to listen to yourself more. Blauer continues:

This strategically brings us into the next step in enhancing your personal safety: decide right now to respect and embrace your body’s survival signals. If an alarm goes off, respond to it. Got a bad feeling? Address it. Something nagging at you? Stop and look into it. Don’t ignore these signals. Don’t rationalize and mentally correct them. Don’t dismiss them without assessing them. Your body is built for survival and one of its hard-wired systems is designed to alert you to danger.

I know what some of you are thinking, “What if I mistake a feeling, body language, a gesture or movement and react to it.” And? What’s the downside? No one [important in your life] is going to be upset with you for facing fear. Don’t be shy or embarrassed about this. Accept that the human body will generally err on the side of survival. And so should you. There is no downside to being safe or safer. But there is a massive down side to ignoring these survival signals.

And don’t let peer pressure; socialization, fear of fear or other distractions mess with your survival instincts. We are physiological survival organisms, designed to adapt & survive. (FYI, in my courses I’ve re-named us #humanweapons, because that’s the mindset you need when the shit hits the fan, right? I’d rather remind myself “I’m a human-weapon”, and charge forward than scream, “I’m a Survival organism!” self-talk is key. Also, I can use the # on Twitter).

So make a contract with yourself right now that the moment your instincts & intuition raise an alarm that you will take steps to move to safety as soon as possible. Got a bad feeling? Address it now. Get off the “X” ASAP. Start moving when time and space are allies and options.

What’s the cost of learning the most the most important and practical part of self-defense? Zip. Just pay attention. Getting off the “X” is FREE.

If they stand down, can you stand up?

/ hsoi / 5 Comments

Take a step back for a moment and ask yourself a question – and honestly answer it.

When it gets down to it, who is responsible for you?

Or perhaps instead ask, who is best able to take care of you? Who are you best able to count on? Or when everything else goes south, who is there, able to do things for you?

As of this writing, word is that when the shooting started at the Navy Yard, the police were told to stand down:

Four heavily-armed members of the Containment and Emergency Response Team (CERT) [of the US Capitol Police] were nearby when the initial report of an active shooter was announced, sources told BBC.

An officer with the Metropolitan Police Department told the tactical officers, who were wearing full tactical gear and armed with HK-416 weapons, that they were the only officers on the scene with long guns and their help was needed to stop Aaron Alexis.

When the CERT team radioed their superiors, they were told to leave the scene, according to the report.

Again, it’s still under investigation if this happened, and if so why.

But think about it.

With all the heightened sensitivity to “active shooter” situations, when there’s not just police but a special team equiped and trained for such events right there and able to respond… and they don’t.

Yeah, that’s not good.

Who knows. It may have been an honest, but tragic, mistake on the part of the police supervisors to not respond. They are human too.

But here’s the thing.

It really doesn’t matter if they were there or not. It really doesn’t matter if they were there, why they were told to stand down. Or even if they were there and started an immediate response, how much impact they could have had; I’m sure it would have been some improvement, but there would still be innocent lives lost.

What matters is, they didn’t come.

What this shows is that, in the end, you cannot count on someone to come and save you. Yes, there will be people who will try, but it may not always happen. It may not always work out. They may not come at all, or if they do, it may be too late.

You have no control over someone coming to save you or not.

And it’s not just good people with guns showing up to save the day. Consider medics. Medics will not be permitted into the scene until it is considered safe. What happens if you’re bleeding? Can you stop your own bleeding? Look how long it takes to consider a scene safe: hours. Do you know how quickly you can die from blood loss? Can you really bleed for hours? can you really wait? Can you really count on medics arriving in time? Again, this isn’t to say they won’t try, but there are circumstances beyond their control which forces delays in getting you care; and if they don’t have control, you really don’t have control.

Step back even further. Do you have any control over bad things happening in a day? Do you have any control over if “that guy” at the office chooses today to be the day he decides to share his disgruntledness with you?

Think about it folks. You don’t have a lot of control over things (a fact of life, applying to far more areas than just the above topics). This includes the ability for others to take care of you. The ability for others to be there when you need them. The ability for others to respond quickly when you need them at your side. This isn’t to say there aren’t good people out there, that these people are unwilling to respond, but rather there are realities of time, geography, physics, and other matters of the world that you just cannot control, change, nor bend.

But what you can do is control yourself.

When you need someone, you are there.

When you have to count on someone, you can count on yourself.

Who is on the scene right now? You are.

Why are we encouraging a system, lifestyles, and choices, that require a dependence upon others? Yes sometimes dependencies happen, but step back and think about how you can often fare better when you have the capabilities to handle things yourself. That doesn’t mean you always have to, but then at least you have options. Then at least if you must, you can.

If no one can stand up for you, can you stand up for yourself?