First things first
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- Published on Monday, 28 March 2011 00:00
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If you read the first article, or even the entire series on fundamental defense, you may have noticed that very little if any of what was discussed necessarily involved firearms. Despite my professional career motivations, this was intentional and critical to our mission here at First Degree Defense. The simple fact is that a firearm is needed only as a last resort, only in a very narrow, rare set of circumstances, and only after having exhausted the preceding 95% of your plan.
Your defense, at it's highest level of force, can equal, but never exceed the force used against you (unless you intend to spend time in prison). In any defensive situation , the objective is to survive, not to conquer or punish. The courts are in place to determine appropriate sentences; your job is to survive intact to testify against the attacker in those proceedings. The same holds true for situations in which you are defending someone else, if not moreso.
A well trained person, aware of their situation and surroundings, prepared mentally and physically to defend them self or another will rarely, if ever, discharge a weapon in doing so. The vast majority of patrol officers, dealing with criminals all day every day, are unlikely to ever, in their entire career actually fire a weapon at another human being. Each and every one of them are required to carry, train with, and be at least proficient with a weapon even though very few will ever use it in the line of duty.
In the vast majority of confrontations, there is a predictable escalation of aggression, and the better prepared you are, the more likely you are to be able to negate the threat long before lethal force is even remotely considered. Even police officers, dealing with criminals intentionally and constantly usually complete their entire career without ever having to resort to deadly force. Should all else fail, they are armed and trained to use lethal means, but because their underlying training is in place as well, they simply never allow a situation to escalate to a point where it's necessary.
As a potential violent confrontation develops, there are usually many different opportunities available to stop, deter or avoid the attack without anyone needing to be injured, and training is the key to be able to recognize and then seize those opportunities. At each stage, you must make a decision, the results of which will determine in large part whether the situation escalates further, or ceases to exist at all. We'll go over a handful, but in between each of our stages are potentially dozens more, and it is crucial to understand that if ANY non-lethal means to defend yourself exist, and you allow the incident to escalate anyway, you are criminally and civilly culpable, and WILL be prosecuted.
The single most important defense tool you can ever possess is a weapon you carry and train with from birth to the grave. It's a computer capable of solving incredibly complex problems never before encountered at light speed while at the same time controlling thousands of different simultaneous movements of a wide array of equipment designed and refined over thousands of years to do one thing exceedingly well, which is to keep you alive. If trained and practiced with, the combination of the two are the absolute ultimate survival machine, supremely capable and infinitely adaptable.
I am not suggesting that everyone can successfully train in martial arts or hand to hand combat; my confidence in my own ability to physically overcome an attacker began it's downward trend decades ago and shows no signs of slowing. A 90 pound woman, even if trained, has little chance of victory in a physical battle with a man three times her size. Although the human spirit is indomitable and capable of miraculous feats, at some point certain, pure physics rear their ugly head undeniably.
Your first line of defense, and in all but a very few scenarios, the only one you will ever need is your mind and your feet. Nothing; no amount of training, no weapon or device, no methodology or tactical prowess can even approach the defensive potential of situational awareness. It is an innate ability you, and every other animal on earth are born with, and all creatures use it to some extent in every facet of their survival. The more you train with it and practice with it, the more effective it becomes, and once trained sufficiently, in any but the rarest of circumstances, it is all you are likely to ever need.
At any given instant, whether at work, on a bus, at the mall or in a park, there is a constant stream of data from every direction flooding you with potentially life-saving information. All you need to do is learn and practice the processing of the data stream as it relates to your safety or those in your care, and your chances of ever needing any further defense measures is next to nil.
Wherever you are at this moment, you are aware (or should be) of a surprising array of information that can directly, substantially and instantly illuminate a successful defensive course of action. Your brain is more than capable of correlating this information and adapting that planned course of action within milliseconds if the situation changes. You only need to exercise it enough in preparation to allow the neuron paths to form, and it can become as instinctual and reflexive as blinking your eye, and equally as rapid.
Closing your eyes, sense where the exit is, a dozen possible concealment locations, any nearby objects able to be thrown as a diversion or a projectile? What is immediately behind you? Where and who are the other people in the immediate vicinity? How many objects lie within arm's reach could be used as a barricade or shield? Is anything immediately available that would create a loud noise? A sudden flash of light? Is there anything sharp-edged or that could be wielded quickly to strike with? Where is the closest phone? The next closest phone? And the next? Is there a sturdy, lockable door anywhere along any potential escape paths? If that door is already locked, what is your alternate escape path?
Despite having the ability to do so, most people never think about their own defense in familiar places. Conversely, your attacker probably has. He is counting on your lack of planning and awareness, and will capitalize on both. If you've never thought yourself through your own defense, you will freeze like a deer in headlights as your brain sorts the information and calculates a course of action as it naturally will, but without existing neuron paths, each bit of data will have to be processed for the first time, and the chances of wasting precious seconds on ineffectual activity multiply exponentially. Your attacker HAS gone through the scenario before, practiced various alternate courses of action, and predetermined the plan he must follow to attain his objective. His adrenaline is already in full effect, sharpening his senses, increasing his strength and speeding his reaction times while yours has just begun, and is temporarily preventing clear conscious thought and precise motor skills.
Without preparation and training, your mind will race through a thousand thoughts before it begins to formulate a survival response. WITH adequate training and practice, however, your mind will recognize the threat and respond appropriately as instantly as you would flinch from a ball rapidly approaching your face. The flinch, incidentally, is also a trained response (babies do not naturally react to objects flying toward their face until they have been hit and LEARN to) and your defensive response can be just as automatic and instant.
Thoughts such as "What is going on?", "Who is this?", "Where did he come from?", "Why is he here?", "Am I imagining this?", "Is this a joke?" and "I can't believe this is happening" are unavoidable without practice, are immaterial to your defense, and usually prevent you from presenting any defense at all. While natural, they are counter effective and may cost you your life. Had you practiced and strengthened your situational awareness, you would already know at least some of these answers and be able to utilize more pertinent information already compiled and at the ready in your predetermined defense plan.
In that instant, it doesn't matter any longer who he is, where he came from or why he is there. Your untrained, natural reaction is flight or fight, but neither of these may be advisable or even possible depending on the situation, and at any rate will only come into play after the adrenaline kicks in, which may be too late. Flinching away from an approaching object or blinking to protect your eyes occurs much faster than any adrenaline could be produced and dispatched because it is a practiced reaction, perfected through hundreds or thousands of executions, but requires no conscious thought once it has been learned.
Your mind and body are perfectly designed and capable of defending you; you just have to practice it and let it occur.
The first time a child puts a finger into an open flame, their brain has to develop a response to save the finger, and it takes much longer the first time than the tenth. Eventually, they learn to recognize a flame and avoid putting their finger into it at all. Ideally, they can learn the same thing without ever suffering an actual burn if they are observant and open to the absorption of the probable consequences. This is situational awareness at work.
Sufficiently developed, your awareness of your surroundings will ensure that you simply don't get into situations that will likely require a response for survival. You can learn to recognize, just as you learned to recognize flame, potentially dangerous people, proximity relationships and environments, and if unable to completely avoid them, at least have a practiced, immediate response rehearsed and ready to execute should the threat actually manifest itself.
The most certain way to survive a violent attack is to prevent the attacker any opportunity to initiate the act. It also happens to be the easiest, and requires no weapons, training or skill beyond staying alert and being aware of where you are, what is around you, who else is there, and what their possible actions could be. If you practice gathering and analyzing this information at all times, even in very familiar environments but especially in unfamiliar places, you will never be any attackers first choice of victims.
This is First Degree Defense.