Jon Low has published another newsletter for his Defensive Pistolcraft blog. Lots of great stuff, as always, but I liked these words of wisdom that he offers:
You cannot predict the actions of the bad guy, because he doesn't think the way you think. He is not civilized. He is not socialized. He probably has never had a father figure in his life. He is probably intoxicated with drugs and alcohol (including nicotine, never let anyone tell you that nicotine is harmless, look up the word nicotine in the dictionary and read it carefully).
If you've never been addicted, you don't understand addiction. The addict initially chooses to take the drugs, an act of volition. He is chasing a euphoric feeling. That feeling gets harder and harder to achieve with time, as his body builds up a tolerance to the drugs. Eventually, he can no longer achieve the euphoric state. But, by then he is addicted and must continue to use the drug to avoid the sickness that comes with withdrawal from the drug. The pain of withdrawal will drive him to steal to get the money to buy his drugs. And he will lie to himself, telling himself that he is okay. And in his mind everything is okay, until it obviously isn't. But hitting rock bottom is different for every addict, and many never do. They die long before hitting rock bottom and realizing that they need help. So, they never ask for help. But, they do hurt a lot of people on the way. Don't be one of those who gets hurt. There is no nobility in that.
All humans are creations of God. But, not all humans are children of God. Humans have free will. They can choose to turn away from God, as many do. Your duty is to recognize them and avoid them, so they don't hurt you and your loved ones. If you don't take the training to recognize them, you will end up defending yourself and your loved ones against the criminal predators. If you don't take the training and practice, you're going to have a real hard time in the fight. But, that is your choice, as everything in life is.
Most of being successful in self-defense is simply avoiding a conflict. Good lifestyle choices can do wonders for keeping you safe: if you don't go to bars and nightclubs and don't use illegal drugs, you generally will--unsurprisingly--not finding yourself going to stupid places at stupid times and doing stupid things with stupid people. But life doesn't always turn out that way. A trip to a different city, a vehicle breaking down, a late night run for some item from a grocery or convenience store might put you in a bad place. Or trouble might come looking for you in the form of a burglar or group pulling off home invasions, or the neighbor getting drunk or high or going off his psychiatric medications.
Jon links to a series of articles (and a couple videos) from CCW Safe on the civilian use of force and, more particularly, offering a civilian "use of force continuum." I've seen use of force continuum guidelines developed for law enforcement, but, frankly, the options of escalating force aren't open to civilians and the continuum often envisions an officer apprehending a suspect. In other words, it is not really appropriate for the civilian. The CCW Safe civilian version is less a "use of force" continuum but the steps you should go through before resorting to deadly force: avoidance, situational awareness, threat assessment, seeking assistance, action, and then deadly force. The individual articles are pretty short, so it shouldn't take long to read through the series.
Finally, another good point: in response to someone wanting to practice for a long time (a year) before getting training, the Mike Seeklander responded "No," "the sooner you can take a class, the less likely you will be to ingrain bad habits that are VERY difficult to fix later." Notice that this isn't saying not to practice, but, rather, that practice is not training but to ingrain something you learn from training and keep those skills from degrading.
What many people do not understand is the "cycle of competence" which exists in nearly everything, properly executed to stair-step competence up the scale.
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Learn to gain knowledge.
Train (actually, "receive competent training") to confirm and augment the learned knowledge.
Practice what you've trained. Learn more.
Train more.
Practice the new achievement level.
Lather, rinse, repeat, to climb the competence continuum.
One does not begin with differential calculus; one starts at "what is "1", elevates to 1+1=?, practices that simple math upon which is built the foundation for achieving more in mathematics.
Nota bene in self defense the desired plateau is not "bang...I hit the target within X seconds". That is one of the steps, but only one. The Decision Tree leading to that point is massively more complex. Having the capability to perform at that level doesn't merely create confidence, it drives many of the branches of the Tree.
RE: "Use of force continuum" in law enforcement - regardless of the agency, or the state in which it operates, the "use of force continuum" is widely understood, accepted and accommodated by individual agency policy (much of this comes from NIJ down to the state agency (whatever each state calls it) to the local agencies, existing, first, as a "national standard" from NIJ, adjusted by the state agency to conform to state statutes, codified to local statutes, ordinances, and condtions by the individual agencies in their published policy standards). Attorneys at nearly all levels understand the matrix and its application within their jurisdictions.
There is no such multi-level matrix which is accepted, or even exists, at the citizen level (each ciizen defense incident is treated as unique by whatever authority may have jurisdiction). If such a matrix did exist it would / could provide reasonable guidance to citizens about their performance requirements, legal responsibilities and potential legal benefits, as well as some degree of structure citizens could train to.
Good points. Thank you.
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