Tag: Self Defense

Old People Don’t Mess Around

Via Gun Free Zone we get a lesson in fighting with the elderly, and that lesson is don’t fight with the elderly or they’ll outlive you:

When a residential burglar fired a gun at Jay Leone last month, he was initially too angry to realize he had been shot in the head, he testified Friday.

“To tell you the truth, I never felt a thing,” said Leone, 90, of Greenbrae. “I said, ‘F—- you, you son of a bitch, now it’s my turn.'”

Getting shot in the head won’t stop a pissed off old man. Some punks forget that these people didn’t get old by being total pushovers, they got old by being bad asses. So if you’re cruising around looking for easy marks to rob just remember that the 90 year-old man walking down the street is 90 years old and has probably dealt with far worse than you’re little punk ass.

Have an Escape Plan

The government of Greece passed their proposed austerity measures leading, unsurprisingly, to some rather nasty rioting:

Demonstrators set buildings ablaze and fireballs lit up the night sky in Greece’s capital on Sunday amid widespread rioting before a historic parliamentary vote on harsh austerity measures designed to prevent the country from going bankrupt.

The clashes erupted after more than 100,000 protesters marched to the parliament to rally against the drastic cuts, which will ax one in five civil service jobs and slash the minimum wage by more than a fifth.

At least 10 buildings were on fire, including a movie theater, bank and cafeteria, and looters smashed dozens of shops in the worst riot damage in years. Dozens of police officers and at least 37 protesters were injured, and more than 20 suspected rioters were detained.

This is what we refer to as an “OH SHIT!” situation. Basically these are situations where things have deteriorated to such a degree as to make escape not only desirable but necessary. Many gun bloggers talk about the importance of having a bug out bag (also known as a bailout bag or a get the fuck out of town bag). A bug out bag is simply a bag that contains enough supplies to keep you going for 72 hours or so.

When the topic of bug out bags comes up people often scoff and claim the person talking about it is paranoid. Paranoids are just people with all the facts. Bug out bags are made for situations like those happening in Athens now. Who wants to be hanging around a city full of angry rioters burning down buildings? Nobody but the rioters. Having an escape plan is always a good idea because you never know when things are going to deteriorate to a point that makes sticking around dangerous.

People of Detroit are Realizing Police are Ineffective

What happens when the police fail in their duty to protect the populace? The populace gets armed for their own defense:

Justifiable homicide in the city shot up 79 percent in 2011 from the previous year, as citizens in the long-suffering city armed themselves and took matters into their own hands. The local rate of self-defense killings now stands 2,200 percent above the national average. Residents, unable to rely on a dwindling police force to keep them safe, are fighting back against the criminal scourge on their own. And they’re offering no apologies.

I say good on the people of Detroit for defending themselves. Detroit suffered from massive economic collapse due to their over reliance on the automobile industry and when the economy goes bad crime rises. When the crime rises the police are usually the first to run and hide in the safer parts of town leaving those living in the poorer parts of down in a position where they must defend themselves. The anti-gunners would rather these people be dead than have a means of defending themselves against criminals.

The Fallacy of Passively Resisting a Rapist

I’m not sure who started this trend but some asshole decided it was a good idea to advise woman to “passively” resist rapists. That advice follows the “just give them what they want and they’ll go away” mentality except in the case of rape what your attacker wants is you. I use the word passive in quotes because passive resistance isn’t resistance in the case of rape. When you become passive you’re still surrendering and once you’ve surrendered control to an attacker you’re situation is entirely lost. A friend on Facebook posted a link to a research paper titled Fighting back works: The case for advocating and teaching self-defense against rape.. The most interesting statement I found in the study was the following:

A thorough review of the available literature has led us to some surprising conclusions about the effectiveness of traditional anti-rape advice. Women are often advised to use non-aggressive strategies against sexual assault (Storaska, 1975; Channing L. Bete Co., What every woman should know about rape, 1989; Channing L. Bete Co., What women and men should know about date rape, 1989). Research suggests that this is poor advice. According to one study (Zoucha-Jensen and Coyne, 1993), women who used non-forceful verbal strategies, such as crying or pleading with the assailant, were raped about 96% of the time. In the same study, women who did nothing to protect themselves were raped about 93% of the time.

“Passive” resistance actually slightly increased a woman’s chance of being raped. To me this makes sense as rape is about power, not sex. By crying and pleading you’re giving the rapist what he wants, which is to break your will and force you to submit to him. On the other hand bullet holes, stab woulds, and/or a collapse trachea are great at stopping a rapist. In fact forceful physical resistance has the best chance of stopping a rapist:

Forceful physical resistance was an extremely successful strategy. The completed rape rate dropped to between 45% and 14% when the rapist’s attempt was met with violent physical force (Kleck and Sayles, 1990; Siegel et al., 1989; Ullman and Knight, 1992; Zoucha-Jensen and Coyne, 1993). Striking was more successful than pushing or wrestling (Quinsey and Upfold, 1985). Physical resistance also appears to be more effective when assault occurs outdoors (Quinsey and Upfold, 1985).

That’s a pretty large drop from the 96% of completed rapes followed by passive verbal resistance. On top of that women who forcefully resist a rapist stand little chance of additional injury:

Second, this argument overlooks the fact that a woman who does not resist is virtually guaranteed to suffer the emotional and physical injury of the rape itself. Even when resisters are injured, the injury is typically much less severe than a completed rape would have been (Kleck and Sayles, 1990; Marchbanks et al., 1990; Siegel et al., 1989; Ullman and Knight, 1991). Of those 40% of resisters who suffered physical damage, only 7% suffered injury as severe as a dislodged tooth. A woman who fights back incurs no demonstrable chance of additional injury, but she gains a 55-86% chance of avoiding rape altogether (Kleck and Sayles, 1990).

The last sentence is most telling, while a woman’s chance of injury goes up negligibly her chance of getting raped dropped dramatically. In addition the physical and emotional damage done by rape is almost always going to be far greater than damage received during forceful resistance. Did I mention woman who used firearms or knives stood a phenomenal chance of avoiding a rape:

Women who used knives or guns in self-defense were raped less than 1% of the time. Defensive use of edged or projectile weapons reduced the rate of injury to statistical insignificance (Kleck and Sayles, 1990).

As I said bullet holes and stab wounds are very good deterrents.

Self-defense classes are invaluable not just for the training in proper fighting methods but for mentally preparing people for self-defense situations. Many people do freeze up when they’re being attacked because they’ve never been taught the proper actions to take in such a scenario. Being able to fight back is only one part of the battle, you must also be willing to fight back.

If you’re one of those unfortunate people who believes passive resistance is the best way to handle a rape situation please do yourself a favor and read the linked paper.

Massad Ayoob on the Brady Campaign Light a Candle Publicity Stunt

In the self-defense community Massad Ayoob is one of the advocates I respect most. He’s dedicated a great deal of his time to educated people on matters of self-defense. While Mr. Ayoob spends his time teaching people how to defend themselves instead of being victims the Brady Campaign spent its time telling people to light a candle in remembrance of those who have been killed by guns (because victims of other violent crimes don’t matter to them and they would rather a woman be raped than a rapist be shot). As usual Mr. Ayoob has some words of wisdom to share with us:

If some monster tries to rape or murder a woman I care about, I don’t want him to see the flickering light of a candle.

I want him to see a muzzle flash, from the front.

Damn right. While I’m entirely opposed to initiating violence I am entirely in support of the right of self-defense. If some piece of shit has decided your life is no longer of value you shouldn’t hold their life to be of value either.

You Could Have Saved Yourself 15 Minutes of Grief

The front page of the Red Star had one of those rare featured self-defense stories. The story was likely featured only because the would-be victims were able to defend themselves without the use of a firearm… after 15 minutes of being terrorized by a crack addict while the police were nowhere in sight:

Two young couples were watching TV Saturday afternoon at the Bloomington house they share when they heard a dog bark, and then a woman scream.

Suddenly, a desperate-looking stranger burst into their house.

The man, later identified by police as a suspected bank robber and fugitive on a crack binge, bounded up the stairs into their living room. Brandishing a screwdriver and claiming he had a gun, he ordered them onto the living room floor.

“Everything happened so fast,” one of the victims said later.

Then the intruder demanded a car. For 15 long minutes, the victims tried to appease him.

The families could have saved themselves 15 agonizing minutes, minutes where they were at the mercy of their assailant. How? Easy, they could have had a gun and shot the bastard as he burst into their home. Instead the two families remained entirely defenseless while the police didn’t respond:

In the upstairs living room, the three others were calling police.

When you have a crack addict taking a hostage waiting for the police is not a viable option if you want to ensure your continued existence. In this case the crack addiction slipped up and gave his would be hostage a window to find a weapon and defend himself but that isn’t always the case. While it’s good that nobody important was hurt (sorry but a piece of shit who breaks into somebody’s home ceases to be important in my book) the situation would have been much quicker resolved had one of the family members been able to shoot the bastard. Remember when you call the police it will take them minutes to arrive if they decide to come at all.

Situations in Shades of Gray

I talk about a lot of bad police decisions but most of those situations are black and white. That is to say a police officer obviously abused his or her power or otherwise initiated violence. Sadly not every situation is black and white, many shades of gray exist. Take for instance the story about a police officer who show a 15 year-old kid brandishing a realistic pellet gun:

The parents of an eighth grader who was fatally shot by police inside his South Texas school are demanding to know why officers took lethal action, but police said the boy was brandishing — and refused to drop — what appeared to be a handgun and that the officers acted correctly.

The weapon turned out to be a pellet gun that closely resembled the real thing, police said late Wednesday, several hours after 15-year-old Jaime Gonzalez was repeatedly shot in a hallway at Cummings Middle School in Brownsville. No one else was injured.

A picture of the gun can be found at the link and from a distance I can see how an officer would mistake it for a real handgun. Some may say this is a valid case of using violence while others will claim it wasn’t. Others have also questioned the amount of force used by the officer, which I will address in a bit.

So far the story is mostly he-said-she-said. The officer is claiming the kid was pointing the gun at him. Without any way of knowing the weapon was fake that certainly qualifies as immediate threat to life. When I read about these kinds of situations I try to put myself in the shoes of the shooter. What did the cop see? Did the kid point the pellet gun at the officer? Was anything said during the altercation? In this case I have no answers and desire more data. Unfortunately more data isn’t always available and we may find ourselves in these kinds of situations. This reality must be acknowledge by anybody who carries a gun and should be given, at least, a cursory consideration. Most of self-defense is mental preparation and state of mind.

Now let us return to the amount of force that was used:

“Why was so much excess force used on a minor?” the boy’s father, Jaime Gonzalez Sr., asked The Associated Press outside the family’s home Wednesday night. “Three shots. Why not one that would bring him down?”

Let’s consider the use of a firearm. A firearm is a lethal weapon designed to kill, we shouldn’t kid ourselves otherwise. Employing a firearm should only be done when you have decided the situation requires the use of lethal force. Therefore it is safe to say when a firearm is drawn the amount of force necessary to end the situation becomes whatever is necessary.

Any self-defense class and, I’m assuming, police training class will teach you to shoot until the threat has stopped. If the threat stops at the presentation of the firearm you shouldn’t shoot, if it stops after a non-lethal wound you stop, if it stops only after the assailant is dead then that is what you must do. We must also realize that handgun cartridges are anemic and overall poor man stoppers. To overcome this limitation standard procedure is to fire two shots immediately at center mass. If the threat has not ceased after two shots you must take more, possibly even attempting to shoot the attacker in the head. Needless to say the round count is likely to start at two and escalate from there so three shots in this situation shouldn’t be surprising.

In the end the kid may have simply committed suicide by cop. While I’m not willing to pass final judgement in this case I am leaning towards this conclusion unless further data becomes available. Beyond the situation there is something else to take into consideration:

About 20 minutes elapsed between police receiving a call about an armed student and shots being fired, according to police and student accounts. Authorities declined to share what the boy said before he was shot.

Had the kid been in possession of a real weapon and malicious intent he would have had 20 minutes to do whatever he please. Schools, being gun-free zones, don’t allow for lawful self-defense. Teachers and faculty with valid carry permits are not allowed to carry in a elementary or high school so the only solution that really exists for stopping a violence individual is to wait for the police. A lot can happen in 20 minutes and the state prohibits use mere serfs from defending ourselves inside of these gun-free zones. This situation could have been far worse because of government decree.

The Fallacy of State Provided Protection

A recently widowed mother whose husband died of cancer found herself in another tragic situation. When she was at home with her child a thug with a knife decided it would be a jolly good idea to do a little breaking and entering. The mother called 911 but ended up having to defend herself as the phrase, “When seconds count the police are only minutes away.” was demonstrated once again:

Oklahoma news media have the compelling story of a shotgun-toting 18-year-old mother who killed an intruder on New Year’s Eve after a 911 operator told her, “Do what you have to do to protect your baby.”

[…]

The 911 conversation lasted for 21 minutes. Then the door gave in.

21 minutes, that’s how long the call laster and the police had not arrive. This story, along with many like it, demonstrate the fallacy of state provided protection. How horrible is it that the government not only maintains a monopoly on police protection but has also ruled that it has no obligation to actually provide you the promised services.

Let’s look at where police protection in this country currently sits. In almost all cases the state maintains a monopoly on armed protective services and even if a private alternative exists customers are unable to cease paying the government for it’s ill-provided protection service. See those who seek alternative protection and thus no longer desire to utilize the government provided police will be kidnapped by those very officer and tossed into a cage unless they begin paying again.

Even protecting yourself is burdensome if not impossible because of government laws. Many countries and individual states in the United States have strong laws against self-defense. Some states don’t allow individuals to carry firearms on their person, many states don’t have any form of stand your ground of castle doctrine laws on the books, and other states have strong restrictions on who can even own a gun. The lack of stand your ground and castle doctrine laws are perhaps the most egregious because it assumes guilt on behalf of the defender, and in the case of missing castle doctrine that guilt is still assumed in the defender’s own home.

Firearms are hands down the best tools available for person defense but access to them is strictly controlled. In the United States any person charged with a felony, even a non-violent felony, is prohibited from owning firearms. If the mother in this story had been in possession of enough marijuana to be charged with felony possession she likely wouldn’t have had that firearm available to her and she and her child would likely be dead now. Outside of the United States firearm possession is even more strictly controlled with complete prohibition existing in some countries. Were this mother in England she and her child would likely be dead. Thus self-protection has been taken from the state and is only granted to those it deems worthy.

This story only ended happily because the woman lived in a place that “allows” people to defend themselves, own a firearm, and she wasn’t an “undesirable” person. Even though she has paid for police protection and will have to continue paying she has no recourse for the fact a squad car hadn’t arrive after 21 minutes. Were she able to seek a private provider a contractual agreement could have been made requiring protection to arrive within a specified span of time or the mother would no longer be made to continue paying for services.

State provide protection is a fallacy because they don’t actually offer protection. If you call the state protection service they may or may not send somebody to help, it’s a crap shoot.

A Real American Badass

More people should be like this man:

A 77-year-old Minneapolis man was determined to fight off four armed robbers recently. He was so determined that he fended off the criminals with a sledgehammer.

[…]

“I grabbed this sledge but he didn’t know I grabbed it because I acted like I was going into my pocket. I slipped it over I turned it around and I knocked the gun out of his hand,” Krier said.

He said he used his combat training from 1958 to fend off the attackers. Krier said the sledge hammer hit the robber in the hand.

“The gun went in the alley and the guy hollered,” said Krier.

Krier then chased the men.

“Then I grabbed another sledge and I went out the door and they ran out the alley,” Krier said.

One 77 year-old man fending off four men with a sledge hammer is nothing but pure badass. I’m proud of the fact that men like this live in my state.

When Self-Defense is Illegal

New York is an interesting city as self-defense is illegal (unless you’re rich or politically well connected of course). For example let’s say you’re a woman and your husband is a police officer who has just threatened to kill you. Fortune shines upon you though as you were able to obtain his service weapon and use it to defend yourself. In a free city you would not be punished for your act of self-preservation but in New York you go to prison for illegally possessing the firearm:

In a case seen as a test of the battered-woman defense, Barbara Sheehan, 50, was acquitted of second-degree murder last month after her lawyers successfully argued that she fired a gun at her husband only after he threatened to kill her.

She and her children testified during her trial about the violent household ruled by Raymond Sheehan, 49, a former New York City police sergeant. Both the prosecution and defense said the beatings and bruises came to an end on February 18, 2008, when Sheehan shot her husband 11 times in their Queens home.

She was sentenced in state Supreme Court in Queens to five years in prison and two years of probation on the unlawful gun possession charge, based on her use of her husband’s weapons. She had faced a possible sentence of 3-1/2 to 15 years.

I… I weep for humanity. For crying out loud I don’t even understand the logic behind this decision. The woman was subjected to dire circumstances, her life was in jeopardy, and she did what she felt was necessary to survive.

Let’s look at this in another way. In this scenario we will pretend you’re on a sinking ship and you boarded one of the lifeboats to preserve your life. Due to the chaos that ensued during the sinking of the ship no member of the ship’s crew is aboard your lifeboat. Using the logic arrived at by the Supreme Court in Queens you are guilty of theft and should be tossed into prison.

It appears you have two options in New York when faced with a life threatening situation; die or go to prison.