Tag: Self Defense

Going Medieval On Their Asses

Because I study the use of Japanese swords several of my friends were kind enough to send me this great story about self-defense:

Dolley, standing 5-foot-6, said she immediately attacked, punching him about 10 times and cornering him in her bedroom.

She reached for her gun in a nearby drawer, but she accidentally opened the wrong drawer during the chaos of the moment, so her gun wasn’t there.

She reached for her backup weapon, a Japanese-styled sword called ninjato, which she keeps near her bed. Her intruder crouched in the bedroom as she held him at sword-point until police arrived, she said.

She called 911 and police arrived within two minutes, she said.

Karen Dolley just showed the world how it’s done. When she saw the intruder she didn’t freeze up, which is a common reaction, but immediately attacked. She was following the first rule of a gun fight but having a gun but didn’t open the correct drawer. Again, instead of freezing up, she simply went for the next weapon available to her, a sword.

When you think self-defense Karen is the model you want to follow. Be ready to defend yourself, take the initiative, don’t freeze up, and have a backup plan to your backup plan.

Sometimes I Wonder About All Of You

I’m sure a lot of you have seen that video of the bear busting up a kayak and getting pepper sprayed in the face. If you haven’t, watch it before continuing on:

This video came to my attention because several gunnies were posting it and saying variations of, “This is why I carry a gun, not pepper spray.” After watching the video though I can’t help but side with the bear.

When the video starts the bear has ceased its initial assault on the lady’s kayak. We can only assume the lady was yelling at the bear to stop and it complied. Anyways the bear is obviously coming over to say, “Hey, ma’am, sorry about that. I didn’t know it was your kayak,” only to get pepper sprayed in the face. Of course the bear backs away and is all like, “Whoa, crazy lady! What the fuck?” Then little miss hysterical tells the bear to, “Come here!” The bear, not being an idiot like the lady, keeps its distance. After thinking things over for a bit it seems to say, “You know what? Fuck you and fuck your kayak.” The bear then goes back to beating on the kayak. When the lady screams, “Why are you breaking my kayak,” I can only imagine the bear is responding with, “Because you pepper sprayed me in the goddamn face!”

I’m sorry, but the bear is totally in the right on this one. Admittedly it was doing something wrong but it stopped when told to only to be pepper sprayed for it. If anybody was the aggressor here it’s the lady.

The Illusion Of Control

On Friday six people were shot in Minneapolis:

Police said the incident happened around 2:30 a.m. on 5th Street between Hennepin and 1st avenues near an alley by Sneaky Pete’s.

Minneapolis police officers were nearby and took three people into custody. Two guns were recovered. The six who were shot received noncritical injuries and were treated at Hennepin County Medical Center.

“Violent acts like last night’s shootings are abhorrent and contrary to the values we hold as a city,” Mayor Betsy Hodges said in a statement.

The mayor pledged a full investigation into the circumstances leading to the incident, which occurred around the time most downtown bars close. However, in an e-mail exchange with the Warehouse District Business Association executive director obtained by the Star Tribune, First Precinct Inspector Michael Kjos said there was no evidence that the two rival groups involved in the violence came from a bar or nearby business.

Kjos said the area was “saturated with police officers” and several officers witnessed the gunfire but did not engage because there were too many pedestrians in the area. The arrests and recovery of the two handguns followed a foot chase, Kjos said.

The responses have been typical. Calls for more gun restrictions, hiring more police officers, and restrictions on establishments that serve alcohol are being made. Gun restrictions have only ever served to disarm people willing to follow the law. Officers were on the scene so having more available wouldn’t have changed anything. And there was no evidence that the perpetrators had been in an establishment serving alcohol so additional restrictions on bars wouldn’t have made any difference. What this story demonstrates better than anything is that centralized controls are ineffective.

The question still remains, what can be done to deal with situations such as this? Contrary to popular belief the solution isn’t relying on third parties to deal with the problem. As with anything else in life the only solution is to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty.

You cannot control the actions of others so the first step is getting that silly notion out of your head. Once you’ve accepted that fact you need to ask what steps you can take to make yourself safer. For situations such as this the most effective option is avoidance. Our subconscious is pretty good at picking up on subtle signs of danger. Oftentimes people write off these feelings by telling themselves they’re just being paranoid. Don’t do that. If the little voice in your head is telling you something isn’t right then you should listen to it and vacate the area.

Another step would be to keep a clear head, which means not drinking. But telling people not to drink is worthless because they aren’t going to listen. Instead I will take the middle ground by pulling a page from the responsible drinker’s playbook. Every group is supposed to designate a sober driver. There’s no reason that person should only be concerned about driving. I like to think of designated drivers as designated adults. Their job is to ensure everybody gets home safely. In addition to driving that should also involved being the lookout. If their little voice is saying a situation is dangerous they should inform the group that they need to be elsewhere. Granted, herding drunks is like herding libertarians but a designated adult can only put forth their best effort and each person is ultimately responsible for themselves.

If you’re not drinking you should also carry a gun. You can’t control when you’ll find yourself in this kind of situation but you can increase your odds of survival. As with popular belief regarding centralized control the popular belief that having less armed individuals increases overall safety is bullshit. Relying on a third party for protection isn’t a solution because you can’t guarantee a third party will actually protect you. Take charge of your defense and carrying the most effective means of defending yourself when you’re responsible enough to do so (i.e. not when you’re drinking).

Stop asking what “we” can do. There is no we. There is only you so ask what you can do. Until you ask the right question it’s impossible to come up with the right answer.

Security Exists As A Spectrum

When I discuss security, be it online or offline, I often mention threat models and cost-benefits analysis. Unless you understand what you’re defending against it’s impossible to develop an effective defense. And if you don’t perform a cost-benefits analysis you may end up investing far more into securing something than it’s worth. The thing with threat models and cost-benefits analysis is that they’re, like security in general, subjective. This is a fact lost on many people as Tam so eloquently explained:

People buy into safety. It’s important for people to feel safe. For some reason, people view safety as a binary state and not an ongoing process. Therefore, when something comes along to remind us that we might not be as safe as we think we are, or there’s an optional activity we could undertake to improve our safety, it rustles our jimmies and we get all upset and fling poo at that thing and wave branches at it until it goes away and we can return to feeling safe. It’s why people who ride without helmets come up with all kinds of BS excuses about hearing and wind drag rather than just admitting “Hey, I’m comfortable with the extra risk of skull fractures in order to feel the wind in my hair.”

[…]

And here’s the thing: It’s okay to not wear a helmet. It’s okay to not carry a gun. It’s okay to not like the Gadget. It’s okay to open carry and not take thirty-eleven years of BJJ and weapons retention training. It’s still (mostly) a free country… *but own the types of risk you’re assuming*. Don’t hand-wave them away and shoot the messengers who point them out. Say “Look, I’m comfortable with these risks and don’t want to make the life commitments it would take to mitigate them” and most people will totally understand that.

People often get caught up in their binary view of security. This phenomenon has lead to countless discussions that were ultimately pointless. Motorcycle helmets are a classic example of this. Before donning a helmet a motorcycle rider first does some threat modeling. Usually the threats involve large four-wheel vehicles the motorcyclist has to share the road with. After identifying potential threats they then add perceived risks of encountering those threats to the model. Then they do a cost-benefits analysis. Many feel the costs of a helmet; the lack of feeling wind on their face, for example; outweigh the benefits when applied to their threat model. You can bitch at them all you want but security is subjective.

Carrying a gun is another example. I carry a gun because the costs, to me, are lower than the benefits. My manner of dress lends itself to carrying and concealing a firearm and my setup is comfortable. The benefits, for me, are having a tool available if I should happen to be attacked. Although my threat model indicates the risk of me being attacked is very low it’s still high enough to offset the low costs of carrying a gun. Somebody else may look at their threat model, which also sees the risk of being attacked as very low, and compare it to the costs of completely changing their manner of dress to conclude carrying a gun is more costly than the benefits provided. They’re not right or wrong; security isn’t binary.

As a general rule, unless it’s asked of me, I try to avoid critiquing other people’s security plans. There’s just no point unless I known what criteria they used to develop their plans. While a lack of a home alarm system may seem incredibly stupid to some people it may be more cost than its worth to somebody who has really good theft insurance.

Focus On The Situation, Not The Tool

An anti-gunner walks into a bar, err, a restaurant. He sees somebody there minding their own business. That person happens to be openly carrying a firearm and doesn’t have a badge so the anti-gunner feels the need to write a lengthy piece of hysterical nonsense. I’ll save you most of the crap and cut right to answering the questions he puts forth:

How am I, just an average person, supposed to know if the person with the firearm is a “good guy” or a “bad guy?”

How am I, just an average person, supposed to know if any stranger I meet is a “good guy” or “bad guy?” Most anti-gunners only freak out when they see a person without a badge openly carrying a firearm. Truth be told I could just go buy a police uniform and one of those completely asinine “concealed carry badges” and most anti-gunners would be perfectly fine with me openly carrying a firearm (and violent individuals do that specifically because it assists them in approaching their target).

There is no sure way to distinguish “good guys” from “bad guys.” This is why so many of us carry firearms. While 99.99 percent (number pulled out of my ass to illustrate a sizable majority) of people are good, or at least good enough not to be a direct threat to my life, there is that tiny percentage of the population that may decide shooting up the restaurant I’m eating at sounds like the makings for a fun afternoon. Since I can’t tell who they are I can only ensure I have the tools necessary to defend against them if I should encounter them.

Generally speaking though if the person with the holstered firearm isn’t shooting at random people there’s a very good chance they’re one of the “good guys.”

Suppose that I am armed, too. Should I fire preemptively at the other person with the gun just in case that person is a “bad guy,” and take the chance of killing a “good guy,” or should I hold my fire and take the chance that the other person will not be a “bad guy” or be a “good guy” and think I am a “bad guy” and fire at me first?

Is there a secret handshake that “good guys” use to identify each other? If so, what if a “bad guy” uses that secret handshake to pretend he is a “good guy” and then performs his nefarious acts?

It’s very simple actually. Hold your fire until there’s an immediate threat that you reasonable believe could kill you or cause great bodily harm? If the person in the restaurant has their firearm holstered they are not an immediate threat because holstered firearms can’t hurt anybody.

I’d be more concerned about the random person walking up to me asking to borrow a lighter for their cigarette (because I don’t smoke and one should therefore not assume I have a lighter) than an openly armed person sitting at a restaurant eating a meal. The former is creating a situation that gives them a plausible reason to close distance, which means they could be a deadly threat if they have a conceal knife, whereas the latter isn’t approaching me or trying to involve me in their business.

In my experience anti-gunners are poor risk at risk assessment. They focus on the tool as the threat instead of the person. People don’t need firearms to be dangerous but having a firearm greatly increases your odds of survival if you’re attacked by a dangerous person. Focusing on individuals openly carrying a firearm is especially poor risk assessment. Most violent individuals try to conceal the fact that they’re a threat until they get close. They want to appear friendly and unarmed so you let them get close enough to take you by surprise.

If you are worried about identifying “good guys” and “bad guys” pay attention to the situation and your gut instinct. Threats will try to create a situation that is favorable to them. As a human being you a gifted with a great ability to read other human beings. If a violent individual is creating a situation that favors them they are likely doing other things that will make the little voice in your head say, “I think he’s bad, you should flee.” Learn to identify those situations and don’t dismiss that little voice as mere paranoia. Those two things, which many of us refer to as “situational awareness”, will do more to increase your odds of survival than focusing on tools such as firearms.

You Can’t Rely On Others For Your Defense

I shift around a lot of electrons talking about self-defense. When it comes to self-defense the thing that should always be kept in mind is that you can only rely on yourself. Sure, somebody may come to your aid but you can’t rely on the assumption that somebody will because very often nobody will:

What happened to Kevin Joseph Sutherland was horrific beyond imagining. On July 4, in front of about 10 witnesses on the Washington, D.C., Metro, an assailant punched him, stomped on him, kicked him in the head, and stabbed him at least 30 times. No one attempted to stop Sutherland’s killer.

What happened to me in November was vastly different, and I do not intend to equate the two events. Like Sutherland, I was attacked on a Saturday afternoon on the D.C. Metro. And as in Sutherland’s case, despite my screams and pleas, almost none of my fellow passengers on the crowded train car did anything to help.

This is why I keep myself in relatively good shape, carry a firearm, and train in martial arts (in that order of precedence) and urge you to do so as well. It’s harder to kill somebody in even decent shape than somebody who isn’t at all in shape and physical fitness improves your ability to run away, which should always been your first instinct when you feel like a situation is about to go bad. A firearm gives you the best odds against an aggressor and takes physical disparity out of the equation. Martial arts give you an option for dealing with an aggressor even in situations where you’re unarmed.

Both stories mentioned in the link article involved a person being attacked while multiple witnesses did nothing. One could blame the witnesses for not involving themselves, and a writer for the Federalist did exactly that, but it’s also unreasonable to expect somebody to risk their life to aid a complete stranger. That doesn’t make somebody a “beta male,” as the Federalist writer claims, it simply means they’re individuals who performed a risk-benefit calculations and concluded involving themselves was riskier than the potential benefit. That’s a very logical conclusion. Involving yourself in a physical confrontation is always risky. You don’t know if the situation is a gang of violent individuals beating a random innocent person to death or a inter-gang war playing itself out. It’s also impossible to know if the attackers are carrying armaments in addition to whatever is currently in their hands or if they have more friends nearby. Generally speaking the safe option for a person witnessing a physical confrontation is to do everything in their power to not involve themselves. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the moral choice but it is a logical choice.

But that logical choice also means you have to be prepared to fend for yourself.

Gun Control And Cryptography Control: Same Idea With The Same Outcome

Crypto War II is heating up. David Cameron has vowed to make effective cryptography illegal in the Britain, the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) has been uging Congress to pass a ban on effective cryptography, and Australia has been ahead of the curve by not just prohibiting the use of strong cryptography but also learning about it. I’ve spent a good deal of time fighting against attempts to restrict or prohibit gun ownership. From my experience there I can say that attempts to restrict or prohibit effective cryptography is the exact same thing with the same outcome.

First, let’s consider what restricting or prohibiting gun ownership does. Gun restriction laws prohibit non-state individuals from having legal access to certain types of firearms and what they can do with their firearms. The National Firearms Act (NFA), for example, places heavy restrictions on purchasing machine guns, suppressors, and several other categories of firearms. Adding to the NFA’s restrictions on machine guns the Hughes Amendment to the Firearm Owners Protection Act outright prohibited non-state entities from legally owning machine guns manufactured after 1986. In addition to these restrictions the Gun Control Act of 1968 also created a list of individuals prohibited from owning any type of firearm. The list includes anybody who has been labeled a felon, which means simply failing to abide by the entire tax code could make it illegal for you to own a firearm. Most states have laws restricting individuals from lawfully carrying a firearm without state permission. In other words most states restrict individuals’ options for self-defense. Those laws, like all laws, only apply to individuals acting within the law. Criminals, by definition, do not have to abide by these restrictions and prohibitions so the ultimate outcome is that non-state individuals can be outgunned by violent criminals (both the state and non-state variety).

Now let’s consider what restricting or prohibiting effective cryptography does. Restrictions against effective cryptography create a legal requirement that all cryptographic systems be weakened in such a way that they can be easily bypassed by the state. In reality cryptographic systems cannot be weakened in such to allow only one entity to bypass them without also allowing other entities to bypass them. We learned this lesson during the Clipper chip fiasco. When you purposely introduce weaknesses into cryptographic systems those weaknesses can be targeted by anybody, including run of the mill criminals and foreign states. In the case of key escrow, the system being proposed where all encrypted data can be decrypted by a key held by the state, the focus would likely be in either creating or stealing a copy of the state’s key. Once that happened, and it would only be a matter of time until it did happen, the encrypted data would be available to anybody with a copy of the key to read. Imagine the day, and it would happen, where that master key was widely distributed across the Internet. Suddenly everything that was lawfully encrypted would be easily decrypted by anybody. Your personal information, including credit card and Social Security numbers, would be accessible to every identify thief in the world. Any communications you had that could imply you were participating in an unlawful activity, even if you weren’t, would suddenly be accessible not only to law enforcement agents but also individuals interested in blackmailing you. All future communications with online stores would be vulnerable, which means your credit card and shipping information could be snapped up by anybody surveiling the network you’re using. Any information you entered into state and federal online tax systems would be viewable to anybody with a copy of the master key. Effectively everything you communicated would be transmitted in plaintext and viewable to anybody.

Cryptography, like a firearm, is a means of self-defense. Where firearms are used to defend your physical self cryptography is used to defend your data. If your phone or laptop is stolen encryption can defend all of the information stored on it from the thief. When you make a purchase online encryption defends your credit card number and shipping address from identify thieves. Your Social Security number is also defended against identify thieves by encryption when you fill out your taxes online. There are a lot of bad individuals who want to steal personal information about you and the only thing you have to defend against them is effective cryptography. Any restriction against effective cryptography necessarily inhibits the ability of individuals to defend themselves.

The fight against restricting cryptography is the same fight against restricting firearm ownership. Both fights are against attempts by the state to restrict the ability of individuals to protect themselves from harm.

Self-Defense Comes to Puerto Rico

The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), whose site now requires enabling JavaScript to view textual content and therefore pisses me off to the point where I really considered not linking to them, notes that a court ruling in Puerto Rico has eliminated the island nation’s firearm registry and licensing requirements to purchase and carry a firearm:

As of now, according to Sandra Barreras with Ladies of the Second Amendment (LSA), the group that brought the lawsuit, “there is no regulation to purchase or carry (and) all purchases will be handled in accordance with federal firearms regulations.” LSA is affiliated with SAF through the International Association for the Protection of Civilian Arms Rights (IAPCAR).

The class-action lawsuit challenged various articles in Puerto Rico’s gun law, which the court declared unconstitutional. Because of the ruling, Barreras said, Puerto Ricans may now carry openly or concealed without a permit, and they do not need to obtain a permit before purchasing a firearm.

This was a class action lawsuit involving more than 850 individual plaintiffs, she reported to SAF offices. The news was greeted with delight, especially because in reaching its decision, the court cited the Heller and McDonald Supreme Court cases, and the recent ruling in Palmer v. District of Columbia. Both the McDonald and Palmer cases were won by SAF.

It’s nice to hear some positive self-defense news coming from outside of the United States proper. I also find the amount of resources the state will stick into keeping the people under its rule from having an effective means of self-defense telling. Instead of simply abolishing the registry and licensing requirement as soon as somebody stated an objection the government of Puerto Rico enforced the laws and even invested resources into making an argument for keeping them in its own courts (when you can’t convince yourself registries and licenses are necessary then they truly aren’t). That really shows just how much states prefer their victims to be unable to fight back against both itself and any of its ilk (that is to say non-state robbers, attackers, and murders).

Handling a Self-Defense Situation

Christopher Cantwell, who officially endorse me as a social justice warrior, got himself into a rather unpleasant self-defense situation. I’ve heard him discuss it on Free Talk Live and read numerous opinions about how he handled the situation. As this story is an intersection of anarchism (Cantwell, even though many of his writings would indicate otherwise, does consider himself an anarchist as I’ve learned) and gun rights I thought I’d offer my opinion (and don’t say you didn’t ask for it, you’re on my site so obviously you want to know what I think).

From what I’ve read and heard the situation began when Cantwell came across a physical altercation and pulled out his camera to record it. The people involved in the altercation decided they didn’t want to be recorded and the situation quickly escalated to the point where Cantwell felt threatened enough to draw his gun.

Cantwell and I may both be anarchists but we likely disagree on more things than we agree on. I mention this because it’s something I share with many gun rights advocates (the disagreeing with Cantwell part, not the being an anarchist part) and the general attitude of many of them seems to be that Cantwell acted stupidly. Because of the video and what he said about the situation I’m left to believe that the primary reason they find what he did to be stupid is because they just generally don’t like the guy and are unwilling to compliment him. The reason I believe this is because he actually handled the situation well.

The first criticism being aimed at him by his detractors is that he involved himself in the situation. Anybody who has taken a self-defense class will tell you that involving yourself in altercations between unknown individuals is not a wise idea. Of course standing aside could result in somebody being murdered. Therefore the question becomes whether the legal liability is so great that your conscious will allow you to walk away as somebody is potentially being murdered. I think Cantwell took a good middle path by recording the altercation. By doing so really can’t be said to have escalated the situation since his “involvement” was nothing more than being a witness. He didn’t approach the group and command them to knock it off or take sides. Instead he did the same thing any security camera would do, bear witness and make a record of what happened.

When the people involved in the altercation took notice of him they initiated another aggressive situation, this time involving Cantwell. First they commanded him to turn off his camera and then approached him when he refused. At this point leaving the camera on was the wisest decision he could have made because it create a record that shows he didn’t instigate the situation and even made an effort to back away. That’s a key point, as the aggressors approached he attempted to maintain space by backing away.

Where I disagree with that he did is when he informed the aggressors that he had a gun. My quibble with this is that you remove the shock factor drawing your firearm has and potentially convince you aggressors to draw their firearms that you were unaware they had. Having surprise on your side is good in a self-defense situation because it can cause your aggressors to stop for a second as they process the new circumstance. This is a minor quibble though as the situation didn’t change. Warning them that he was armed didn’t convince them to back off nor did they pull weapons on him. In the end it was one of those mid-situation tactics that you really have to decide for yourself based on the situation at hand as it’s unfolding.

In the end he drew his firearm and that convinced his aggressors that they should stop approaching and threatening him. As with most self-defense situations involving the defender drawing a firearm the situation was resolved without any shots fired, which is the best possible outcome when things have reached that point.

I really can’t see where Cantwell committed any major self-defense faux pas. People could argue that he didn’t have to involve himself by recording the altercation but if it ended up in a murder people would probably criticize him for not recording it. By choosing to record the situation rather than break it up he ensured his involvement was minimal and stood little chance of escalating matters. It’s a good middle ground between legal liability and decency.

Self-Defense is Not Victim Blaming

I came across a link on my Facebook feed of a page showing pictures of women being photographed with the objects they carry to defend themselves. My first response was to note how poor the items pictured were for self-defense. But then I came across something:

She believes the objects they’re holding represent a “larger reality of victim blaming”.

[…]

“These loaded objects on key chains where trinkets should be really do portray how women are expected to always be on guard to protect themselves…when the rapists should not be raping,” she said.

Self-defense isn’t victim blaming, it’s simply being prepared for a potential life threatening situation. While I agree that rapists shouldn’t be raping the fact of the matter is the universe is a cruel place and only grants us the ability to control our own actions. That means we must prepare ourselves for situations created by other people. Rape isn’t the only scenario where one may have to defend themselves. Assaults, muggings, burglaries, attempted murders, and an extensive list of other violent crimes are all situations one can find themselves in that were created by somebody else. Having a means of self-defense is no different than keeping a first-aid kit in your vehicle. Life happens and sometimes it requires the application of bandages.

Victim blaming can only exist when there is a victim. Telling somebody to have a means of self-defense, not to walk down a dark alley alone on the bad side of town at night, wear a seat belt, and lock their doors at night are not instances of victim blaming because no victim exists. When victim blaming comes into play is after a crime has been perpetrated. If you tell a rape victim they were at fault for being raped because they didn’t carry a gun then you are victim blaming. The victim wasn’t at fault for the crime. Only the person who initiated the aggression holds any culpability.

Having a means of self-defense is an acknowledgement that bad people exist. It’s also an acknowledgement that you cannot control their actions but can take measures to increase your odds of resisting them. Victim blaming is the belief that a person is somehow responsible for somebody else choosing to attack them.