You really are on your own! Would you have had the attitude, skills, and plan to fight this attacker off by yourself? Would you have stepped in as a bystander?
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What does this video teach us about defending ourselves against an attack?
- Never ignore your “creep alarm,” that uneasy, queasy feeling that something isn’t right. Your creep alarm is usually your subconscious’ way of telling you that something IS wrong, and you need to take action to make yourself safer. It was pretty clear to see that this woman was aware that the attacker meant her harm. Don’t ignore that feeling!
- Evil exists in our world, and no amount of wishing it away does so. Evil people do evil things, and good people must be ready and willing to stand between them and innocent people and do enough violence to stop them definitively. No amount of negotiation will make truly evil people change their ways; only those willing and able to stop them who use attitude, skills, and plan effectively can. This kind of evil in someone’s heart, who will rob and attack someone in a store and among a group of people, is pretty far gone.
- The Bystander Effect is real. There were lots of people around here, but no one stepped in. You cannot count on anyone breaking the Bystander Effect to help you, especially if the attacker is armed and any help would be at a force deficit from it. Usually the best way to break the Bystander Effect is to have a force multiplication advantage, which is a great reason to keep your force multiplier on you at all times.
- As well-meaning as police officers are, they cannot protect you from danger. As the old adage says, “When seconds count, the police are only minutes away!” You—and ONLY you—can protect yourself from danger when it comes upon you. A police response time of 5 minutes is considered perfectly acceptable in most suburban departments, and times upwards of 30 minutes can be the norm in rural areas! You need to have the attitude, skills, and plan to protect yourself from harm because the police simply can’t.
- Empty-handed skills are absolutely critical for self-defenders. First of all, more conflicts you will encounter as a self-defender will require empty-handed skills than will require firearms skills, simply because more self-defense encounters are physical than deadly. Second, since a firearm is a tool of last resort, self-defenders need to have non-lethal options that include empty-handed skills to protect themselves from likely incidents. Third, in the moment of the encounter you may not have the time to get to your gun before you can fight your way to it.
Attitude. Skills. Plan.
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