Self Defense, Part 1

Self Defense, Part 1
by Duncan Bayne

From an article in the August 8 issue of the New Zealand Herald:

The well-planned hit started at 7pm when the 59-year-old victim opened his front door to a boy, aged six to eight, claiming to be selling chocolate bars to raise funds for his school.

He was about to shut the door when two men, aged in their 20s to 30s and possibly Maori, appeared, pushing him down onto the floor of his Napier home.

"It is pretty obvious they used the child to break in," Detective John McGregor said this morning.

Pulling a hood over the head of the man—a weapon collector—the men ripped out the phone connection and used the cord and tape to tie him up.

Fortunately, the man lived through the attack.

Unfortunately, the criminals stole his large collection of firearms, presumably to sell or to use in future crimes. The next time some unfortunate meets these 'men,' they'll likely be packing shotguns.

This brings me to the point of this article: are you prepared to protect your life, and the people and things in your life which you value? Your wife? Your children? Your dog? Your house? Your collection of gently aging Shiraz?

Now, by prepared, I don't mean mentally prepared, as I'm sure most people here value their lives sufficiently to throw themselves into a spirited defense of same. What I'm addressing is physical preparation—the nuts and bolts of protecting your values from aggressors. The reason I ask is that I thought I was prepared, some months ago—then reality asserted itself and proved otherwise:

We were burgled yesterday while we were out shopping, & the burglars let the dogs out :-( Our neighbours found & caught Tika (well, called her over to play), but Haplo was run over by a car. A vet nurse saw this & took him to an after-hours vet where they dosed him with morphine, but he died of internal injuries shortly after arrival.

Other than Haplo, the cost was fairly minor; some DVDs (although they left Blackadder & LOTR—no taste whatsoever), DVD player, chocolate, cash, airguns, digital camera, and a watch. They left jewellery, credit cards, computer hardware, my bike—we're fairly sure they were young, possibly children, and certainly not professional thieves.

In other words, a couple of children proved they had more drive to take the physical expression of my values than I had to protect them. After dealing with the immediate aftermath, I got to thinking: how ready was I, honestly, to deal with the 'bad people' in society? Was I spending an appropriate amount of energy on preempting such people?

I concluded that I wasn't, and set about rectifying that.

First, I looked at some statistics, read some news (both from New Zealand, and elsewhere in the world, especially the USA), and spoke with people at WarriorTalk, and Pax Baculum (the latter run by an Objectivist, Phil Elmore, and recommended to my by a SOLOist whose name I've shamefully forgotten). I figured that if I was going to prepare against criminals, I'd better find out what it was that criminals do, and why they do it, from people who know.

One thing struck me as significant very early on: criminals are opportunists. Evidence suggests that criminals pick people matching a particular victim profile on two simple criteria: the victim has something the criminal wants, and obtaining it will be easy for the criminal. Obviously, criminals aren't the most rational people, and their decisions will often be influenced in unexpected ways (intoxication, enjoyment of violence, or wishing to prove themselves to gain membership in a gang). Despite this, I reasoned, it should be possible to take some steps towards reducing my attractiveness as a target. I decided to:

Secure my property.

Always carry the most effective weaponry permitted by law, everywhere I go.

Improve my ability to fight, both unarmed and with the aforementioned weapons.

The first proved the easiest, if the most expensive. We now have a monitored burglar alarm with special sensors that aren't (often) triggered by our dogs. Our locks are changed, and we have external motion-triggered security lights (which, as a side benefit, can be pinned on our deck, allowing for well-illuminated barbeques).

There were also many changes to our daily routine, including locking the car doors after entering, checking the general security of the house before going to bed, and aggressively investigating any strange sounds at night. Perhaps the single greatest change is that I now consciously try to remain in condition yellow at all times when not secure in my own home. It's easier said than done, but it can be fascinating just how much more you notice when you're actually alert.

The second is also, sadly, quite easy in New Zealand. My daily carry is on the boundary of the legally acceptable here in the Land of the Sheeple; I'd have a hard time explaining my Pika to the Police if I had to use it in my defense.

The third proved a little more difficult, because I wanted genuine self defense tuition from people who knew how to fight—and I didn't particularly feel like getting drunk, heading down to a bar, and learning by experience. I wasn't particularly interested in traditional martial arts, either—my experience with those is that they're more art than martial. In the end, I found just the people to do it. They're not cheap (NZ$30 per hour for a minimum ten-hour course), but that's one-on-one instruction from some people who come very highly recommended from a number of quarters. I will be taking a course as soon as we've got our finances back together (even with insurance, burglaries are more expensive than you'd think).

My wife, also, has been improving her own personal security. She's always been more situationally aware than me, and trained for years in Aikido in Australia, but has historically had an aversion to carrying weapons. This has changed; she now carries a kubotan baton and a small knife in her bag. (The knife is small enough for her to palm it when closed, and features a nice sharp lockback blade and an internal L.E.D. light; if you're looking for a gift for your Significant Other, take a trip to your local knife store and see what they have in that class).

So, that's where I'm at as of the end of Part I. I'll be writing Part II in a few months, once I've attended that self defense course, and had an opportunity to assess the success or otherwise of the changes I've been making.

In the meantime, I strongly encourage you to take a long, hard, honest look at your personal security. If you were woken in the middle of the night by someone kicking down your door, what would you do? (And the answer isn't always as simple as you'd think).

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