Just a passing glance at news headlines reveals numerous examples of innocent people assaulted, injured, and killed in violent encounters. From school and church shootings to robberies, assaults, murders, and, most recently, “terrorist-inspired” mass shootings, people in our society remain quite committed to predatory, evil behavior.
The reality is, we routinely pass by and interact with violent and predatory people. The creepy guy in the Walmart aisle, the suspicious woman at the gas pump, the spazzy dude approaching you in the parking lot. Maybe they’re completely innocent and benevolent, or maybe they’re drug-addled and mentally unstable. Sadly, nowadays it’s a 50/50 chance. And remember, there’s a reason they gave you the creeps; your brain saw something that was less of a match with “normal person who certainly won’t hurt me,” and more a match with, “CAUTION! Steer clear!”
As I see it, we have a couple of options for addressing the threats around us:
- Pretend those threats don’t exist in our world; or
- Acknowledge that those threats are real and are often close at hand.
Either way, though, the threats are there. So, given the choice between ignoring a threat and acknowledging it, I choose to acknowledge it.
Now, acknowledging the existence of threats leads to a couple more choices:
- We live every moment in fear of an attack, or
- We prepare ourselves to be able to respond appropriately.
Again, I choose the latter.
So, assuming you’ve made the same choices I have, what are the steps we can take to prepare ourselves to handle situations when the potential threat becomes an active threat? First, we can pay attention to the world around us so we can see the potential threat before it even becomes active and hopefully avoid the incident altogether. We also need the skills to deal with the evolving situation. We also need the tools on us that will help us address the situation, and we must know how to use those tools properly in the given context we find ourselves in. We also need to understand the legal framework in which our actions will be judged. And finally, we have to be able to make decisions based on all of the above that put us in the best situation to prevail.
So why do we train? Because threats are real, no matter how we live our lives. Because the assailant chooses the time and place for the attack. Because, if we are paying attention and know what we’re doing, we can influence the assailant’s choices. Because tools don’t use themselves. Because poor or improper use of our tools can make things even worse for us. Because poor choices can bury us in unwinable, lose-lose situations. Because, if we have prepared ourselves for real-world possibilities, the odds of us winning the day are actually very high.
Let’s train to win.
