Updating and revising our approach to self-defense, Part 1

 

(This is the first article in a three-part series.  The second may be found here, and the third here.)

We've read a lot in recent weeks about the explosion in crime rates across the country, most particularly in big cities dominated by left-wing progressive local governments.  We've covered some of them in these pages.  To cite just a few recent articles:

The bell tolls, and it's getting louder

Big Brother gets even more intrusive,

and self-defense becomes even more difficult

No wonder the criminals are winning

Tensions - in the rest of the world, and in US inner cities

The amoral violence and blind outrage is mind-boggling

We have far too many home-grown criminal gangs in the USA:  the Crips, the Bloods, Dirty White Boys, Mexicanemi, and thousands of others.  There's also a growing foreign criminal and gang presence.  We're seeing a continued influx of illegal aliens across our southern border from nations and cities where crime and violence are a way of life.  It's what at least some (perhaps most) of them are used to, and it's how many of they behave themselves - and some are bringing that here with them.  To take just one example, consider the anarchy and social breakdown presently visible in Haiti.  It's nothing new - it's been going on for decades there;  for generations.  Is it any wonder that Haitians are desperate to come to the USA to get away from it?  The latest invasion occurred just two days ago, and it's just the latest in a long, long line of them.  There are today literally hundreds of thousands of Haitians in the USA, both legally and illegally, and many of them come out of precisely the climate of crime and violence described in the linked article.  To them, it's a way of life, embedded in their bones and psyches.  They're far from alone.  Aliens from El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and other holocausts of civilized society are here in similar or even greater numbers.  Some of them - for example, the notorious MS-13 criminal gang - make our homegrown criminals look tame by comparison.

The combination is explosive, and getting more so.  It's one factor - but far from the only one - behind the current rise in urban violence and crime.  See the earlier articles I linked above for some examples, and consider what's happening right now, today, in our cities.  For example:

The NYPD pointed out in a press release Friday just how crime-riddled the city is, saying the grim statistics show how the Big Apple’s bad guys no longer fear getting caught.

Citywide shootings surged 13.4% in July compared to the same month last year, and murders increased an even more alarming 34.3%, according to the department.

The overall rate of major crimes also rose 30.5%, driven in part by a 40.6% surge in grand larcenies.

“Usually they are spinning the numbers to make the bad look good,” an astounded Queens cop said.

A Manhattan cop asked sarcastically, “Why doesn’t the Police Department just raise the white flag?”

There's more at the link.

We're also faced with a growing incidence of mass shooting events.  Statistically speaking, they're still rare;  our odds of encountering, or becoming a victim of, such an event are still vanishingly small, on the whole.  However, "vanishingly small" is cold comfort when you drive to your local shopping mall and find yourself caught up in one!  Most people aren't prepared for that at all.  Fortunately, at least a few are, as demonstrated last month.

A new timeline from Greenwood Police show it only took 15 seconds for the Greenwood mall shooting to come to an end.

Police reviewed surveillance video that showed the moments the suspect left the food court bathroom to the time Eli Dicken pulled out his gun, aimed and took out the threat.

Autopsy results also revealed the suspect was hit eight times from about 40 yards away. Police say Dicken fired 10 rounds.

Those numbers are impressing many gun experts and owners.

“What impressed me the most, compared to your average civilian shooter, was not the number of rounds fired, not the hit rate, not the time, but the distance,” said Mark Welter, retail manager for Indy Arms Company ... “To have that level of performance with that level of difficulty was just super, super impressive,” Welter said.

Police said Dicken had no police training or military background. He told them he learned to shoot from his grandfather.

Again, more at the link.  A big Bravo Zulu to Mr. Dicken, and another to his grandfather for the obvious high quality of his instruction.  If I ever meet either or both of them, the beers and a slap-up meal are on me.

Mr. Dicken is fortunate that he lives in a town where self-defense, and defense of others, are applauded and appreciated by the powers that be.  Many do not.  In cities and towns with a progressive left-wing District Attorney and law enforcement authorities, to defend yourself is to risk being regarded as a criminal perpetrator rather than the victim.  I wrote about this in two articles a couple of years ago:

Self-defense under a justice system

that's no longer on your side

No, I wasn't being alarmist -

rather, I wasn't alarmist enough

That hasn't changed:  in fact, it's become more widespread, as we saw in New York City just last month.  In that case, after an enormous public outcry against the obvious unfairness of the charges, they were dropped.  Other cases have not received as much publicity, and the victims have been less fortunate.  There are today far too many cities and other jurisdictions where it's legally hazardous to your freedom to invoke your right to self-defense and protect yourself against criminal attack.

Unfortunately, defending ourselves isn't always practically possible.  No amount of shooting skills will keep us safe if we wander into a free-fire zone on the streets, where gang-bangers let fly at each other with increasing regularity.  There are suburbs in many big cities where it's simply no longer safe to be outside at any time of the day or night, because there are always thugs around looking to start a fight or settle a score with real or imagined enemies.  The carnage is getting worse by the day.  Just do a search for innocent bystanders wounded or killed in such exchanges of fire, and see for yourself.

Almost unbelievably, there are those who insist that they're going to go right on engaging in their normal day-to-day activities, refusing to take additional precautions or be more careful about their movements.  They regard it as their natural right to do so, and refuse to even consider that it might be in their best interest to think less about rights and more about reality.  There are times and places where to use a gun to defend yourself might actually be counter-productive.

Having set the scene, I'm going to consider (in two more articles) some practical elements we should consider to improve our chances of surviving today's violent streets.  These will not apply to everybody.  If you're living in a peaceful country town, the odds that you'll ever need any of them are vanishingly small.  However, they are not zero.  Enough gang-bangers are looking for easy pickings outside their usual haunts that danger may come to you, no matter how hard you wish it wouldn't.  Therefore, I suggest you take a look at your own situation, examine your own local crime figures, talk to local cops, fire and EMS personnel, and build up a picture of your own threat environment;  then decide what suggestions of mine might be useful to you.

More tomorrow.

Peter