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| Hello again! Can you believe summer is about over? Kids are going back to school, vacations are over, and that makes it the perfect time to get your carry permit. Now that schedules are calming down for everyone, I'm sure you have some weekends free, or know someone who still needs to get his or her carry permit and has the occasional free weekend. Now is the perfect time! Please forward this email to anyone who may be interested in effective self-defense. Then, enjoy the article below, "Expanding Your Situational Awareness" by James R. Rummel of http://www.hellinahandbasket.net. "It is your moral compass not your sight alignment ability that causes/prevents you from going on a shooting spree." -Akodo Upcoming Class: September 11th at 9:30AM. If you're interested, please register here(http://www.metrodefense.com/index.php?page=classes). Price is $120 for an individual, which includes all range fees and a copy of either Everything You Need to Know about (Legally) Carrying a Handgun in Minnesota or Minnesota Permit to Carry a Firearm Fundamentals. Veterans, couples, and renewals all receive various discounts, detailed on our website, or by calling (612) 217-GUNS. There are no hidden fees in our class. Bring some ammunition and the $120 fee is the total cost. There is a $10 fee per person if you do not pay in advance. As always, if you've taken our class, you are welcome to come back for a refresher at no charge. “There is no doubt that the very thought a potential victim might possess a firearm deters that element of our society that cares nothing about laws or human life but rather understands only one thing—brute force.” - Judge Robert Ruehlman This edition's featured article is brought to you by James R. Rummel, proprietor of http://www.hellinahandbasket. Expanding Your Situational AwarenessMany self defense instructors talk about the importance of “situational awareness”. I was asked to define this elusive and important aspect of avoiding trouble. What is it? To what is it applied? And how do you know if you are doing it right? Those same self defense professionals usually say that it is nothing more than paying attention to what is going on around you while you are out of your home. That way it is very difficult for a criminal to get close enough to pounce, and steps can be taken to get away or get ready before anyone gets hurt.
In this they are correct, but I always take it a few steps farther. To explain what I mean, I want to tell you a bedtime story…
My student struggled to describe the scene right before she was subjected to a violent criminal attack. “The street was empty. Just me and him were on it. No cars or anyone else. And he came out of nowhere!”
“So he was hiding?” I asked. “He jumped out at you when you got close?” “No, I had noticed him a few blocks before.” she said, visibly distressed at the still vivid memory. “He was on the other side of the street, and crossed over when I wasn’t looking. The woman above was counting on psychological boundries, something that didn’t really exist in the physical world. Because she was on this side of the street, and a guy stalking her while she walked home in the dead of night was on that side, she discounted him as a threat. That was why she wasn’t paying attention to him when he crossed the street, and made a rush to close the distance. This is actually something that I have come across with heartbreaking regularity. We all have our zones of comfort, places where we let our guard down and our attention lapse. This is somethign that everyone is prone to, human nature and nothing more. 52 percent of auto accidents occur close to home. Get near the nest, and the need to keep alert seems to wane. Perhaps it is inevitable to find that everyone has places inside of the house where the though of being attacked is impossible to fathom. Mental blind spots where a room or place is considered impregnable, but it is a phantom fortress at best. My very first elderly student ran to her bedroom when someone started to kick down her front door in the middle of the afternoon. The only problem is that the bedroom is the very first place a burglar will check for valuables and cash. Lucky thing there was a walk-in closet, and she had a phone to summon police. Another of my students was extremely grateful when I installed a lock inside of her bathroom door. The victim of a home invasion, she was also confined to a wheelchair.
It takes someone who lived through a home invasion to understand how vulnerable everyone is while sitting on the crapper. What was my lesson plan to get my students to avoid this type of thinking? What did I say to them so far as letting their minds get in a rut, and allow themselves to rely on barriers that existed only in their own perceptions? “Don’t do that!” This isn’t to say that everyone has to live in a state of constant vigilence, jumping at every stray noise and clawing at their gun when the wind blows through the treetops outside. After all, we all need to sleep sometime. Just that they should look to make sure that the boundries and barriers they rely on for safety are physical in manifestation. Stout doors with properly installed deadbolt locks are very good indeed. Windows, not so much. Glass sliding doors are nightmares that make my life much, much harder than it needs to be. So glass windows and doors are useless? Well, the noise someone has to make to get through them should provide a little early warning that something is not right, at any rate. But I have seen far too many people who assumed that buying a few fancy locks for their sliding patio door made them secure, just to become abused of that notion only when a casually tossed brick taken from the garden five feet away shivered their door into a huge, splintery hole in the side of their house.
C’mon, now! Just because the homeowner doesn’t want to break their expensive glass door, what in the world makes them think that a criminal has the same reluctance for property damage? But that is exactly what a lot of people assume, and they get kind of upset when I point out the obvious. So what is the point of this essay? What am I trying to say? Just that everyone interested in avoiding trouble should take a few minutes to realistically evaluate their vulnerabilities. Keep an eye on the people walking on the other side of the street, as well as those who share the sidewalk you are using. Physical barriers are the only kind you can rely on, but they have to be proof against even moderately sized rocks that a child can throw. Just because you are inside of your house, the refuge against the cares of your everday existence, doesn’t mean that you are completely safe. Maybe you should think about buying a dog.
And, for Pete’s sake, will you guys please replace those glass patio doors with something made of wood or steel? The Second Amendment is in place in case they ignore the others. - unknown Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/MetroDefense to get up-to-the-minute information. This newsletter is also available as an rss feed at http://feeds.feedburner.com/MetroDefenseNewsletter. Join us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Plymouth-MN/Metro-Defense-Training-LLC/119216440876. Metro Defense Training is now officially a recruiter for the NRA. Get your membership for only $25 here. (http://membership.nrahq.org/default.asp?campaignid=XI021999) Until next time, I’m a pessimist. That means either I’m right, or I’m pleasantly surprised. | |||||
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Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Metro Defense Training 8/31/2010
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