More on "Self-Defense Mindset"

So, after last week's blog and my facebook post about martial arts, I got some questions regarding what I meant by "self-defense mindset."  As always, I give credit to Tim Larkin and his amazing book When Violence is the Answer, in which he defines "self-defense" not as any actions we might do against another person, but as the legal determination from a criminal justice authority after the incident about whether it was justified or not.  By that definition, "self-defense" is the justified use of force against another person as determined by a cop, a prosecutor, a judge or a jury.  So, understanding what "self-defense" is and is not, then we have to understand that the things martial arts instructors and shooting instructors teach--the actions we train students to perform--are not self-defense, they are what many of us call "self-protection."

Now, last post when I was talking about the marketeers in the personal protection training business referring to the "self-defense mindset," I was really highlighting how many people misuse the term "self-defense."  The confusion I got was from people who still think this is about fighting.  I had a debate with my dad over the holiday about this very topic and if a bar fight can ever really be "self-defense."  My assertion is that nothing in a bar is worth fighting over, and if you can deescalate a situation by leaving, that is always the best option.  So, for me the "self-defense mindset" is not the same as it is for fighters, brawlers and martial artists.

Fighters, whether they be professionals, martial artists or just good brawlers, think of "self-defense" situations as any instance where somebody tries to put a hand on you.  That is their mindset.  I had a martial arts instructor tell me one time that he believes in teaching people lessons and if somebody touched him, they "earned a trip to a hospital."  He was an outstanding practitioner of his art and could easily snap people's limbs at will.  That's the problem.  A guy pushing you in a bar, or spilling a drink on you, or grabbing you because you spilled his drink (all three of which have happened to me at various times in my bar-going lifetime), does not constitute a "self-defense" situation to me, using Tim Larkin's definition of "self-defense," because drunk idiots are not Bad Guys.  Bad Guys is capitalized because it's a compound proper noun, not an adjective describing a noun.

And that is the fundamental difference between my concept of a "self-defense mindset" and the idea that some drunk idiot in a bar deserves a trip to a hospital because he took a handful of lapel and wrinkled your shirt.  My concept of "self-defense mindset" is killer instinct.  I don't mean that hyperbolically either, I mean literally killing people.  Now, when is that justified?  When would a criminal justice authority determine that gouging out somebody's eyes and snapping their neck would be an appropriate self-protection response?  The answer is when it really is a Bad Guy.  When the opponent is actually trying to do you grievous harm.  I can't justify blinding, paralyzing or killing a man who takes a wild-ass, drunken, hay-maker swing at me in a bar because I accidentally spilled his drink.  No criminal justice authority is going to say that was a justified use of force.

In my philosophy of violence, the "self-defense mindset" is the same whether you are armed with a Bradley Fighting Vehicle or your bare hands.  The tools are irrelevant because it is a life or death situation.  Which means, as I have written in the past, unarmed combat is still a struggle for life and death, it's just really uncomfortable combat.  The conclusion I draw from this philosophy, therefore, is as old as repeating firearms: Don't take a knife to a gunfight.  And, always take a gun to a knife fight!  Because there is no such thing as "cheating" in a real "self-defense" situation, where you are legally justified in killing a Bad Guy who is trying to rape, kill or maim you.  That is a combat situation, and in combat, whether it's between armies on a battlefield, fighter planes in the sky, or a rapist and a victim in an alley, cheating is winning!  In a real "self-defense" situation, where a Bad Guy is trying to do you serious harm, you would be perfectly justified in using a knife or a gun if you had it on you.  If you would not be justified in shooting or stabbing the other person, then that is not a real "self-defense" situation.  That is the difference between the "self-defense mindset" that a lot of martial arts schools teach and what I teach.

Which means, in answer to my student a few weeks ago, that unless we are talking about law school, there is no such thing as a "self-defense class."  There is all kinds of training that can teach self-protection skills.  This includes unarmed combat skills (like martial arts or boxing) and armed self-protection skills (like knife fighting and shooting and flying a fighter plane), but these are not "self-defense classes," because it's not about the stuff we do to the other person, it's about what a criminal justice authority says regarding the things we did to the other person after the fact.  If you're not justified in shooting or stabbing the guy, it's probably not clear-cut "self-defense."  And if it's ambiguous, like the drunk asshole in the bar, you can lose a lot of money in legal fees trying to prove that he was a Bad Guy and not just a guy acting badly.  So, I will tell you the exact opposite of what my old martial arts instructor said: Walk Away!  Tim Larkin says that if you can walk away, then it's not a real self-defense situation.  Guys behaving badly are not the same as Bad Guys.  Just because a drunk asshole pushes you in a bar, doesn't mean he deserves a trip to a hospital.  But a Bad Guy, pushing a woman into a dark alley to do terrible things to her, deserves a trip to the morgue instead of the hospital.  See the difference?  Which begs the question, then, why not just shoot him?  Don't worry about whether Technique 1 or Technique 27 would be better in that situation, just pull the trigger until you hear click.  Which is not to say you should not take unarmed combat training; I think everybody needs to have enough unarmed combat skills to get to their tools: "Fight to the gun and fight for the gun in order to fight with the gun!" But it's the tools that finish the job, and if you're not justified in using the tools, then you're just in a bar fight and that isn't a real "Self-Defense Situation" where the first officer on the scene will shake your hand and tell you, "good job" instead of arresting you.  

"Kicking a guys ass," is a fighting mentality.  That's how you should judge so-called "self-defense" training; are they teaching you to "kick a guy's ass," or kill a violent predator using whatever tools you have?  Good schools teach the second one as the "Self-Defense Mindset;" harnessing the survival instinct required to kill a Bad Guy and get back to your loved ones, regardless of whether you are armed with a gun, your bare hands or a rock.  The problem is that many of those schools teach their students to use good, lethal methods of self-protection against guys behaving badly instead of actual Bad Guys, and that mistake can land you in prison very quickly.  Just remember, if you wouldn't be justified in shooting the guy or stabbing him if you had a knife, then it's probably not a real "self-defense" situation.  That's just a fight, and whether you can "kick his ass," or he "kicks your ass," none of it is worth it if you can WALK AWAY.

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