Gaxicus ~
Now we're talking! ("A man never tells you anything until you contradict him." -- George Bernard Shaw
) Thanks.
By the way, just to clear the air a little: when I said Glenn was right, I wasn't referring to popcorn, but to the danger of being convicted as a murderer if you continue the attack against an unconscious, helpless person who is
no longer a threat to you. Of course I can be & frequently
am sarcastic, but not in that first, short post ... (see the last para of my second post for a true sample -- I'll take my lumps for that one).
Quote:
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First , let me start by saying I don't condone beating an unconscious rapist.... but I understand. I would rather have fight like that in her than have her give up and become a statistic. Same applies to men. The story is shocking and I believe it sidetracked things as people seemed to get hung up on it.
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Well, yes. I am somewhat hung up on it, and here's why: I think it illustrates our primary area of disagreement very clearly. So let's talk specifics. We can revisit the rest later, if you like -- but I suspect that focusing on this will bring everything else into sharp focus too.
1) I agree with you (absolutely!) that the "never give up or quit" mindset is essential and important. Never, ever, ever quit until you've reached your goal.
2) The story -- as told -- only partially illustrates that "never give up" mindset. It primarily illustrates a different mindset entirely. The mindset it illustrates is
not "Do whatever it takes to
get away safely." Instead, it illustrates, "Do whatever it takes to
kill the attacker." Some people talk as if these two goals are one and the same, but in fact they are worlds apart.
Someone who is focused on survival and escape may very well kill an attacker, when the attacker and his actions are in the way of that goal. But someone who is focused on
killing the attacker might instead utterly miss her one and only good chance to escape in safety, because she has tunneled in on "winning the fight." With the wrong goal thus in mind, her chances of survival go down dramatically. This is particularly true for women, among whom even the most skillful and trained are generally at a disadvantage when the assailant is male: males generally have larger bodies, greater reach, more endurance, and so on. The longer the physical assault lasts, the better it generally will be for him and the worse for her. So if she can escape
safely, she should escape rather than prolong the fight. And she should steel herself to do
whatever it takes to manage that escape in safety.
I guess what I'm getting at is that I think we need to very, very carefully define what a
win looks like for our students. A win isn't killing the attacker. A win isn't
not killing the attacker. The attacker simply doesn't matter. If he gets in the way of the goal (survival!), he's disposable. That's the mindset.
This isn't necessarily a matter of "hard" versus "soft" approaches, though at first glance it might seem so. It goes a lot deeper than that, and in fact can be illustrated through something else you said:
That particular phrase has been hashed over, and over, and over again on this forum. And it probably will be again. For now, let's begin by agreeing that the primary point of aim is the center of the largest visible mass of the assailant's body: most commonly the area including the heart, the lungs, the aorta. Or it is the brain stem, typically reached through the sinus cavities from the front. Or it may be (in the case of a knife-armed attacker for whom a center mass shot hasn't worked, and if the head is too difficult a shot for whatever reason) a pelvic shot: bladder, bowels, and the structural support for the entire abdomen, often including the base of the spinal cord. Any of these shots will very likely kill a man, or cripple him for life. No sugarcoating here! (Forgive the digression: just wanted to be clear that when I criticize "shoot to kill" I am
NOT proposing some silly idea like aiming at the assailant's left pinkie toenail ...)
Despite the fact that shooting at the center mass may very likely kill the assailant, the
purpose of using these aimpoints isn't to kill. You don't choose one aimpoint over another because of the likelihood of killing versus not killing. That's not the criteria. You choose those aimpoints because they are
possible. (In real life, unlike in Hollywood, many shots are impossible, for most average or even incredible shooters -- but you & I both know that!) And you choose these aimpoints because they have the highest likelihood of stopping the attack immediately and thus ensuring the victim's survival. If the attacker dies as a result, too bad so sad. But
the attacker's death is not the point.
If there were a way to reliably stop the attacker -- and thus ensure the victim's survival -- by simply waving a magic wand and putting him to sleep, we'd do it. But Magic Fairy Dust isn't available, here in the real world. So here in the real world, we use firearms to stop the attacker and allow the victim to survive and escape in safety.
So I object to the very notion of "shoot to kill" not because it is bloodthirsty (or "a hard approach"), but because it is
inaccurate. It does not express what I am doing or why I am doing it, when I pull the trigger in self-defense. Thinking of it as "shooting to kill", as if killing were the point of the exercise, actually
prevents me from focusing on my primary goal: defending myself, surviving and escaping.
And all that brings us to the female students in particular. Are they better served by kill-kill-kill, or by a realistic, balanced, honest discussion of the dynamics of self-defense? Obviously, you've chosen the former (at least for your attention grabbers) and I've shunned that approach for -- I hope! -- the latter. As you point out, it may be that because I am female I can get away with a softer approach, one that's not particularly open for a male instructor. I don't think so, but that may be true. If so, after the kill-kill-kill spiel, I'd urge you to look for ways to underline the legal realities of self defense, in part because (in my experience at least) women are no more immune than men are to unrealistic, chest-thumping fantasies that can get them into serious legal trouble.
Oh, shall I open a can of worms here? Can't resist! Women often have an easier time in criminal court than their male counterparts, but
that is changing. While a woman who kills a stranger in self-defense
may have an easier journey through the "justice" system than a man who does likewise, it's not necessarily true. Personally, I would not wish to bet
my life or
my future on the refusal of a jury to convict me based on my sex; I'd rather bet on my own ability to avoid illegal behavior in the first place.
Of course, all of the above might mean that you and I have too deep a philosophical divide to come to a meeting of the minds about the rest, and that's okay. What a boring world it would be if everyone thought alike!
Thanks for the kind words about the site.
pax,
Kathy