Self Defense Mind Set Part 1 Evil

The most important thing in self defense is your mindset.  Most people don’t know that, and especially gun people, want the newest, best self defense thing that will make them safe (that magic talisman), when our minds are, by far, the greatest weapon we have.  If you come to one of my entry or intermediate classes, I try and explain three things that everyone needs to understand about self defense: the evil that is among us; the violence that might be necessary; and the will to fight.

The first thing we need to understand to help get the right mindset is that evil lives among us.  There are things and people in this world that we will never be able to comprehend.  Some of them are evil on a scale that we just can’t, or don’t want to, understand.  The media and “experts” try to explain this evil by examining the person’s upbringing, state of mind, society, and a plethora of other things that don’t matter to us in self defense.  We have to accept that there is evil in the world.  Does it really matter why someone has gone over to the dark side or just that they are trying to kill you? So except that some people are just evil and you may have to deal with them (more info here; Introducing Others to Evil).

In Walt Rauch’s book, “Real World Survival” he calls these people other humans.  They aren’t like you and I.  They don’t think like you do, they don’t feel like you do, and they don’t follow societies’ rules like you do.  They see you as a food source.  They will rob, steal, or kill you to get food for their family or just to satisfy some evil tendency they have.  They don’t care about you and will not show any mercy.  They think about you like you think about an unwanted bug in your kitchen.  They just want to get rid of you and move on. You have to accept they are evil.

These types of people (I call them dirtbags because they make a living by committing crimes) are among us.  We pass them everyday on the street and in stores.  The one thing police officers know that most other people don’t is that violent felons walk around with us everyday.  They know because they are hunting them and find them everyday.  You live on that cops beat.  The cop that just yesterday arrested a child molester, rapist, or killer.  You hit the brakes when you saw him so he wouldn’t give you a ticket.  You live where that cop hunts.  These people are all around us.

A bell curve suggests that there is a top 10% and a bottom 10% of society.  We need to worry about the bottom 10%.  Many of them are kept in check by law enforcement and society as a whole.  But when those people think there is no one looking, they will act and don’t care if they hurt you or your family.  Only a small percentage of those people actually commit crimes everyday.  But to give you an idea of what that 10% can do, my law professor in college studied some of the most violent gang areas in Los Angeles.  He estimated that 90% of the people that lived there where good people and just wanted a better life like the rest of us.  The other 10% where able to create an area people didn’t go out at night and even the police wouldn’t go into without back up.

So you have to accept that this evil is around us and you have to be watching for it.  You also have to accept that they are violent and don’t care about you or your family.

In the next post we’ll talk about the level of violence that may be necessary for you to survive.

Stay Safe,

Ben