- Messages
- 938
- Reactions
- 269
Here is an email sent from John Farnam...with some valuable lessons for all of to ponder:
---------------
25 Mar 09
Lessons from calamity. This from a friend in VA:
"This past Sunday, at 5:00 AM, a young couple was jogging together, as they regularly did, in the local neighborhood where they lived, only a few miles from where I live.
Both were precipitously attacked by multiple VCAs. The man was murdered (beaten to death), and the woman is in the hospital, in critical condition.
Police have no leads nor significant evidence to reveal the identity of the attackers. The woman may recover enough to provide information. She may not!
The attackers, two or three, emerged from a parked car and used baseball bats or similar blunt instruments. Robbery was the apparent motive, at least at the beginning.
These facts have emerged:
(1) Both victims were CCW-permit holders, but neither was armed at the time and place of the fatal attack.
(2) The man was a decorated Special Forces Soldier (retired), trained in hand-to-hand fighting.
(3) The attack took place in broad-daylight, in a quiet, upscale, residential community.
The community is stunned, of course. Police are doing the best they can, but cases where attackers and victims don't know each other and have no obvious connection are difficult to solve."
Lessons:
(1) We call them "side-arms" for a reason. At least one needs to be "at your side" all the time. Aspire to be a competent, self-contained, independent Operator.
(2) Don't arbitrarily divide your life into "safe" and "dangerous" parts, places, nor activities. Fate may neglect to celebrate your dear fantasy!
I know people who have CCW-permits, but don't carry, and they're ever-ready to treat me to a nauseating dissertation of their idiotic excuses. The foregoing exposes the lethal fallacy of such self-deceptive thinking.
(3) When your spouse (either gender) is squeamish about "the whole gun-thing, " help them get over it. You need a partner, not a burden!
(4) Be aware of "pattern-behavior." Regularly change-up routines. Don't become predictable. Stalkers will use your predictable routine against you, as was likely the case here.
(5) Don't deceive yourself that your martial-arts training/prowess will protect you against heavy odds. No matter how many black-belts you have, against multiple, simultaneous VCAs, you will likely not prevail, when unarmed. A single, dashing hero, casually dispatching several bad guys with glamorous judo-moves, is something that happens only in movies!
(6) "Police protection" is a contradiction of terms! Don't fill your head with false expectations with regard to actual services police can provide.
Police investigators are basically "armed archeologists." We might catch these guys, and we might not. Patrol officers may be there to help you, and they may not. We get paid the same either way. And, whatever we manage to accomplish after you're dead, will probably be of scant interest to you anyway!
---------------
25 Mar 09
Lessons from calamity. This from a friend in VA:
"This past Sunday, at 5:00 AM, a young couple was jogging together, as they regularly did, in the local neighborhood where they lived, only a few miles from where I live.
Both were precipitously attacked by multiple VCAs. The man was murdered (beaten to death), and the woman is in the hospital, in critical condition.
Police have no leads nor significant evidence to reveal the identity of the attackers. The woman may recover enough to provide information. She may not!
The attackers, two or three, emerged from a parked car and used baseball bats or similar blunt instruments. Robbery was the apparent motive, at least at the beginning.
These facts have emerged:
(1) Both victims were CCW-permit holders, but neither was armed at the time and place of the fatal attack.
(2) The man was a decorated Special Forces Soldier (retired), trained in hand-to-hand fighting.
(3) The attack took place in broad-daylight, in a quiet, upscale, residential community.
The community is stunned, of course. Police are doing the best they can, but cases where attackers and victims don't know each other and have no obvious connection are difficult to solve."
Lessons:
(1) We call them "side-arms" for a reason. At least one needs to be "at your side" all the time. Aspire to be a competent, self-contained, independent Operator.
(2) Don't arbitrarily divide your life into "safe" and "dangerous" parts, places, nor activities. Fate may neglect to celebrate your dear fantasy!
I know people who have CCW-permits, but don't carry, and they're ever-ready to treat me to a nauseating dissertation of their idiotic excuses. The foregoing exposes the lethal fallacy of such self-deceptive thinking.
(3) When your spouse (either gender) is squeamish about "the whole gun-thing, " help them get over it. You need a partner, not a burden!
(4) Be aware of "pattern-behavior." Regularly change-up routines. Don't become predictable. Stalkers will use your predictable routine against you, as was likely the case here.
(5) Don't deceive yourself that your martial-arts training/prowess will protect you against heavy odds. No matter how many black-belts you have, against multiple, simultaneous VCAs, you will likely not prevail, when unarmed. A single, dashing hero, casually dispatching several bad guys with glamorous judo-moves, is something that happens only in movies!
(6) "Police protection" is a contradiction of terms! Don't fill your head with false expectations with regard to actual services police can provide.
Police investigators are basically "armed archeologists." We might catch these guys, and we might not. Patrol officers may be there to help you, and they may not. We get paid the same either way. And, whatever we manage to accomplish after you're dead, will probably be of scant interest to you anyway!
Every time someone does a poll on how many people always carry their weapon the number of people that say they do comes in very high, but I always wonder how realistic those numbers really are.
