I originally posted this as a comment on a blog but wanted to save it for later
The original Comment was posted here: https://elladawson.com/2018/11/20/in-case-i-am-ever-murdered-by-a-man/comment-page-1/#comment-21885
I just stumbled across your blog today, and this is the 2nd post I’ve read. Both have been amazing, I’m excited to read more of your writing! After reading this post I was compelled to comment and offer a hopefully helpful perspective.
It is a very scary thought to have the deep seated fear of gun violence being thrust upon you by a man. However fear can be eliminated or at least greatly minimized by having a plan. If you stop to think of many great fears in life, the part that paralyzes most of us is the uncertainty. What will happen if….
When you wrote :
“I imagined what I would do if one of these men Burst into the room with a gun. I imagined what I might say to try and reason with him. Would one of the students call the police in time?”
In my opinion this is the wrong way to look at the problem, and the wrong message to share with other women. I don’t have a daughter, but if I’m lucky enough to one day have a daughter I will absolutely teach her some variation of this plan:
If someone ever threatens you with a gun, or with physical violence of any kind you need to have a plan. A concrete set of actions you are going to take to give yourself and the people around you the best chance of survival. The time for discussion and reasoning with this person is over. They are threatening your life. You can’t put your faith in law enforcement to be able to arrive in time to save you. And regardless you are powerful, you don’t need saving, you can save yourself.
First understand that when you call the police, you are calling someone that has roughly 100 hours of active firearms training. When put in that context would you spend 100 hours of your life training so that you could save yourself? Instead of praying or hoping for outside rescue let’s do the following:
- Buy a small can of pepper spray/mace. Carry it with you in your purse at all times. And I mean ALL TIMES. Being prepared helps take the fear out of the situation.
- Practice using the mace. Do this enough times that you don’t have to think about getting it out of your purse and using it. You don’t’ have to fire the mace each time, but practice the physical act of finding the mace in your purse, aiming it and discharging it.
- To remove or diminish your fear of guns, take a weekend firearms training course. Learn how to use a gun, how to load and unload it. You don’t have to like guns, in fact you can hate them. But don’t let this hate diminish your chance of surviving an encounter with a gun.
- Learn about distance and spacing in a fight. Learn that if someone has a gun and you have no way to escape or run, it’s actually safer for you to be closer to them. Guns are tools meant to be used at distance, up close mace or a knife is much more effective than a gun. Learn how to calmly talk and move towards the assailant in a non-threatening manner so you can close the distances and get close enough to disarm and attack them. ALL of these techniques can be learned at a martial arts studio, or at a self-defense class.
- Practice closing distance and space until you are able to do it without a second thought. Much like being able to calmly and easily use the mace, repeating these physical motions until your muscle memory can take over for you is key, in real life you won’t be able to think. Fear will take over and paralyze you.
- Learn how to spot weapons of opportunity around you. A belt is an effective tool against and attacker with a knife. A high heeled shoe, a phone, a book, all of these objects can be thrown and someone to distract or disorient them if they are too far for you to reach.
The ideas above are just the tip of the iceberg; I’m not a certified self defense expert. If you read the ideas above and your initial reply is “I should not have to learn these types of techniques” or “we should not live in a world where anyone needs this type of knowledge”. I 100% agree with those thoughts! I’m on your side of this debate, I just feel that along with campaigning for better large scale social policies we can also impact our own safety with training and knowledge. The sad fact is we currently do live in a world that requires this type of knowledge. Denying that, and putting our own safety into other people’s hands doesn’t help ourselves, and it doesn’t help anyone around us. With luck we might someday live in a society where violence is not a problem, but until that day the best course of action, to me, is to have a plan to deal with it. With any luck we will save our own lives, and innocent lives of people around us.