The four steps of the bad guy’s attack plan are:
Observe, Stalk, Close, Attack.
Some gun-haters might be surprised that a “gun” website would say you don’t even need a gun to thwart 90% of attacks.
Yes, it’s true.
Thwarting step 1. Observing for “easy” victims. If you don’t look like you’re an easy mark, you’ve already spared yourself becoming a victim. You do that by maintaining awareness, keeping your head up (not in your cell phone texting), looking confident and making eye contact. In short, don’t be that person who is unaware, oblivious, and completely engaged in texting on their phone instead of paying attention to what’s around them.
Thwarting step 2. Stalking you to verify you’re a good target. Even if you fail to dissuade a bad guy selecting you for attack, you can interrupt their stalking phase. Leave the area or more to a more public, better-lit location. Move to a more strategically defensible location. This may make your would-be attacker think twice and lose interest in you.
Thwarting step 3. Closing the distance to get inside your reactionary gap. If you fail to notice you’ve been “selected” and the bad guy stalking you, it’s not too late. As he closes the distance to get in your personal space, put distance and/or obstacles between you and him. Distance gives you time (as do obstacles). Time gives you options and options mean safety. Engage the bad guy verbally. They may try to use a ruse to get you to keep your guard down. Don’t fall for it. Shout, “STAY BACK!” Don’t be bashful. Be rude. Put your big boy (or big girl) panties on and speak in a command voice. “STAY BACK!”
Thwarting step 4. The attack. The bad guy is at the perimeter of your reactionary gap (6′-9′). Sometimes in the attack phase, the bad guy will ask you for the time, for a light or a dollar. The answer is always, “NO!” Move to create distance or obstacles. This might be a good time to get your weapons out or figure out where you’re going to flee to.
This Ft. Worth grandmother almost found herself with a slit throat, and it wasn’t until she offered a knife-wielding attacker – who got into her personal space with the ruse of asking directions while she was “trapped” inside a minivan – the option of getting shot did he break off the attack.
She’s very lucky.
So is the bad guy as most good guys wouldn’t have given him an ultimatum, but instead simply opened up on him.
(NBC DFW) – A Fort Worth grandmother thwarted her would-be robber Monday when she pulled a pistol from her purse and scared her assailant away.
Jewell Turner, 74, told NBC 5 she was waiting in her minivan outside of her doctor’s office, near the corner of West Magnolia Avenue and 6th Avenue in the city’s Near South Side, when a man tapped on the glass of her driver’s side window.
Turner said she rolled down the window when the man said he needed directions.
“He stood there and we talked for a while, [him] just asking for directions and me giving them to him,” Turner recalled. “Never thought that when I turned my head that that young man would stick a knife to my throat.”
“He said, ‘I don’t want to hurt you, but I want your money. And I will hurt you if I have to,’” Turner said.
…Turner remembered that earlier that very day she felt the need to bring her small pistol along with her.
“I seen the gun laying there. And I figured that would work better than the knife,” Turner said. “I just reached down, got the gun and turned around and pointed it to his face. And I told him, I said, ‘You back off, or I’ll blow your head off.’ And his eyes got big and he just backed up and he took off walking down the street like nothing happened.”
He’d never had it explained to him that way before!
Attagirl!