What's consider4ed self defense?

[tommarker]

here is a brief selection that I wrote in my Dan Essay on using improvised weapons for self-defense. The "expert opinion" is that there are 4 elements to determining whether you are legally defending yourself. This is more a rule of thumb than a legal document.

 

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A frequently asked question by students of martial arts is “When can I legally justify my use of force on a potential aggressor?” In the current legal environment, people who choose to defend themselves face the possible aftermath of unsympathetic police officers, overzealous prosecutors, and most frightening, the possibility of a civil suit in which one could be left penniless. Using a weapon in the process makes it even more prudent that your usage is within the letter of the law. Sadly, there are many who carry weapons for self-defense without thinking of whether or not their actions are legally, much less morally, acceptable. “Better to be tried by twelve than carried by six,” these people cry. While a person doesn't need an ironclad legal excuse to save them from danger, it is irresponsible to give no thought to legality. These moral and legal responsibilities are, in the author’s opinion, as important to be knowledgeable about as the use of the weapons themselves.

 

While there is no one clear set of rules to follow that will ensure the legality of actions, there are several excellent guidelines. In his book “Fundamentals of Defensive Shooting,” author John Farnam lists 4 elements of Self-Defense: Ability, Opportunity, Manifest Intent (Imminent Jeopardy) and lastly, preclusion.

 

Ability is the capacity to injure. An aggressor must have the ability to kill or inflict bodily harm.

 

Opportunity combines the aggressor’s ability with a reasonable chance to use it. Farnam uses for example, a man with a knife who is 50 yards away may have ability, but not opportunity. At this point, any action you take would make you the attacker rather than the victim.

 

Imminent Jeopardy is “when the attacker unmistakably indicates, by words and/or actions, that it is his intention to kill or seriously injure you, and further, that he intends to do so at once.”

 

Preclusion means that all other options, such as retreat, have been exhausted or otherwise ruled out.

 

All of these options must be considered. An eighty-year-old unarmed man behind a 20-foot razor-wire fence threatening to kill you may have intent, but is seriously lacking the ability and opportunity to carry out his threats. While this may seem clear-cut, there are situations that may seem to call for the use of force that could be avoided by merely leaving the scene. The 5th tenet of Tang Soo Do, “In fighting, choose with sense and honor” should serve to guide us in these situations.

 

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[Treebranch]

Of course everyone should use good judgement, but if I am truley being attacked I have to assume the attacker's intent is to kill me. So I will do whatever it takes to stop him from doing that. It doesn't mean killing the attacker, but if it came to that I would just have to live with it.

[karate_woman]

Karate Women that's a very aggressive way of thinking. So what do you do if you get hit first? Say the hit didn't knock you out or even rattle you, I hope you know how to regain yourself in this type of situation. There are ways to bait your attacker, to open him up. Yes not attacking first is always riskier, but there are times when you will be attacked first. I can't stress good grappling skills enough, or using things near you, your keys, a pen, a pocket knife if you need it. Fight dirty when it's a street fight, quick and dirty. I'll worry about the law when I survive the fight.

 

Getting back to the post, self defense is protecting yourself against a threat, whether you hit first or not. Distancing yourself is very important.

 

I don't remember describing my actual fighting style, I just found an article that discussed not only pre-emptive strikes, but whether they are justified or not. I was responding to a post that stated pre-emptive strikes were too risky and just wanted to offer a counter point. I even stated I didn't agree with everything that was in the article. Anyway. I agree with your point about grappling skills and using anything available as a weapon; we teach that to women in our women's self defense courses. Many of the moves we teach them are easily recognizable from our jujitsu program (Sensei teaches both, on different nights), though they are also part of Goju Ryu karate for those that care to look for (and train) them.

 

As for taking a hit, I've taken a few hits, but I am not built to take a full force hit from a 200 lb man, nor should standing there and taking a hit be my first line of defense even if I was larger than my opponent. I know what you mean, though - the first time I was hit in the face in a sparring match it phased me a bit; hits to the face were illegal (I was an orange belt) and I allowed it to mess with my mind because my opponent didn't even get a warning. I got disqualified by responding in kind. My Sensei was actually pleased because she knew how much getting hit in the head for the first time messes people up. Anyway. The last time I got hit in the face was when I came back to karate this February. We were sparring my first night back and I sparred a brown belt. She kicked me right in the nose (it hurt for two weeks to touch it). My eyes watered a bit, and it hurt, but I didn't stop fighting.

 

As for how I'd respond to someone attacking me? It depends what they were doing, or about to do. I do know this...as long as I haven't been rendered unconscious, I'll do SOMETHING, and keep doing something until either they stop or I'm unable to.

[Treebranch]

You seem like you know what your talking about, I think you'd do fine.

[GreenDragon]

I agree with Immolation, and although Tommarker's post was excellent, many of the things mentioned in his essay are points which are easily disputed by your would be attacker once they are beaten.

 

The strike first mentality is very effective and is certainly a safer tactic than waiting for an attack and trying to block/counter it. However, legally speaking that is a very easy (and prudent) attitude to have as a woman. I would warn men against taking this mentality too literally and striking someone who is merely threatening you.

 

A golfing story: While golfing with my father on a public course we were paired with a couple guys who were nice. Ahead of us were some folks who were playing slow and one of them was being very loud, clearly he had been drinking. When we teed off on the 17th (which runs opposite and alongside hole 18 ) one of the guys playing with us had hit into the trees left of the fairway. The half drunk idiot on the hole ahead of us had hit his ball on the 18th left into the same trees. The guy with us went right to the ball that I knew was his. Almost on queue, the idiot drives his cart right up to him and starts telling him to leave his ball alone, after a heated exchange, the guy with us turns to walk away, leaving his ball, then the idiot spits on him and threatens to kick his ass. So the nice guy turns around and apparently having had enough, advances on the idiot, and as a previous poster said, there was no first strike. The idiot saw the guy coming, assumed an attack was coming and came back at him as well and before being able to see who had thrown the "1st punch" they were in a fight. After subdueing the idiot and beginning to walk away again, the idiot goes and grabs a club and starts after the guy, ability, opportunity and imminent jeapordy clearly is established. So the guy's friend decided to get involved to keep his friend from getting clubbed, end result, the idiot got pretty well beaten, but not excessively so. What happens when it's all over? The idiot is yelling how he is going to sue them, and is telling the police what a victim he was. Every witness agreed that he deserved what he got, but the police didn't care, the idiot was assaulted, and even after being verbally threatened and spat upon, the guy with us could have continued to walk away and nothing would have happened. The idiot denied making the the threat and spitting too. So, my advice, even if you think you may be in danger, if you have MA training and think you will end up hurting the other person, making the first attack and not waiting to be in actual physical danger could land you in serious legal trouble when you are fine and the other person is beaten senseless after repeatedly trying to attack you. The attacker will take advantage of the obvious one-sided-ness of the fight and say that they were the victim. Any police to come on the scene afterwards would have a hard time knowing who to believe. Witnesses are key. If you use self defense and there are no witnesses, it might be best not to call the police, because unless you have some wound on you or are female, the police may take the other person's side and you could go to jail for assualt. But better in jail than a hospital, hmm, maybe not.

 

This sure turned into a tough nut to crack about legal use of force in self defense situations that probably didn't have much to do with the original poster's question.

 

The original poster probably saw some ad or heard an instructor mention self defense as being PART of a Martial Arts class and didn't know what that meant, assuming the entire MA was self defense. So if that is what you meant by "what is self defense?": Most MA schools will go through their regular MA training, then near the end of class once or twice a week will do what they call "self defense". This consists of showing you how to counter a lot of moves common street thugs will use, like grabbing you by the wrists to drag you into a bathroom and rape you, or choking you, or coming up behind you and grabbing you in a bear hug, etc. This is the part of a lot of TKD classes where they will teach some hapkido moves (locks, throws, etc), because they are very effective against untrained attackers for self defense.

 

Hope that answered you question poster ;P If not, I hope I get this month's longest rambling post that didn't really help anyone award.

 

GreenDragon