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o b juan wrote:If you have to yell something it is to late!!

If you have to shoot, it is "too late." And it might even be too late to shoot.

There are certainly violent criminal ambushes on the street that take you from zero to fight-for-survival instantly, and so yes there's not always time to say something before hand.

But criminals don't just appear out of thin air, they come from someplace and they are looking for a target. They may have planned this for awhile, or you may just be a target of opportunity. If you can pick up on their approach, then you have time to do something besides wait for the fighting and shooting to begin. If you can deflect them, discourage them, keep them from ever getting to the point of violence, that is A Good Thing. And if you do have to go to weapons, having made clear who is the aggressor and who is the defender is also A Good Thing.

HerbM discusses one way to functionalize awareness in the slide show he linked above; I also discussed it a bit in this post: How to escape the white zone. The Hands-Eyes-Shirt-Shoes-Hats-Tats mantra helps clue you in before it is too late. The ACA helps you with what to do when you detect an approaching but not yet imminent threat. This takes care of a good proportion of events.

HerbM and I, and several others practice combatives* together as much as possible, and Avoiding Criminal Attacks (ACA) is one of the things we cover; we go back to it periodically to tune up.

Believe me, weare always happy to work on the ACA with new people, it helps us too, and if any of you in the Austin area, or that feel like traveling to the Austin area as I do, are more than welcome to practice with us. The group has scheduled meeting times on Saturday mornings, Monday evenings, and Wednesday evenings -- you can find more details at the Meetup and Facebook links he provides, or PM HerbM or me. Taking the risk of talking for HerbM, he loves this stuff so much he is likely to make himself available on other nights occasionally. I would too but I live too far away from Austin to easily hop up there without some scheduling. However I am in the Seguin area, so if anyone is closer by we could work something out.

It really helps to work on this with a couple others that know how it works, and at the place we practice we have room to do it, and can even go out in the parking lot.

The actions of the...protocol or whatever you call it... are pretty simple, but like anything, it takes practice to do it well, and even more practice to make it reliable under stress. Please come see us!

train460 wrote:I am new here but would like to throw in my 02.
Most comments made above are about what is percieved an actual attack, ie "BG". But in my mind he is not a bad guy "legally" until i either, see a weapon, experience aggresion either facial expressions or with his movements, or am physically attacked.
Just a few examples but my point is that just because someone comes up to you for whatever reason, they MIGHT not be a BG but say a deaf panhandler wanting to hand you a little card that says "I AM DEAF", then looking for a handout. By you saying backoff etc may not have been understood and then you assume the wrong intentions and bang, because he did not "back off" and you are going to jail.
I feel that, if approached in anyway other than being charged i would put up my left hand in a universal signal to stop, yell loud STOP with my body turned that my right hand is gripping my sidearm, but still holstered. If that person still approaches i feel that they would almost have to grab my left hand for me to then pull and discharge. Of course their demaner would play a BIG part in the scenario of course.
just my 02 of course.
Thoughts?
Michael

Michael,
You have a very good point here, and one that the process that HerbM linked to is designed to address. As you note, when someone unexpectedly approaches you and sets off your "uh oh" alarm, you don't know for sure what his intent is.

The "back offs", the increasing volume, the raised hands, all serve to help distinguish between good guys (or at least those without violent intent) from someone truly intending harm. A reasonable non-felonious person will move on. Someone who doesn't understand English or can't hear or is perhaps mentally challenged but not violent will get the increasing volume and hand gestures. Someone who pushes past all those trip wires does not have civilized intent and needs to be dealt with (by escape, non-lethal, or lethal means as is appropriate).

This series of trip wires gives you the moral basis to know that you needed to do what you needed to do. It also provides witnesses or video cameras an insight into what was going on. Instead of everyone's first clue being "BANG!" and there stands Michael with a gun in his hand over the body of some homeless-guy-off-his-meds/youth-who-was-just-turning-his-life-around, they see Michael trying to move away and being followed, Michael repeatedly telling the guy to back off, Michael making non-threatening gestures to go away, and the guy still came thru all that.

Of course if someone just flat out attacks you from close range, you skip all the no-thank-you-hand-gesture-back-off stuff and go to battle stations. This protocol is for those gray area enounters where something does not seem right, but there is no explicit obvious threat (yet).

Also, of if you are just outside the entrance to WalMart and a little girl in a uniform approaches with a box of cookies in her hand, I would not recommend yelling "BACK OFF" at her and pulling a weapon. Maybe just surrender and buy a box of the peanut butter ones, they're my favorite.