Your preservation is your responsibility

In light of recent events here in my hometown of Tuguegarao, such as the stabbing of a mentally challenged street wanderer and the gang violence at La-Luna Bar and Grille, I have come to ponder once more on the indifference of our society toward the issue of personal defense.

Cut our police force some slack. It is not the police’s fault that they cannot be present most of the time; with a ratio of roughly one cop for every 500 citizens, the total prevention of criminality is a herculean task, to say the least.

Rarely do we realize that it is incumbent upon each and every one of us to defend ourselves from elements who intend to cause harm to us and our families. After all, “personal defense” is not called such for no reason. It is a necessary burden we must carry on our very own shoulders. It is not the burden of our friends, nor of the police force alone. Your preservation is your responsibility.

“Defense” is one of the most used, yet most misunderstood, words of all time. When one hears the word, we immediately think of karate, judo, jiu jitsu, and other martial arts.

Others think of the necessity of owning a weapon such as a gun or a knife, or a defense instrument such as pepper spray. If you have this kind of mentality toward defense, then I don’t blame you. Once upon a time I was of the same thinking.

It is high time we revisited our concept of personal defense.

Personal defense is more than just learning martial arts, more than just owning a gun and firing it once or twice in a shooting range, more than just owning a knife and playing with it in front of your friends to impress them. The ultimate end of defense is to employ the skills and tools you have at your disposal when presented with a threat to your life or limb.

But employing these skills and tools is much easier said than done. We assume that it is very easy to pull the trigger, thrust the blade, press the spray button, or block an attack and transition to an arm bar or a rear naked choke in the blink of an eye. It is not. When presented with a threat, especially from someone with lethal intentions, you change.

You become a different person, both mentally and physically. Adrenalin surges into your bloodstream, the pupils of your eyes dilate, your heart beats faster, your muscles tense to the extent of causing you to tremble violently. You start breathing heavily, your cognitive functions are impaired, and your brain’s “fight or flight” response kicks in.

In short, you must be able to respond to the threat even with all these things happening.

Is it possible to be efficient in defense despite all the physiological changes in our body? Yes! It begins with the proper mentality and proper training. When I say “proper training,” I do not mean self-study. There are professionals in the field of martial arts, shooting and tactical instructions for a reason. They have been neck-deep in sh*t and they know how to swim out of it. Training develops your muscle memory, such that when presented with a defensive situation, cognitive function will no longer play a decisive role because muscle memory will take over.

A defensive mentality is just as important as training, if not more so. Having a defensive mentality is playing the “what if” game.

What if the guy sitting next to you pulls out a knife and demands your valuables?

What if in the next alley someone starts shooting in your direction?

What if, while walking with your girl down the street, four guys gang up on you with the intention of violating her?

To be clear, a defensive mentality should not be equated with paranoia in the strict sense of the word. It simply means that there is a possibility of you getting involved in a self-preservation scenario, and that you should be ready to make a move—either run away while you still can, or, if unable to, be able to fight. The aim of a defensive mindset is controlled paranoia, such that you learn how to identify potential threats, hot spots, and escape routes, and to watch for telltale signs of aggression. The tenet on which a defensive mindset is hinged is the reality that lawlessness exists despite advancements in the law and order and the enforcement thereof.

Needless to say, to be defensively minded does not mean that you will be looking for trouble or projecting that attitude. It means preparing for the contingency that you pray would never happen, but is not unlikely to happen.

While it is true that an ordinary citizen must be afforded with adequate self-preservation rights, an absence of a positive law to that effect does not nullify the same. Having said that, I think it is inherent and incumbent upon members of society to enforce the same, within the limits provided for by law, using the tools we have at our disposal.

I likewise urge Congress to pass legislation liberalizing gun laws, defining and specifying parameters of civilian intervention and the consequences thereof, and establishing government-owned shooting ranges with tactical instructions.

Janro B. Narag, 24, is a philosophy and legal studies graduate of the University of St. Louis Tuguegarao, where he was president of La Liga Pilosopia, the official organization of philosophy majors. He is in third year of law school at Cagayan State University.