Isegoria

The third of Jeff Cooper’s Principles Of Personal Defense is aggressiveness:

In defense we do not initiate violence. We must grant our attacker the vast advantage of striking the first blow, or at least attempting to do so. But thereafter we may return the attention with what should optimally be overwhelming violence. “The best defense is a good offense.” This is true, and while we cannot apply it strictly to personal defensive conduct, we can propose a corollary: “The best personal defense is an explosive counterattack.” Those who do not understand fighting will at once suggest that numbers, size, strength, or armament must make this instruction invalid. They will insist that the aggressor will not attack unless he has a decisive preponderance of force. This is possible, but it is not by any means always, or even usually, true. Consider the Speck case, in which the victims outnumbered the murderer eight to one. They disposed of far more than enough force to save their lives, but only if they had directed that force violently and aggressively against the murderer. This they failed to do. There are countless other examples.

The victory of an explosive response by an obviously weaker party against superior force is easy to observe in the animal world. A toy poodle runs a German Shepherd off his property. A tiny kingbird drives off a marauding hawk. A forty-pound wolverine drives a whole wolf pack away from a kill that the wolves worked hours to bring down. Aggressiveness carries with it an incalculable moral edge in any combat, offensive or defensive. And the very fact that the assailant does not expect aggressiveness in his victim usually catches him unaware.

If the intended victim is armed, skill becomes a factor more critical than numbers. A man with a powerful, reliable sidearm, and who is highly qualified in its use, can ruin a rifle squad at close range if he can seize the initiative by instantaneous aggressive response to a clumsily mounted attack. Of course such skill is rare, even (or perhaps especially) among our uniformed protectors, but it can be acquired. Great strides have been made in recent years in the theory of defensive pistolcraft The results are available to respectable parties. But never assume that simply having a gun makes you a marksman. You are no more armed because you are wearing a pistol than you are a musician because you own a guitar.

In a recent case, a pupil of mine was assaulted by four men armed with revolvers as he drove into his driveway after a late party. Being a little the worse for wear, he violated (or just forgot) all the principles of personal defense but one and that was the principle of aggressiveness. At their first volley, he laid down such a quick and heavy barrage of return fire (twenty-two rounds in less than twenty seconds) that his would-be assassins panicked and ran. He did most things wrong, but his explosive reaction to attack certainly saved his life.

Now how do we cultivate an aggressive response? I think the answer is indignation. Read the papers. Watch the news. These people have no right to prey upon innocent citizens. They have no right to offer you violence. They are bad people and you are quite justified in resenting their behavior to the point of rage. Your response, if attacked, must not be fear, it must be anger. The two emotions are very close and you can quite easily turn one into the other. At this point your life hangs upon your ability to block out all thoughts of your own peril, and to concentrate utterly upon the destruction of your enemy. Anger lets you do this. The little old lady who drives off an armed robber by beating on him with her purse is angry, and good for her!

The foregoing is quite obviously not an approved outlook in current sociological circles. That is of no consequence. We are concerned here simply with survival. After we have arranged for our survival, we can discuss sociology.

If it is ever your misfortune to be attacked, alertness will have given you a little warning, decisiveness will have given you a proper course to pursue, and if that course is to counterattack, carry it out with everything you’ve got! Be indignant. Be angry. Be aggressive.

The second of Jeff Cooper’s Principles Of Personal Defense is decisiveness:

It is difficult for a domesticated man to change in an instant into one who can take quick, decisive action to meet a violent emergency. Most of us are unused to violent emergencies — especially those which can only be solved by the use of force and violence on our part — and these emergencies require a parturient effort of will to transform ourselves from chickens into hawks. Decisiveness, like alertness, is to some extent a built-in characteristic, but, also like alertness, it can be accentuated. In formalized combat it is supplied — or it should be — by appropriate orders from above. In cases of personal defense, it must be self-generated, and this is the problem.

When “the ball is opened” — when it becomes evident that you are faced with violent physical assault — your life depends upon your selecting a correct course of action and carrying it through without hesitation or deviation. There can be no shilly-shallying. There is not time. To ponder is quite possibly to perish. And it is important to remember that the specific course you decide upon is, within certain parameters, less important than the vigor with which you execute it. The difficulty is that the proper course of action, when under attack, is usually to counterattack. This runs contrary to our normally civilized behavior, and such a decision is rather hard for even an ordinarily decisive person to reach.

Short of extensive personal experience, which most of us would rather not amass, the best way to cultivate such tactical decisiveness is through hypothesis: “What would I do if…?” By thinking tactically, we can more easily arrive at correct tactical solutions, and practice — even theoretical practice — tends to produce confidence in our solutions which, in turn, makes it easier for us, and thus quicker, to reach a decision.

English common law, the fountainhead of our juridical system, holds that you may use sufficient force and violence to prevent an assailant from inflicting death or serious injury upon you — or your wife, or your child, or any other innocent party. You may not pursue your attacker with deadly intent, and you may not strike an unnecessary blow, but if someone is trying to kill you, you are justified in killing him to stop him, if there is no other way. This is putting it about as simply as possible, and since the law here is eminently reasonable, the legal aspects of personal defense need not detain us in formulating a proper defensive decision. We must be sure that our assailant is trying to kill or maim us, that he is physically capable of doing so, and that we cannot stop him without downing him. These conditions can usually be ascertained in the blink of an eye. Then we may proceed. (Incidentally, rape is generally considered “serious injury” in this connection. A man who clearly intends rape may thus be injured or killed to prevent the accomplishment of his purpose, if no lesser means will suffice.)

So, when under attack, it is necessary to evaluate the situation and to decide instantly upon a proper course of action, to be carried out immediately with all the force you can bring to bear. He who hesitates is indeed lost. Do not soliloquize. Do not delay. Be decisive.

The first of Jeff Cooper’s Principles Of Personal Defense is alertness:

“A commander may be forgiven for being defeated, but never for being surprised.” This maxim is among the first to be impressed upon new lieutenants. It is equally applicable to individuals who aspire to a degree of physical security in today’s embattled society. Alertness is, to some extent, an inherent personality trait, but it can nonetheless be learned and improved. Once we accept that our familiar and prosaic environment is in fact perilous, we automatically sharpen our senses.

Two rules are immediately evident: Know what is behind you, and pay particular attention to anything out of place.

It is axiomatic that the most likely direction of attack is from behind. Be aware of that. Develop “eyes in the back of your head.” Eric Hartmann, the World War II German flying ace who is unquestionably the greatest fighter pilot of all time (1,405 combat missions, 352 confirmed victories), feels that he survived because of an “extremely sensitive back to his neck”; and, conversely, claims that 80 percent of his victims never knew he was in the same sky with them. Combat flying is not the same as personal defense, but the principle applies. The great majority of the victims of violent crime are taken by surprise. The one who anticipates the action wins. The one who does not, loses. Learn from the experience of others and don’t let yourself be surprised.

Make it a game. Keep a chart. Every time anyone is able to approach you from behind without your knowledge, mark down an X. Every time you see anyone you know before he sees you, mark down an O. Keep the Os ahead of the Xs. A month with no Xs establishes the formation of correct habits.

Observe your cat. It is difficult to surprise him. Why? Naturally his superior hearing is part of the answer, but not all of it. He moves well, using his senses fully. He is not preoccupied with irrelevancies. He’s not thinking about his job or his image or his income tax. He is putting first things first, principally his physical security. Do likewise.

There are those who will object to the mood this instruction generates. They will complain that they do not wish to “live like that.” They are under no obligation to do so. They can give up. But it is a feral world, and if one wishes to be at ease in it he must accommodate to it.

Anything out of place can be a danger signal. Certainly anyone you don’t know approaching your dwelling must be regarded askance. It’s ninety-nine to one that he is perfectly harmless, but will you be ready if he turns out to be that other one who is not?

Certain things are obvious: an unfamiliar car parked across the street for long periods with people in it who do not get out; a car that maintains a constant distance behind you while you vary your speed; young men in groups, without women, staying in one place and not talking. These things should set off a first-stage alarm in anyone, but there are many other signals to be read by the wary. Anyone who appears to be triggered out of watchfulness and into action by your appearance must be explained. Anyone observing you carefully must be explained. Anyone whose behavior seems to be geared to yours must be explained. If the explanation does not satisfy you, be ready to take appropriate defensive action.

A common ruse of the sociopath is the penetration of a dwelling under false pretenses. Anyone can claim to be a repairman or an inspector of one sort or another. It is often impractical to verify credentials, but merely being aware that credentials may easily be falsified is protection against surprise. The strong need only remain watchful. The weak should take further precautions.

On the street, let no stranger take your hand. To allow a potential assailant a firm grip on your right hand is to give him a possibly fatal advantage. Use your eyes. Do not enter unfamiliar areas that you cannot observe first. Make it a practice to swing wide around corners, use window glass for rearward visibility, and get something solid behind you when you pause.

All this may sound excessively furtive and melodramatic, but those who have cultivated what might be called a tactical approach to life find it neither troublesome nor conspicuous. And, like a fastened seat belt, a life jacket, or a fire extinguisher, it is comforting even when unnecessary.

Needless to say, no sensible person ever opens the door of his house without knowing who is knocking. If your entrance way does not permit visual evaluation of your caller, change it. The statistics may be against a threat waiting outside, but statistics are cold comfort after you discover that your case is the rare exception.

The foregoing suggestions are merely random examples of ways in which the principle of alertness is manifested. Situations are numberless, and specific recommendations cannot be made to cover them all. The essential thing is to bear always in mind that trouble can appear at any time. Be aware. Be ready. Be alert.

Jeff Cooper’s Principles Of Personal Defense appears to be out of print and unavailable on Kindle, but the full text can be found online. Here is the introduction:

Some people prey upon other people. Whether we like it or not, this is one of the facts of life. It has always been so and it is not going to change. The number of sociopaths in a stipulated population varies widely, but we can take a figure of one in one hundred, for simplicity’s sake, and not be far off. About one person in one hundred will, under some circumstances, initiate a violent attack upon another, in defiance of the law, for reasons that seem sufficient to him at the time. Take the able-bodied male population of your community, divide it by one hundred, and you have a fair approximation of the number of possible contacts who just might take it upon themselves to beat your head in. It is not pertinent to dispute the mathematics of this calculation. It may be wrong for your place and time. But anyone who is aware of his environment knows that the peril of physical assault does exist, and that it exists everywhere and at all times. The police, furthermore, can protect you from it only occasionally.

The author assumes that the right of self-defense exists. Some people do not. This booklet is not for them. This is for those who feel that anyone who chooses physically to attack another human being does so at his peril. In some jurisdictions it is held that the victim of an attacker must, above all, attempt to escape. This is a nice legalistic concept, but it is very often tactically unsound. By the time one has exhausted every means of avoiding conflict it may be too late to save his life. Laws vary, and cannot be memorized encyclopedically; in any case, we are not concerned here about jurisprudence, but about survival. If one lives through a fight, we will assume that he is better off than if he does not, even though he may be thereafter confronted with legal action.

Violent crime is feasible only if its victims are cowards. A victim who fights back makes the whole business impractical. It is true that a victim who fights back may suffer for it, but one who does not almost certainly will suffer for it. And, suffer or not, the one who fights back retains his dignity and his self-respect Any study of the atrocity list of recent years — Starkweather, Speck, Manson, Richard Hickok and Cary Smith, et al. — shows immediately that the victims, by their appalling ineptitude and timidity, virtually assisted in their own murders. (“Don’t make them mad, Martha, so they won’t hurt us.”)

Any man who is a man may not, in honor, submit to threats or violence. But many men who are not cowards are simply unprepared for the fact of human savagery. They have not thought about it (incredible as this may appear to anyone who reads the paper or listens to the news) and they just don’t know what to do. When they look right into the face of depravity or violence, they are astonished and confounded. This can be corrected.

The techniques of personal combat are not covered in this work. The so-called “martial arts” (boxing, karate, the stick, the pistol, etc.) are complete studies in themselves and must be acquired through suitable programs of instruction, training, and practice. It behooves all able-bodied men and women to consider them. But the subject of this work is more basic than technique, being a study of the guiding principles of survival in the face of unprovoked violence on the part of extralegal human assailants. Strategy and tactics are subordinate to the principles of war, just as individual defensive combat is subordinate to the following principles of personal defense.