MORE IMPORTANT PERSONAL SAFETY TIPS TO CONSIDER

This is not the article that I was intending on writing at this time but something bad happened to someone close to me and I am therefore going to write again about being more defensive in our daily lives. Unfortunately, we MUST all become more aware of our surroundings and less trusting of people we meet casually.

I will give some easy to remember and easy to implement safety tips that each of you can incorporate into your everyday life. With our ever-increasing diversity of people, cultures, races, and backgrounds, it becomes increasingly easier to have what you say or do to be taken in a negative way by a person who may snap and take violent action against you. Preparation is your key to possibly avoiding an attack against you.


THE TOP FIVE THINGS TO BE "TUNED IN" FOR TO MAXIMIZE YOUR PERSONAL SAFETY:

1. Start to make it a daily ritual to be observant in the locations you frequent. Make mental notes of people you regularly see and how they act and react to those around them. Criminal types are not always the stereotypical "dumb" guys you think they are. Many spend a lot of time watching and learning who is a vulnerable mark and who is to be avoided. You want to be in the latter group!

2. If you find that you have made a mistake and are in a situation where your comfort level deteriorates, you need to take immediate steps to get back to a safer place. Raise your personal ALERT LEVEL from green to yellow and finally to red. When you do this it should set off TRIGGERS in your brain that you set up beforehand.

3. Alert levels and triggers that you need must up before you need them. I will describe these alert levels and trigger points later in this article. The importance of them is critical and can save you from personal harm, danger or injury.

4. As soon as possible get to a location that is not only safer, but where there are other people around. It would be best if these were trusted people who were your friends, however just a group will also serve you better than being isolated with a potential attacker. This step can also mean the difference between safety and being a victim of crime!

5. If you feel it to be important enough, write down every detail you can recall creating a record. Notify the authorities and indicate you WILL press charges if warranted. The Police will ask for a statement and your record may become crucial to bringing an attacker or potential attacker onto the police radar screen that may help to make your neighborhood safer.

ALERT LEVELS AND TRIGGERS:

Each of us needs to set up a safety system that will work for us. There is no one perfect formula for every individual and every situation that will work perfectly. Alert levels, however, should proceed from green to yellow to red for everyone.

• Green is where everything is going along smoothly and you are comfortable with your surroundings and the people you are interacting with. While you may not know every person in the room or at the party or wherever, you know some of them well enough to be at ease and feel safe. This is where most of us spend 95% of our time.

• Yellow should set off your first mind trigger to indicate that you need to heighten your senses and awareness of where you are, whom you are with and where your friends are or where they have gone. Begin to formulate a plan of escape if your situation degenerates to a point where you might need to evade danger. Look for escape routes. Devise possible diversions to give you a fraction of a second to make your move. Use extreme caution in what you do and say and where people are located within your close proximity.

• Red trigger is the point when your adrenaline starts pumping and you reach the fight or flee stage and must quickly determine how much is at stake. You must decide if you can flee or if you will use every self defense mechanism at your disposal to fight and then flee. Only you as an individual can make this extremely important decision. Again, you must have mentally prepared for situations of this type beforehand so your decision will be instantaneous.

You will need to take some serious time to think about this. Crime is something you must be conscious of. Be aware that it will most likely touch your life. As I said in the beginning of this article, a brutal assault has recently come to center stage for me.

Use all the things we have talked about in prior articles and also the techniques I will present in those ahead. Some depend upon your speed, some depend on your situation and some depend upon your nerve and personal attitudes. Many will use all the tools available. Many are reluctant to even carry something as innocuous as pepper spray.

Regardless of your personal attitudes, each of you has the responsibility to create a plan that you have tailored to make yourself as safe as can be no matter what situation you fall into. If you do this, you WILL be way ahead of the pack. Predators can sense when a person is not afraid. They will go to an easier mark. It like the familiar story of the car thief and the Club we all have heard. If you have one and use it, the car thief will go to an easier car to steal. It really is that simple.

There are plenty of tools to help, but you already own the most important one. Your mind coupled with your attitude. I am sure there are several different mixes of personality types that will read this discussion. My intent is to provide information for all kinds of readers with a source for assistance and resources for all of you.

As always, stay safe and I will help you with many aspects of your personal safety plan and offer all the tools at your disposal and answer any question you may have on the use of any device you desire to use.

WHAT IS PEPPER SPRAY ANYWAY? HOW DOES IT WORK?

The self defense pepper spray is a natural chemical compound formulated from oils and residue from several varieties of hot pepper plants. The formulations are called OC(Oleo Capsicum) sprays and are the most accessible defense sprays available to the general population. There are at least forty brands in various sizes, spray patterns and formulation concentrations.


OC pepper spray is an inflammatory agent and not an irritant like manmade chemical defense sprays. This is very significant because a person sprayed with OC has two things happen to them immediately. Instantly, the attacker’s eyes will clamp shut and clamp shut HARD. Even if the person can get their eyes open, vision is very distorted as the OC opens up the capillaries of the eye and causes a temporary blindness. Uncontrollable coughing spasms are the second major and instantaneous effect of a spray to the face of an attacker. These effects are harsh enough to bring even a large assailant to their knees. The cause of this temporary but VERY debilitating condition is due to the total inflammation of breathing tissues, which will restrict all but life support breathing.

Using OC spray is the equivalent of putting up a brick wall between victim and attacker. The person sprayed will stop what they are doing and stop what they are thinking - PERIOD. It has been said by long time law enforcement professionals that “It’s like being hit with a flame thrower.” No matter how drunk or how high or how psychotic, the effect on the creep is the same.

Because it is a natural plant derivative, pepper spray wears off in about twenty to thirty minutes depending on concentration and weather conditions. The attacker suffers NO harmful effects and makes a complete recovery with NO long-lasting harmful side effects. OC spray is non-toxic, non-carcinogenic and has never been found to harm skin tissues in available concentrations.

You will need to determine what concentration will work best for you and what pepper varieties were used in making a particular OC spray. The heat generated by OC sprays is measured in Scoville Heat Units (SHU’s) and all peppers have different SHU values. Regular bell peppers have zero SHU’s while Jalapeno peppers have approximately 5000SHU’s. Habanero peppers, on the other hand, have SHU’s in the 250,000 to 300,000 range. Certainly, a 1% concentration concocted from Habanero peppers is way more powerful and effective than even a 10% formulation from Jalapeno peppers. You will need to ask questions concerning what your 10,15, or 18% OC pepper spray is formulated from and what the SHU value is. Many sprays are a combination and are very effective. By finding this information out you will be able to make a better decision regarding which one to purchase.

Different spray patterns and dispersal density will be the subject for my next article, so please be watching for it because these factors are also important considerations concerning your buying decisions. Until then, stay safe!

Simple Self Defence Tactics.Com

Simple Self Defence Tactics.Com

AVOID BEING A VICTIM OF CRIME

You find yourself stranded because your car just will not re-start on a stretch of road that immediately makes you feel uncomfortable. It may be desolate; it could be in a bad part of town or it may be in a good part of town. It can be daytime or after dark. Criminals do not need to punch a time clock. Unlike the rest of us, these creeps work is done whenever and wherever circumstances are right. The chances are very high that you or someone close to you will be involved in a crime during your lifetime. This is unfortunate. This is also the truth.

So, what can you do to either minimize the impact of a crime or deter a criminal from committing the crime against you? The most obvious would be to carry a handgun. Not a practical solution for most of us. Even if you happen to live in a state where this is a legal option, the mind-set you need to use a gun to protect yourself or others is not one most of us have or can acquire. You must be willing to live with possibility of shooting and killing another human being. All the people I know could not cope with the consequences of such an extreme decision. Guns are better left to the Police, most of whom never need to resort to lethal force. True, times have changed and our world seems more dangerous but a Police uniform still carries a lot of drag.

There are many superb alternatives that will prevent you from becoming a statistic of crime. First, use the obvious ideas including cell phones or try to remember the last public telephone you passed. If you need to leave the car, try to remain in the shadows if it is night or move away from the street whenever possible. You should always have a deterrent to startle anyone who wants to do you wrong. A whistle on your keys, a strong flashlight, and better yet, a personal safety device such as pepper spray, mace, loud electronic alarms, a stun device, or any of the large array of other such “tools” readily available to simply startle an attacker allowing you to flee.

Most attacks come from the side or from behind so keep this in mind and use your eyes and ears and have your personal alarm or pepper spray in hand when walking to your car in the parking lot at the mall, work, grocery store or elsewhere. Simple tricks also help. If carrying a bag of groceries, throw it in the air or at your attacker while spraying them with mace or pepper spray and yelling as you run away. Keep it simple; the idea is to get away. Spend fifteen minutes a month thinking about or better yet trying out your pepper spray or stun gun just to familiarize with how they work. In a very short time you will become comfortable knowing how to activate each type you carry and it will become an extension of your hand. Remember that all you want to do is get away and then report to Police as necessary.

Until next installment please stay safe and investigate the safety tools available to you.