Why So Defensive?

[LadySmith]

A thread on THR (http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=194566) got me to thinking&
What got you into your self-defense, refusal to be a victim, won't go down without a fight mindset?

My experience was strange, but it worked. I was about 7 or 8 years old, when a neighborhood boy asked if I wanted to go with him to see some guy feed his dog. The kid was all excited, and I was curious as to what the big deal was, so I went. Turned out the guy fed his dog live animals. I got there just in time to see him toss his massive chow-mix mutt a kitten. The dog wanted a snack. The kitten wanted to live. The kitten wound up making the dog back away after furiously clawing its face. I said to myself, I'm going to fight like that kitten. It wasn't really a promise, more like I incorporated that concept into myself.
Your turn.

[TarpleyG]

Too bad you were only 7 or 8 and couldn't remove this ahole from the gene pool.  I shoot with a guy that doesn't actively feed kittens to his dog but he gets great pleasure out of it when his dog gets one that falls off his back fence.  Disgusting.

Greg

[280plus]

Got picked on a lot as a kid. Made the neighborhood bully cry one day, that was fun.

I figure if I'm going down I might as well get as many licks in as I can before I do.

[Art Eatman]

I was a scrawny little 4-eyed bookworm that made good grades in school.  Ergo, walking target.  My war cry became, "Leave me alone!"  Lotsa stuff followed from that.

I don't bother other people.  I figure that if I'm courteous and polite, others will be the same.  If they aren't, they cut themselves off from any of my time, money or empathy.

Left alone, I'm happy-go-lucky, gregarious and full of jokes and mild pranks.  I've been told that there's something about me that says, "Don't start anything."  Fine by me; my last fight was in May of 1950.  (Think of that old country song, "I'm A Winner".  Not my bag.)

Since I'd been shooting and hunting since I was a little kid, self-defense handgunning was easily added into my bag of tricks.

, Art

[grampster]

I grew up in 40's and 50's.  Self defense was a way of life.  Looking back, one could do what one chose to do, but had to stand for the decisions one made.  One couldn't go whine to authority figures, media, lawyers etc etc.  If you did that, you got another dose of what caused the whining.  So one tended to be more responsible for one's self.  One had to figure out who one needed to fight and who one needed to avoid and the tactics that all entailed.  It was a good way to grow up.

Later, I went into LE and saw how some folks were victimized by others in a more accelerated and focused fashion.  It just reinforced my conclusions about how one should live one's life.

I also think that's why I decided to spend time working in the community that I live;   running for township office, serving on boards like our fire department, zoning, utility authority, lake association, county public works, and challenging the school.  I noticed that the bullies seemed to have grown up and gravitated to public offices; to use them for personal gain or for their little clique.  I decided I needed to be a balance to that, same as when I was a youth and young man.

I've been shooting since maybe 1950 and carrying since 1964.

[RevDisk]

A thread on THR (http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=194566) got me to thinking&
What got you into your self-defense, refusal to be a victim, won't go down without a fight mindset?

Humanity.

[Jamisjockey]

I've got no one defining experience to look back on.
I've always been smaller than everyone else, but as a kid I stayed out of the way of bullies, and as an adult I developed enough attitude (mostly thanks to Uncle Sam) that makes anyone think twice before pushing my buttons.  
I've got deep libertarian leanings, which has always encouraged me to do for myself, fend for myself, and protect myself.

[brimic]

All(or at least most- I got jumped by an upperclassman in highschool who took a pipe to my head)of the butt whoopingsI got when I was a kid were mainly deserved- I was a small dog with a big attitude- or a skinny kid with a big mouth. My finest moment in self defense was when I was a freshman in HS and trying out for the football team. One of the biggest, meanest seniors was doling out *expletive deleted*it swirlies to freshmen after practices. One day my best friend, Chris who has platinum blond hair, got a swirly that made his hair brown with *expletive deleted*it much to the amusement of upperclassmen, the offending senior grabbed me by the back of the neck and pushed me into a bathroom stall with a big turd in the toilet, before he could get my head down to toilet level, I twisted out of his grasp and swung with all of my might and luckily I got him square in the adam's apple. I then ran for my life. I figured once he caught his wind back, he would tear my arms off, but he left me alone after that.

[Standing Wolf]

Ten years in the People's Republic of California gave me a very healthy respect for the idea of fighting back against the predators.

[crt360]

What got you into your self-defense, refusal to be a victim, won't go down without a fight mindset?

I think I was born with it.  I don't remember any moment of realization.  I never was a small kid or the biggest, but I wasn't afraid to fight anyone else in school (except for the one or two guys that had a substantial criminal record by 7th grade and were known to carry a big knife).  The only people that tried to hassle me were the smaller, wise-ass types that knew I had a slow fuse and wasn't going fight with them on account of their size anyway - they were kind of like those fish that stick to the side of a shark for a free ride.

In college, I had a guy come up behind me, say, "hey, what's up?" and punch me in the face when I turned around.  I never saw him before and when he realized my couple of teeth less and bloody-faced self was about to stomp his ass he ran like a chicken (a really fast chicken).  I'm pretty sure I was a mistaken target of some sort, but it enhanced my understanding that minding your own business won't always keep you out of trouble - sometimes it comes looking for you, and sometimes it's looking for someone else and finds you by accident.

I suspect my occupational direction had something to do with wanting to help others who were victims and to help people prevent themselves from becoming victims.

[Guest]

Environment raised in. Security was ingrained from get-go.
Grew up with BGs might want to get me /us and use to get what we had access to.

I was the 4 y/o that ran to neighbor folks and had them call the Cops. I had never seen these relatives from Chicago before, they scared me and my grandma and mom did not look real happy. We were not expecting company...my gut said run get help.

I still think I did the right thing - these folks were /are crazier than road ticks...

[LadySmith]

Thank you all for responding.
SM-I think you did the right thing by following your gut reaction. There are far too many instances where folks didn't & paid heavy prices for it.
CRT360-You are spot on with your observations about trouble.
Standing Wolf-CA is indeed a target-rich environment and getting worse. I'm working very hard to get out.
Brimic-Now I know what a swirly is...eeeewwww!
RevDisk-Inhumanity is what did it for me.
It seems like we're all basically non-bullying leave me be types that know how to fend for ourselves.
It makes me glad to be acquainted with y'all.

[280plus]

Vicey versy...

[Werewolf]

One day I realized that the world had changed from when I was a child and we didn't have to lock our doors to our home when we left it. We could leave the windows rolled down in our car during the hot summer and we could walk in parks at any time of the day or night and not be accosted by deviants or thugs. I'm sure these things happened but to the best of my knowledge not in any neighborhood I ever lived. My perception became that the world is a much more dangerous place now and I needed to adjust. So now I carry.

The perception may be wrong. But if it is SO WHAT. It is better to be prepared than not.

[jefnvk]

Why?  Oh, just an old quote that goes 'The world is not fair'.  Figure if it's going to be unfair, I'm gonna do what I can to have the advantage.

[Twycross]

I was born with a stubborn "you and what army?" streak. When this got combined with martial arts and later firearms, it naturally evolved into the self-defense mindset, and as far as I can tell, is hardening even more with time.

[Sylvilagus Aquaticus]

My ancestry is Pict/Scot with a big dose of Viking thrown in about a thousand years ago.  Any further questions?


Regards,
Rabbit.

[matis]

My ancestry is Russian (my mother) & Polish (my father -- born in Warsaw -- as in Warsaw Ghetto Uprising) /Jewish.



I think any American Jew who doesn't revere the 2nd amendment and avail himself of its benefits, is a first-class fool.



matis

[Felonious Monk/Fignozzle]

9/11/2001.  

That sparked the wake-up epiphany similar to what Werewolf had.

[Ex-MA Hole]

I always was into guns.

Once I had a child, it became more than a hobby.

[mustanger98]

Some here have listed school bullies... that happened to me too. Fifteen of them and one of me. Some of them had knives. The vocational agriculture classroom had numerous weapons in the form of various garden tools. Twelve weeks of that crap... sometime in there, they "bullringed" me and next thing I knew I got pinched in the seat of the pants. I turned around ready to punch somebody's lights out only to find out it was one of two girls in their crowd. She knew right then how close she'd come.

But other experiences posted struck a chord with me too. Plus, much later, I found out a meth ring was behind remodelling a house close to us. The FBI agent they sent to find it told us about it. The .45 I sleep with became much much much more comforting after that.