Threat Assessment

Was a term my old martial arts instructor used to describe how to determine how to respond to potential danger. The degree of threat, the danger posed to you determines how you respond, ranging from ignoring, to responding with deadly force, and, everything in between.

This concept would be a good one to use in how we respond as a society to risks. Violent crime is higher in this country than in almost all other wealthy, stable countries, even though those places lock up a far smaller percent of their population in jails and prisons. Even with our higher violent crime rates, the way most media outlets portray crime, and, the way most people think about does not match how actual crime occurs. People fixate on stranger crime, the thug jumping out of a dark corner, or, bursting into your house. While this does happen sometimes, and, is terrifying when it does, in the vast majority of situations violent crime is not random, the criminal, and the victim know each other. this is usually the case because they live together, are in a romantic relationship of some kind, or have children together. It can also be among associates, sometimes engaged in other criminal activity, i.e. drugs, or, people with other connections, i.e. they hang out at the same bar, in-laws, etc. The best way to assess your threat and stay safe, choose your partners and company carefully, get out of volatile, conflict filled relationships. Keeping a gun under your pillow may help if a thug comes through your door, not very likely, but, will almost certainly not help if the person you live with attacks you, much more likely.

In any event, the risk from all types of crime is less than that for suicide, people are more likely to kill themselves than to be killed by others, the gun under you pillow will not protect you or someone in your house from killing themself, it will greatly in increase the odds of that happening.

Deaths from violent crime, and suicide are dwarfed by death from infectious disease, Covid and other illnesses, and, diseases made worse by poor diets and sedentary lifestyles, diabetes, heart disease, some types of cancers, etc. The biggest threat to your life is not the thug lurking in a dark alley, or, even the thug you live with, it is the Covid and flu germs drifting in the air at your crowded office, the sugar packed big gulp soda at your local convenience store, the fast food burger, and the long commute to your work that leaves you no time to exercise. If politicians complained as much about those things as they do 'crime in the streets' we might actually become a safer, healthier place.