Ding! Idea...
Until now I've never truly had an
exact spot to place the stop button. Because it's situational. It really depends on the severity of the situation. But I've been playing with a crude use of force concept lately, and suddenly, when going through the clip from the DVD again, the two ideas connected.
Let's say there are four basic degrees of severity: Symbolic - defeat without serious injury - incapacitate with severe but not life threatening injury -- and murder, death kill. Defined by what they're about. Illustrated with various relevant actions. Not so much in the spirit of what you're
supposed to do in each degree, but more in the sense that those things become
available as options. Maybe it looks messy and cumbersome. But it's meant to be ridiculously simple. So if it seems complicated it's just my explanation of it that is. Just pick whichever thing or two you do that you trust to achieve the objectives of each level of severity. The basic Beta-8 syllabus material is probably the simplest trajectory through the whole mess.
Symbolic, is something that you'll recognize the opportunity for if you've got the acting skill or whatever. Otherwise just leave it be.
Murder, death, kill, is rare and extreme. You'll know if you need to go that far. So it really comes down to a binary decision between 2 and 3. Which means; can you defeat him with just a bloody nose and some bruises or do you actually need to do some damage? While each degree is vague, somewhat broad and probably overlap into each other a bit. That's reality. Few sharp divisions. As far as I can tell these are the relevant degrees of force and their reasons. Note that it's not the legal use of force guidelines. Those depend entirely on what law you're subject to. It's more what seems to make sense (to me) on an intuitive and practical level. But incidentally, where I am at least, the law meshes fairly well with these.
Now to the stop buttons. Put them where you see fit, the degrees are fairly broad, but the definite ones that I can tell go between each degree of force. Escalate if you need to, otherwise: If you're submitting without injuring, stop before causing any significant damage, if you're incapacitating without killing, stop before you cause life threatening damage. If you're in murder, death, kill mode. Stop when you've ensured your safety. Also, if you're doing the symbolic mindfuck, stop before
you escalate it. Unless you've come to the conclusion you need to go physical. Now that, and the following is why this post didn't get it's own thread, despite becoming absurdly long. The thread is titled "cultivating focused violence." I've found having these kinds of specific objectives and guidelines set the stage for that very thing. If you know exactly what you want to achieve, and how you think it's best to do so. Then that allows for focusing all your efforts on that. With very little scattered mental energy. It allows you to
be specific about your efforts.
1 Symbolic. - Call it tactical posturing if you like. Pushing, shouting and the rest. You demonstonstrate capability and will to cause damage. Show that he has less control than he thinks and that fighting will cost him something. But nothing
really happens. If it succeeds, no physical fight has erupted. But if it fails it escalates the situation, so when used it should be in the spirit of the fight already being confirmed, but maybe you can make him not want to fight. Because normal de-escalation might not be the tool for predatory assholes. Primate dominance might work. Buuuut, it's mostly included because it's the absolute lowest severity of any kind of force, like pushing and so on. Even though it's fuctionally more a branch of de-escalation. If you begin shoving aggressively or some such thing then you've taken the situation to a physical level, although the effect is only symbolic. so it seems to belong on the list, but it's only a
potential tool which may fit for some situations. The SOP should be to attempt de-escalating normally and go straight to the appropriate
effective degree of force if it falls apart.
2 Control, get them submissive without serious injury. - Pretty much blasting them and getting them to the ground, submissions, chokes, pain/fear compliance, and maybe a KO if you can make them fall well. anything from simply holding someone down to early UFC stuff probably fits here. BTW for really recruiting the vicious neurology in this one, despite the actual lack of blood and gore, maybe we can pretend taking slaves. Capturing them alive and well so we get a good price for them.
Like something out of Apocalypto.
Now, potential tools? Maybe a tazer type device, and some OC type of thing although it's only reliable as a setup.
Limited consequences, usually.-------------<theoretical line beyond which police and medical technicians tend to get involved>------------------ (you better be able to explain what the hell you're doing, and have all your ducks in row.)
Potentially significant consequences.3 Incapacitate with severe but not life threatening injury. - Breaking stuff in the arms and legs, KTFO (light headstomping, bashing head into surroundings), choke, shredding, Get them down so that they can't get up, but without life threatening injury. You can do a lot of damage so long as it is not life threatening, all things being equal. To me that sounds mostly like structural limb damage. And KO's. Weapons wise I think blunt weapons capable of fracturing bones like the humerus should be the least worth bothering with if you have time to choose. Considering you do it because you
need to, if that is the case of course. But most things are open to you as long as you don't cut or puncture deeply, or begin fracturing the skull.
4 Murder, death kill. - When I think about it there's really not a specific need to kill in civillian self protection. A KO can be effectively the same. The actual objective is to incapacitate. But this is more about the absolute lack of concern for anyone's health but your own you must exhibit because of that need. Stemming from things like extreme time pressure and no room for fuckups. So you can incapacitate with impunity. Using the safest and quickest method available to achieve that. The quickest and most relevant unarmed stuff I can think of is to throw him headfirst in the asphalt, and to stomp as hard and fast as possible until he's not moving. Or getting him down by any other means and stomping viciously. If you have a firearm the best solution is probably to shoot for that "bowling pin." Stab to the same area with small knives (4" - 8"), although naturally only the soft tissue targets (lung, heart, throat area) are viable. But powerful blunt weapons to the head are probably more effective, considering time as a major factor. Despite being awesomely deadly, knives can take minutes.
Putting weapons in their place according to the needs they must fulfill and the limits they should not cross also made me rethink a lot of stuff on the roles of weapons in self protection. Although in most places they become mostly hypothetical. Or switch-the-afterlife-for jail-cards...
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