Vintage Self Defense

I like to collect old books on self defense & jujitsu (although I prefer an older spelling: jiujitsu). It doesn't matter if they're original or reprints or even in electronic form.

I thought today I'd share a couple of older items I ran across on the internet. Don't bother trying to read them. Just savor the pictures from a past age.

Tragic Death

Deolexrex sent me a link to an article about a tragic death in the Front Sight Blog. I passed it on to a few people whose email addresses I have, but after some reflection, I think it's worth putting in a blog post.

The article contains to a video from a surveillance camera, and it depicts a shooting in which one of the subjects is killed. If you are easily upset, I am warning you beforehand. If you are a minor, you should check with a parent before viewing.

Here is a link to the article over at Front Sight Blog:

The Survival Triad

Ignatius Piazza, the author of the blog gives his evaluation of the incident:

What went wrong is these four citizen only possessed TWO of the THREE aspects of the Survival Triad.

Although they demonstrated the Combat Mindset with their willingness to fight and they demonstrated Action by taking the fight to their opponent, they lacked the skill to inflict immediate and incapacitation damage to finish the fight.

As a result, the four of them cannot incapacitate an average sized, street punk. The first private citizen who moves to deflect and disarm the gun is later critically wounded and the fourth citizen who is hitting the armed criminal with the effectiveness of a junior high school girl ends up paying for his lack of skill with his life.

This is so unfortunate, because these four citizens did what was right. They just lacked the skill to use the tools that they had.

Even unarmed, once the gun was deflected and grabbed, had any of the four citizens used a thumb to gouge out an eye of the gunman, or smashed the lateral aspect of the gunman’s knee with a forceful kick, or crushed his windpipe with a directed punch, or any number of empty hand defensive moves that are easily learned in a basic course, the outcome of this lethal encounter would have been completely different.

Notice that those skills that he mentions are not the self-defense equivalent of nuclear physics. Stick your thumb in the orc's eye and keep pushing -- hard! Disarticulate his knee with a powerful kick. Smash a half-fist into his windpipe.

You can learn these rudimentary skills in a matter of minutes. (Do NOT practice them on a partner, except at extreme slow motion speed.) Practice them full-force on a heavy bag or practice dummy (no, NOT your brother!).

My barber sent me the following quote:

Don't hit at all if you can help it; don't hit a man if you can possibly avoid it; but if you do hit him, put him to sleep. (Theodore Roosevelt New York City, February 17, 1899)

That's just another way of saying, if at all possible, avoid violence, but when violence is unavoidable, you must neutralize the threat.

On dealing with armed assailants, you may wish to review Poetry and Other Deadly Pursuits and Knife Defense Video.

My New Blog

I have just finished my first post for my new blog: Access To Destiny. I hope to post there about twice a week.

I do not plan to neglect this blog, either, so pray for me that I may carve out the time necessary to dedicate to both these ministries.

Although you will not know the actual focus of the blog until next Tuesday, I hope you will visit today's post and perhaps even bookmark the location. I think you will find the focus to be one that will meet believers' needs at this time in history.

Home Invasion

Here in the upstate of South Carolina, there have been frequent news reports recently of home invasions. A home invasion is different from theft or burglary, in that the orcs will enter the house even though they know people are home.

These individuals tend to be desperate, vicious and therefore highly dangerous. They seem to target the dwellings of the weak & elderly. After all, as Jesus said,

When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace. (Luke 11:21)

The pundits blame these violent manifestations on the economic climate. They are wrong. The present depression is a catalyst, not a cause.

The cause is a lack of moral restraint on the part of the perpetrators. Hard times merely provide the occasion for their criminality.

But what of the other home invaders? I'm talking about the advance guard of the police state? They now can invade homes and terrorize the occupants on simple suspicion of wrongdoing. In the eyes of officialdom, questioning political policy, homeschooling or selling food in a co-op may now all be signs of terrorism.

(Drpaleophd sent me a forward just this morning that says the new administration is likely to ratify the treaty called the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. This would put your family under international law, opening up new opportunities for the civil authorities to invade the privacy of your home and your family affairs.)

Do good, moral people think and act that way? Do they break down the doors of otherwise peaceful fellow-citizens and hold them at gunpoint? To my way of thinking, both those who give the orders nor those who carry them out are the institutional moral equivalent of the orcs who force their way into the homes of the elderly and forcibly take their money and goods.

We, as Christian Martialists, know what we would do if the first type of home invader came through the door. We'd dial 911, right? We'd dial 911 and tell them where to send the ambulance to pick up the would-be robbers.

The second type of invader is more problematic. "When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace," it is true. What Jesus said after that is also true:

But when a stronger than he shall come upon him, and overcome him, he taketh from him all his armour wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils. (Luke 11:22)

To resist the hooded, jackbooted troops of the police state you would need three things:;

1. Good conscience (springs from the legitimacy of your actions, & political legitimacy must ultimately rest on theological & moral legitimacy);
   
2. The will to resist;
3. Solidarity (lest they pick you off one by one).

Is this the proper forum to discuss these things? I want to know what you think before I write a series on this topic.

The Warrior's Cross

Some of you are familiar with Gabe Suarez, who is an internationally recognized teacher & trainer in the field of armed & unarmed close combat. He also professes faith in Christ.

I became aware of this article by Suarez over at a relatively new blog, The Sword of Christ. Here are the first few paragraphs of the article:

As Christians we spend a great deal of time in study about the teachings of our Lord in reference to "Picking Up Your Cross." Often, the presumption in Bible commentaries is that a "cross" is some sort of an unpleasant or painful test or burden for a Christian. As Christians...particularly Christian Warriors, we need to look beyond this meaning of the cross to its meaning as a calling or mission to us today. Think of it as a test or a challenge from the Lord.

The cross was certainly intended as the most horrific of punishments by the Romans. It must have truly been a truly ugly way to die. Nevertheless, the cross was Our Lord's mission. He went willing to the cross to set us free from our well-deserved penalty. Thus the cross, among other things, was Jesus Christ's mission on earth. To us, to pick up our cross signifies an example...accepting our mission, or our calling.

There are many missions in the church body. Some Christians are called to be teachers. Others are called to be pastors, prophets or evangelists. Some of us are also called to be warriors. That is the cross that God has put in front of us.

Think of yourself standing just outside of a shopping mall or a school when the shots from an active shooter ring out. As a warrior, God has put a challenge in front of you. “Run and save yourself”, says the enemy. What would Christ do? He would advance boldly to the sound of the guns and taske out the minion of evil sent to kill the innocents. Are you up to the task? Are you strong enough to pick up THAT cross? Are you strong enough with the help of the Lord God of Hosts?

In conversations with a brother - who is also a Pastor, he told me that in a recent conference they were asked what their "cross" was. He said his particular cross was to die protecting his flock - if he had to, to kill an evil man who would come to harm his flock - if he must, and to be an example to his flock at such times. Needless to say, and sadly, many in attendance had no idea how to take that.

You can read the rest of the article over at Suarez's Warriortalk Forum.

Toward a Police State

The infamous incident at Waco was an illustration of the fact that the U.S military was being groomed as an enforcement arm of their Uncle in Washington (as opposed to our Father in Heaven). The intervening years have seen a steady erosion of the Posse Comitatus.

A parallel development has been the militarization of local police departments. A study sponsored by the Cato Institute entitled Warrior Cops: The Ominous Growth of Paramilitarism in
American Police Departments (by Diane Cecilia Weber) details both of these developments.

Since its publication in 1999, the sitiuation described in the study has only worsened. Here is a brief statement of the problem:

Over the past 20 years Congress has encouraged the U.S. military to supply intelligence,
equipment, and training to civilian police. That encouragement has spawned a culture of paramilitarismin American law enforcement.

The 1980s and 1990s have seen marked changes in the number of state and local paramilitary
units, in their mission and deployment, and in their tactical armament. According to a recent academic survey, nearly 90 percent of the police departments surveyed in cities with populations over 50,000 had paramilitary units, as did 70 percent of the departments
surveyed in communities with populations under 50,000.

There's a major problem with this:

State and local police departments are increasingly accepting the military as a model
for their behavior and outlook. The sharing of training and technology is producing a shared mindset. The problem is that the mindset of the soldier is simply not appropriate for the civilian
police officer. Police officers confront not an “enemy” but individuals who are protected by
the Bill of Rights. Confusing the police function with the military function can lead to dangerous
and unintended consequences—such as unnecessary shootings and killings.

The paper also exposes the other side of the issue, which is increasing use of the military for law enforcement purposes:

•The U.S. military played a role in the Waco incident. In preparation for
their disastrous 1993 raid on the Branch Davidian compound, federal
law enforcement agents were trained by Army Special Forces at Fort Hood,
Texas. And Delta Force commanders would later advise Attorney General
Janet Reno to insert gas into the compound to end the 51-day siege. Waco
resulted in the largest number of civilian deaths ever arising from a law
enforcement operation.

•Between 1995 and 1997 the Department of Defense gave police departments 1.2
million pieces of military hardware, including 73 grenade launchers and 112
armored personnel carriers. The Los Angeles Police Department has acquired
600 Army surplus M-16s. Even smalltown police departments are getting into
the act. The seven-officer department in Jasper, Florida, is now equipped with
fully automatic M-16s.2 •In 1996 President Bill Clinton appointed
a military commander, Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, to oversee enforcement of the
federal drug laws as the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

•Since the mid-1990s U.S. Special Forces have been going after drug dealers in
foreign countries. According to the U.S. Southern Command, American soldiers
occupy three radar sites in Colombia to help monitor drug flights. And Navy
SEALs have assisted in drug interdiction in the port city of Cap-Haitien,
Haiti.

•The U.S. Marine Corps is now patrolling the Mexican border to keep drugs and
illegal immigrants out of this country. In 1997 a Marine anti-drug patrol shot and
killed 18-year-old Esequiel Hernandez as he was tending his family’s herd of goats
on private property. The Justice Department settled a wrongful death
lawsuit with the Hernandez family for $1.9 million.

•In 1998 Indiana National Guard Engineering Units razed 42 crack houses in
and around the city of Gary. The National Guard has also been deployed
in Washington, D.C., to drive drug dealers out of certain locations.

•In 1999 the Pentagon asked President Clinton to appoint a “military leader”
for the continental United States in the event of a terrorist attack on
American soil. The powers that would be wielded by such a military commander
were not made clear.

Did that last point resonate with you? Plans were made for military involvement in civil enforcement two years before the 9/11 attacks. That tragedy provided the occasion to implement the plans. According to the website of the U.S Northern Command:

U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) was established Oct. 1, 2002 to provide command and control of Department of Defense (DoD) homeland defense efforts and to coordinate defense support of civil authorities.(emphasis added)

Doesn't "coordinate defense support of civil authorities" sound so much nicer than "enforce martial law"? Bureaucrat-speak! You have to love it.

It bears repeating that, although the powers that be tout these developments as "anti-terrorist" measures, they also carry within them the potential of becoming instruments of terror in the hands of power-hungry, corruptible, sin laden human beings.

Defining Terms, 4

Continued from "Defining Terms, 3"

The third -- and, I hope the biggest -- influence on my concept of Christian Martialism is my Biblical worldview studies. I had to learn that Scripture applies to all of life, not just personal salvation and devotional use.

I began to see this as a young Christian in high school, where I took my lumps in biology class for my stand against evolution and for creation. In college I was early exposed to R.J. Rushdoony, but was not prepared to deal with issues on that level, yet.

My reading of C.S. Lewis (particularly Miracles: A Preliminary Study) and Francis Schaeffer led me begin a quest to find the Biblical underpinnings of all the facets of human life and thought. After college and grad school, I did some reading in Cornelius Van Til, and I embraced a presuppositional epistemology.

Then I came back around to Rushdoony, North and others. I found that my efforts to hammer out a Biblical philosophy of government, law, etc. were redundant efforts. Others had already laid the foundations.

I began to see the Bible differently. As the Word of the Living God, it provided the template for a much broader view of salvation than I had previously thought. The Gospel promises personal redemption, it is true.

But it also provides for individuals, families and society (the Church is the center of Christian society) to take dominion over this world that is both wild and fallen.

This means that my every legitimate pursuit -- martial arts, shooting, studies in power politics, as well as theology -- must be brought, by the Word, under the dominion of Christ the King.

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
(2Co 10:3-5)

Continued in "Defining Terms, 5"