Personal Protection Tips

By Matthew Schafer
Copyright 2016, All Rights Reserved

One thing I can say about our society is that we are definitely a society of people who want everything right now.  We, as a whole, don’t seem to want to wait for anything and it seems that the people that can give us what we want the fastest are the ones who succeed the most.  As someone who teaches martial arts this is a problem I’ve been dealing with for many years.

Since the martial arts can take a long time to learn (although there have been people like Kano Jigoro who, after just 6 years of martial arts training, developed his own system of martial arts, called it Judo, and it became one of the most popular systems in the world, and Peter Urban, one of the most respected masters in American martial arts history, who went from white belt to “grandmaster” in just 13 years) people always ask me for my “best” technique or my “best” advice hoping to find a shortcut for years of hard work.  The problem is that there is no one technique or piece of advice that is a fix all and something that might be great advice for one situation may be totally inappropriate for another.

However, I get asked all the time for my “best” advice or what one single piece of advice is most beneficial.  So here I wanted to go over the five most popular pieces of advice that I give on the topic of personal protection.  It should be noted that I’m not saying that these are the best pieces of advice or all that someone needs to know, rather these are bits of advice that people seem to like the best and get the best response from my clients. 

So here are my five personal protection tips that are most popular:

My first tip is to do a Personal Threat Assessment. 

This is a great piece of advice and this generally is the second thing I recommend everyone do in their journey towards becoming safer.  The first thing I recommend that everyone does (I’m sneaking an extra tip in) is to take a moment to officially decide not to become a victim.  It seems odd but most people never do that so when they’re actually being attacked or victimized they have to decide what they’re going to do on the spot so often they end up doing nothing and then pay the price.  If you make the official decision that you’re not going to be a victim right at the beginning then that is already going to be done and when you’re in the face of danger your brain will then be freed up to look for openings and opportunities.

Getting back to the Personal Threat Assessment, this is hands down one of the most important tools a person can use to keep themselves safe.  Most people have no idea what crimes they need to be concerned with, what activities they do that put them at risk, and which crimes are most likely to befall them.  In a personal threat assessment you look at who you are, what your behaviors are, where you live, the conditions you live in, who your friends, family, and coworkers are, what job you have, etc. and you see how these things increase or lower your chances of being assaulted, murdered, kidnapped, and/or robbed.  For most people this is an eye opening experience and they have no idea how the little things that they do put them at risk for various crimes.

I have client that I’ve done quite a bit of consulting work for mostly over email and he expressed the need to become safer because he started to get a feeling in his gut that he was in danger.  After we talked a little and did a threat assessment we discovered he was a high risk for kidnapping.  He had never considered that before but when he did it made perfect sense.  With my help he was able to change certain behaviors that greatly reduced his risk.  While he is still a high risk for kidnapping because of who he is and what he does for a living, by changing his behaviors and making a few other simple changes he has greatly reduced his chances of being abducted.  If he would have never done a personal threat assessment he would have never known he was at risk and if someone did want to abduct him they would have been able to do it without a problem.

An easy way to do a pretty good personal threat assessment is online at http://www.rateyourrisk.org/ I’ve been recommending this website for years because here you can take a very well designed quiz to rate your personal risk for being assaulted, murdered, and burglarized.  Your results will even point out a few of your biggest risk factors so you can address them.

The second tip I give that people seem to like is to vary your routines by picking them out of a hat. 

Most people that are abducted are taken early in the morning within three miles of their homes.  The reason for that is first people are groggy early in the morning and they have their defenses down.  Also, most people follow the same routine every morning making them predictable.  In fact, in a recent interview with a Mexican hitman who had confessed to killing over 30 people, he stated that he always struck first thing in the morning.  If someone is targeting you and they know what they’re doing then the morning is a likely time for them to strike.

Whether your threat is a hitman, a kidnapper, a stalker, or even a rapist the way they operate is by observing you, learning your routines, and then using your routine to their benefit.  For example, if you go jogging every morning along the same route they might watch you for a couple days to make sure that you always went jogging at the same time and took the same route and then they’d simply get there early, hide behind a tree or a corner that you passed, and then grab you when you went by.  Or perhaps if they knew you got back from your jog at the same time they’d be waiting for you in the bushes ready to attack when you put your key in your front door.

In these situations the vulnerabilities can also be strengths.  From police and FBI interviews we know that predators like consistency in their targets and when they don’t get it that can throw them off completely.  There was a case where a group of men planned to abduct a businessman when he left for work in the morning.  Every day for two weeks they sat in a car just down the street and documented when he left for work and what route he took.  Every day it was the same, like clockwork, but on the day they planned to strike he didn’t go into work.  Unbeknownst to them he was promoted at his job and his new positioned required a schedule where he had to work early some days and late on others.  When the abductors didn’t see him leave for work like planned they thought maybe he was on to them so they left.   Over the next few days they saw him leave at varying times and lost all confidence in their plan and called off the kidnapping. 

That might seem ridiculous but criminals need a certain level of confidence in themselves and their plans in order to pull them off.  If they see their target suddenly act strangely or vary their routine that is often more than enough to make them pick a different target.

Here the tip I give is to take your take your daily activates that involve leaving your house such as jogging, walking, getting the mail, etc. and decide what you’ll do that day and when by picking it out of a hat.  That way it is random and you’re hard to predict.

For example, let’s say you jog every morning before going to work.  When you’re planning your week you would pick out of hat, or some other way to randomize it, to decide what days you will jog, whether you do it before or after work, and what route you will take.  There are a lot of predators who hang out around jogging trails and they watch people to follow patterns.  By being unpredictable you will greatly lessen your chances of getting their attention and being attacked.

One of my clients does this and she has envelops that she keeps her cut up paper in.  She has one envelop labeled “jogging routes” where each route is written on an individual piece of paper ready to be dumped in a hat.  She also has envelops labeled “days of the week” and “before or after work” so when she is planning her week she has all of her options ready for the hat.

Granted this may seem a little extreme to some people so it depends on the results from your personal threat assessment and how seriously you want to take your safety.  This particular client is very concerned with her safety as she is very attractive (often getting an uncomfortable amount of attention from guys) and has an ex-husband who she believes is legitimately crazy.  She plans out her entire week in advance; her and a coworker tradeoff who will get coffee in the morning so she can vary what times she leaves for work, she has 4 different ways to get to work and the one she takes is random, and her jogging is completely random.  She said this was a pain in the butt when she first started but it has become empowering and she even likes not following the same pattern each day, she said changing up what she does each day has become fun.

You can take this to whatever degree you want it all depends on your personal level of threat.

The third tip is look at burglary as a competition between you and your neighbors.  

 Burglary is a very common crime and a fact of life.  However, burglary doesn’t just happen, the way burglars work is they carefully pick their targets.  The will walk or drive around neighborhoods looking for the homes with just the right vulnerabilities.  There is an old joke that if you’re attacked by a bear you don’t have to outrun the bear, you just have to outrun your slowest friend.  This is how it is with reducing your risk of being targeted by a burglar too. 

Take a walk around your neighborhood and look at the homes.  Ask yourself if you were choosing a home to break into which would you pick?  Which homes make it easy to look inside the windows?  Can you see any valuables just by looking from the street?  Do they leave windows or doors open?  Your goal is to have the least attractive home for burglars in your neighborhood. Don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t mean that if you have a few houses that are screaming to be broken into that you can slack off; you should take break-ins seriously and try to burglar proof your home to the best of your ability, but you should also walk your neighborhood now and again, put yourself in the mindset of a burglar, and make sure that you don’t have the most vulnerable home on your street.

My fourth tip is to get, or fake, a dog. 

I’m not talking about a small dog here; I’m talking about a dog big enough to be capable of scaring a human being.  If you go jogging or walking having a dog with you will greatly decrease your chances of getting attacked.  Having a dog will also decrease your chances of having your home broken into because no criminal wants to kick a door in and then be confronted by Cujo. 

If you don’t have a dog then you should fake one.  Since most criminals break into homes by walking right up to them and using the front door put a “Beware of Dog” sign in your front yard.  Also, right by your front door put a dog dish and make it a big dog dish.  Perhaps tie a leash to your front porch, and maybe buy some dry dog food and sprinkle some in the bowl and on the ground next to it.  Your goal is to make it seem like a dog, a BIG dog, lives inside that house.

Most burglaries happen between 10am and 3pm while you’re at work so your home will be sitting empty and vulnerable.  Even alarm systems aren’t foolproof; some criminals will cut the power to your home to turn off your alarm system and even if your alarm has a battery backup it is still vulnerable because if it is wireless (never get a wireless home security system) then all a criminals has to do is kick in your door and smash the alarm pad with a hammer (the alarm pad is the brain of your wireless system and if that gets smashed your alarm doesn’t work).  Even with a wired system with a battery backup there are still ways to bypass it.  Dogs however, especially big dogs, scare the shit out of burglars.

My last tip is also for dealing with burglars.  When a burglar breaks into your home (most often by kicking in your front door which is so easy it is scary) they want to do two things: 1.) get as many valuables as possible, and 2.) get out as quickly as possible to limit their chances of getting caught.  This is why the first place a burglar goes to is the master bedroom because that is where people keep most of their valuables like jewelry, cash, expensive clothing, and firearms.  They will most likely ransack your drawers and closet then they’ll normally go to the living room and the kitchen looking for electronics and silver. 

No criminal wants to leave empty handed so if they can’t find anything in one room they’ll just look harder in the next.  So my 5th  tip is...

Plant valuables for them to find. 

Invest a little bit of money, maybe $30-$50 or so and purchase decent quality fake jewelry.  Get some gold chain necklaces and costume jewelry rings and put them in an envelope and put it in your top drawer.  You can also go online and purchase fake $100 bills and put a stack of them in there too. I bought some good quality fake money from http://www.rjrprops.com/prop-money.html and apparently this company makes fake money for movies and rap videos.  I got a folded stack of $100 bills for $39.

If you purchase some fake money make sure it is colored and full size.  If you purchase fake online always read the descriptions carefully because most of the time the money is either black and white or it is smaller than real money.  The problem comes with getting money that looks real enough but isn’t also illegal.  The fake money that is made for Hollywood comes in two types, money that is double sided and designed to look real from 4 feet away or further but you can tell is fake up close and money that is designed to look real up close but is only single sided so you know it is fake.  I suggest getting the double sided version and then rolling it up or folding it so hopefully it is not as obvious. 

Ideally if (statistically when) your home gets broken into and the intruder runs to your master bedroom and starts opening the drawers and finds that envelope sitting right on top and thinks “jackpot!” and hopefully leaves without taking anything else or at least doesn’t take as much as they normally would.  If you get real lucky (and you purchase good looking fake money) they might try to spend it and get arrested.

Years back I worked as the general manager for a company that bought gold and silver and the clientele was amazing.  Our single biggest source of gold and silver was from young people who would come in and dump a whole load of gold chains and other jewelry on the desk and you knew it was stolen.  These kids either stole it from relatives or broke into people’s homes and sometimes they would almost admit it.  Most of it, sometimes all of it, would be fake and anything that was fake they would just leave on the counter when they walked away.  We had a whole box of fake jewelry that was just left there because they didn’t want it and those same people would come back the next week with another handful. 

Like I said at the beginning these are the tips I give that people seem to like the most but are not necessarily the best or most useful tips for the common person.  However, all these tips are useful and I do all of these to some degree myself.

Getting The Upper Hand

By Matthew Schafer
Copyright 2016 All Rights Reserved

While it is true that sometimes violent situations start with an attack and catch you off guard with very little warning, more often than not if you pay attention you will actually see the build up to the event.  The fact is when victims of violence are interviewed later more often than not they say that something didn’t feel right and they saw something that they thought wasn’t quite right and made them uneasy but they decided to ignore it because they didn’t want to be paranoid or seem socially inappropriate.

Nine times out of 10 if you end up in a violent altercation there will be some type of buildup and if you can see it and recognize it for what it is you can take the upper hand by avoiding it or steering it to your favor.  You might notice someone watching you, someone following you, someone being in a place that they just don’t need to be (like a someone hanging out in an isolated area, a man hanging out by a woman’s dressing room, or someone that positons themselves near you when there is ample room available), someone trying to get you to go with them to an isolated area, someone getting drunk or angry in your vicinity, or perhaps someone that just seems to take an unusual amount of interest in you; these are all examples but there are numerous other things that can indicate a violent confrontation is possible.

If someone has confronted you and you think that violence is imitate it is important that you make the first move. In the movies people take a punch and then a spinning kick from a cowboy boot to the face and they are still walking around but in real life when you get hit there is a good possibility something inside of you could break, you could suffer a concussion, and you could end up crippled or even die from the single blow.  When it comes to fighting or actual violent assaults the number one cause of death is blunt force trauma to the head which is normally caused by someone falling down and hitting their head on the ground.  There have been people that have gone to jail for manslaughter because they got in a heated argument and shoved the other person and that person lost their balance, struck their head on the ground, and died.

In the martial arts there are mixed messages about making the first move.  Karate-Do (systems of Karate that focus mainly on developing “character”) teaches never to make the first move.  In fact, one of the founders of Karate-Do, Gichin Funakoshi, famously wrote in his book The Twenty Guiding Principles of Karate the second rule of Karate is “There is no first strike in Karate.”  This is way most Karate Kata begins with a block or other defensive movement.

However, that isn’t the way that it always was; before Karate-Do was Karate-Jitsu (systems of Karate that focus on self-defense), or just plain old Karate, and back when it was taught as a matter of life or death making the first move was taught to be essential.  The old masters knew that even though there were different signs an attacker would give to signal you that he was about to attack (see my article entitled “Pre-Assault Indicators”) there is no way to know with 100% certainty when a person will attack or how.  Waiting for a person to throw the first blow to counter it and then counter attack is very risky and should never be done if your life is on the line.

Thankfully there is a little trick you can use to get the upper hand and create an opportunity for you to either attack first or get out of there.  This works if you are confronted by one person or multiple people and if they are unarmed or if they have a gun in your face.  I’ll introduce it by giving a quick story.

Many a year ago I was a young cocky lad in the Air Force.  I lived off base in an apartment and when I first moved in there was a guy who lived on the first floor who was both large and almost always drunk.  When he was drunk he was fine but when I ran into him and he was sober he would often try to stop me and criticize me for being in the military.  He’d stop me in the hallway and talk about his politics or how he didn’t support our military actions in the Middle East and to him I was a symbol of what is wrong with America.  More than once I’d come home from a 4 day deployment tired, carrying two heavy bags, and wearing my BDU’s (military camouflage clothing) and he’d actually get in my way and try to stop me from entering the building until I heard him out.  I never engaged him, I only listened for 30 seconds and then said, “that’s great”, and then walked around him and went on my way.

One day I came home and as I drove up he was yelling at a crying woman on the front lawn.  It was a lover’s spat and as I walked up she ran away crying.  It was clear he wasn’t in a good mood and when he saw me he said quite angrily and sarcastically, “Oh look…my favorite person!  How can my day get even better?”  I tried to walk by him but he blocked my path and got right in my face.  Normally he’d have a smug sense of righteousness about him but today it was just anger and he started poking me in the chest and saying very disrespectful things about the military.

His face was becoming red, his voice was steadily getting louder, and he was spitting as he talked leading me to have no doubt that he was building to something violent.  The hair on the back of my neck started to stand up and I definitely started to feel unsafe.  I tried to back up and de-escalate the situation but as soon as I did I saw him make a fist and that is when I decided to stop the situation in its tracks, take the upper hand, and move first.

As he shouted at me I looked right back at him, put a confused look on my face, and said, “You did WHAT to your cat?”

Immediately he stopped and got a confused look on his face (by the way he didn’t own a cat) and as soon as he opened his mouth to say something I swung my bag upwards into his groin.  I didn’t swing it very hard but I had a couple heavy things in it and it dropped him to his knees right away allowing me to walk passed him and get inside my apartment.  That was the last time he confronted me and thankfully he was evicted about a month later.

I call this technique the “Thought Interrupter” but I’m sure psychology has a different name for it.  If you or someone else is on a certain train of thought and suddenly you make a statement or ask a question that is out of place it will interrupt your thought pattern for a moment and often lead to a short lived state of confusion and it works even better when you stick to asking questions and make them as out of the place and bizarre as possible.  In short, you want to ask a question that makes no sense in the given context or no sense at all.

You want to make the other guy look like this:

If someone has confronted you they are going to be focused on you and their intent will be to do you harm.  Suddenly asking them a bizarre out of the place question will interrupt their thought pattern and give you a few precious seconds to move first while they are caught off guard. You move them from a mental state of thinking about hurting you to not thinking about hurting you and create a window of opportunity where you can act while their brain is focused on the absurdity of the question and not on you.

The more random, bizarre, and out of place the question is the better.  If someone has a gun to your head and you suddenly ask them if they like fall or winter better that will be enough to break their thought pattern.  Even better ask if they like lizards or winter better or ask who they think is the better starship captain Kirk or Forest Gump?  The odder you make the question the better it works.

To best capitalize on it the second they scrunch up their face or open their mouth to say, “What the hell are you talking about?” you want to move then.  As soon as the “W” in “What…” comes out of their lips you want to be moving.  If you’re confronted by a group of people you will want to move yourself to the outside of the group as soon as possible so start to slowly move towards the guy furthest to the left or right and then say something like, “Did you know Barack Obama was on Bay Watch?” and as soon as you see that confusion set it you know switched their train of thought from hurting you to “What the hell?  No he wasn’t” and you should move right then.

This technique has been proven to be very successful; it has been used during hostage situations, its help police, military, and intelligence personnel disarm armed individuals and psychologists use it help people stop destructive behaviors like smoking.  Whenever their patient feels like smoking, drinking, over eating, etc. they’ll have them count all the people they know or to imagine something absurd like parasailing pink elephant whose bottom half is that of a mermaid.  It is bizarre enough to interrupt their thought pattern and now they’re not thinking about smoking and can put their attention elsewhere. 

The AR-15 is The Ideal Weapon For Home Defense

By Matthew Schafer

Copyright 2016, All Rights Reserved

Multiple tests disproves years of conventional thinking and shows yet another reason why the AR-15 Modern Semi-Automatic Rifle is the ideal weapon for home defense.

A lot has been written about the AR-15, and weapons built on similar platforms, and most of it has been written by those with little to no experience or education with firearms.  The AR-15 is nothing more than a modern rifle.  No different from how today’s smartphones have advantages over those built just 10 years ago, being made with modern technology the AR-15  is lighter, faster, more accurate, easier to use, and just plain better at its job then yesterday’s rifles.  Also, it is safer too.

Studies done by the FBI and a few private organizations have demonstrated that an AR-15 and the .223 round it fires is a safer home defense option then most other firearms and since the studies largely consist of firing various weapons into walls and other structures anyone can reproduced the studies themselves to confirm the results.

Before I get to the study itself I want to go over a couple reasons other than safety as to why the AR-15 is the ideal home defense weapon.

The first reason the AR-15 is superior is that it has very little recoil.  For the avid shooter this isn’t that big of an issue; someone who spends ample time on the range develops the proper body mechanics where they can deal with recoil and still use the weapon effectively.  However, if we’re talking about home defense we’re probably not talking about a situation where everyone is an avid shooter.  A situation I see over an over is one where a husband shoots enough to be comfortable firing a wide variety of firearms, the wife shoots little to not at all, and their kids run the spectrum. 

The average man in America spends about 4 waking hours during the day with his family so what is the wife to do if she has to defend the home by herself or she has to aid her husband?  The solution to a lot of people is the shotgun.  A shotgun is not very difficult to use, it is intimidating to the guy on the other end, and I have yet to hear of a situation where it takes more than two center mass hits to put a person down.  While a shotgun is a great weapon it has a lot of kick and if you don’t spend enough time learning to shoot it you may end up hurting yourself when you have to fire it.  In addition, due to the amount of recoil it is not a fun firearm to shoot for smaller individuals like women.  Since it is not very fun to shoot for smaller individuals most of them don’t practice and that can be a deadly mistake. 

If a gun isn’t fun to shoot then you probably won’t shoot it.  That is where the AR-15 comes in.  The AR-15 is easy to operate with little practice, had virtually no recoil, and it is a lot of fun to shoot.  Since it is fun more people that are not avid shooters are far more likely to spend time getting the hours in at the range that they need to be comfortable firing the weapon. 

Over the last 15 years I’ve spoken with a lot of women, a lot of firearm salesmen, and a lot of firearm instructors and the vast majority of them tell me that when it comes to handguns, shotguns, or an AR-15, more women prefer the AR-15.  Women typically find it easier to hold and fire than a handgun, it is not as intimidating to shoot as a shotgun, and the size and overall capability of the weapon give women more confidence than either a handgun or a shotgun.

The second reason the AR-15 is superior is its magazine capacity.  The standard magazine carries 30 .223 rounds and any time you go into a fight you always want more ammunition, not less.  Shotguns have traditionally been the go to weapon for home defense and models like the Mossberg 500 and Remington 870 have been the most popular.  While these are fantastic and very effective weapons having a capacity like 6 +1 does leave a little to be desired. 

If you have to be involved in a home defense situation the ideal one is where you see the intruders coming, have time to get your weapon and the other members of your family to a safe place, and then merely announcing that you’re armed or showing the weapon is enough to scare the intruders off and make them run away.  If you’re not that lucky then hopefully firing a shot or two is enough to scare them off.  Unfortunately scaring off a criminal is something that you cannot count on.  What might scare one person might not bother another, plus over half of criminals are under the influence of drugs or alcohol during their crimes so trying to determine how they’ll react is unreliable.  The only thing that we can count on is how the body works and that the only way to effectively stop each and every body on the planet is by breaking it.  In other words, force is the only thing we can rely on to keep us safe in this situation.  If they get scared and run away then that is great but we cannot count on that.

Since it can take multiple center mass hits to put a person down and since there will probably be more than one intruder you want to make sure you not only have enough ammunition but that you have more than enough ammunition to protect yourself and your family.

A quick true story I tell often when I teach self-defense classes is about a young mother in the Midwest who was home alone with her baby while her husband was at work.  In the middle of the day she heard someone trying to kick in her front door.  She grabbed her baby and her gun, a .38 caliber revolver, and ran upstairs just as the front door finally flung open and she had just enough time to get to the attic before the man entered her home and started up the stairs.  She sat holding her baby with her gun pointed at the top of the attic stares when suddenly the man’s head popped up and he started to come up into the attic.  She fired all 6 shots from her revolver shooting him in the head 5 times.  Luckily for her, since she was now out of ammunition and defenseless, he panicked and he ran out of the house, jumped into his car, and drove away.  The police later found him a few miles away in his car dead.

This situation could have easily gone the other way; after getting shot the intruder was alive for a good 5 minutes before he died and that would have been more than enough for him to have seriously hurt or killed both the mother and her baby.  This story is a perfect true life example of why firearms should hold as many rounds as possible. 

The third reason why the AR-15 is superior for home defense is the main point of this article and that is studies have shown that the AR-15 is actually a safer weapon for home defense than a handgun or a shotgun.

One of the big concerns in home defense is “over penetration.”  Over penetration means what happens if the bullet you fires penetrates too much, or in other words what if the bullet you fire both hits, and then passes through, the person you’re shooting at or you miss the person you’re shooting at and now the bullet is loose in the house.  You don’t want to shoot at an intruder only to miss and have that bullet go through an interior wall and hit a family member asleep in their bed.

The common thinking has been that a handgun is great for home defense because it might go through a wall or two but then stop, and a shotgun is great because it might go through one wall but due to the spread it probably wouldn’t do much more than that.  Rifles have been frowned on by a lot of people because the thought is that if you missed the round would not only pass through your interior walls but perhaps fly down the street and hit your neighbor.  Now we know better.

There are numerous tests and studies out there, all of which anyone can reproduce for themselves, by a variety of organizations like Outdoorhub and Gunsite Training Center but the most well-known study was done by the FBI.  The FBI’s Firearm Training Unit at Quantico, VA tested the penetration capabilities of various .223 rounds as well as other rounds to see which round was the safest for agents to use during close quarters hostage rescue situation.  The results were that the .223 soft tip and hollow points penetrated less, on average, then even pistol rounds.

In a study segments of interior walls were built to code and then 4 of them were placed 8 feet apart to simulate three interior rooms.  A shooter then stood 8 feet away from the first wall and fired a variety of rounds including both .9mm and .45 pistol rounds, a .12 gauge shotgun shooting deer slug, and an AR-15 firing standard .223 rounds.

What they found was that both the .9mm, .45, and .12 gauge rounds passed through all four interior walls.  This means that if you fired at an intruder and missed with any of these rounds they could potentially fly through not only 3 interior rooms but possibly exit the house with the potential of entering a neighbor’s home or hitting someone on the outside.

Only the .223 round fired from an AR-15 failed to penetrate all four walls.  Most .223 rounds were found embedded in the wall #3.   Why didn’t this rifle round just rocket through all the walls and down the street?  The answer is because it is a precisely made modern round designed to tumble on impact.  When a .223 round hits a person it begins to flatten out and starts to tumble end over end.  This tumbling allows it to create a large cavity inside a person allowing for maximum tissue damage and creating extensive bleeding.  Tumbling also causes the round to expend its kinetic energy very quickly.

Every round entered the first wall tip first creating a small circular hole but at the second wall most .223 rounds created a rectangular hole because by that point the round was tumbling end over end.  By the time the .223 round got to the third wall it was no longer traveling in a straight line and the rounds started to hit just the edges of the third wall where it failed to penetrate and became lodged.

What this means for home defense is not only is the AR-15 suitable for home defense due to its ergonomic and ease of use capabilities, it’s very low recoil, its standard 30 round magazine capacity, and the fact that it is fun to shoot and gives shooter greater levels of confidence; it also is the safest firearm that you can effectively use for home defense.   While you always have to be mindful of what you’re shooting at and what is behind it, there is less chance of hitting or killing an unintended target with an AR-15 than a shotgun or the two most commonly used home defense handgun rounds.

So why does anyone need an AR-15 to protect their homes?   It is a modern weapon that does its job better and more safely.  Since over penetration is a real issue and has cost people their lives we can safely say that if more homes used AR-15 for protection then shotguns or handguns fewer unintended people would lose their lives. 

Butterflies and Standing Hair

By Matthew Schafer
Copyright 2016, All Rights Reserved

Have you ever been really nervous and you felt a pain in your stomach or the feeling often described as “butterflies?”  We’ve all felt that but do you know exactly why you feel that?  The reason you feel this pain or sensation in your stomach is because your body is getting ready to poop.

That’s right, butterflies in your stomach is your body gearing up to evacuate your bowels.  Now the question becomes why.  Also, what is with the feeling of the hair standing up on the back of your neck when you feel that something isn’t right?

The answer is that your subconscious mind is continually picking up everything in your environment but your conscious mind can only process a very small amount of things at any given time.  So while your subconscious mind takes in everything it filters what it gives to your conscious mind and what you are consciously aware of but behind the scenes your subconscious is processing everything in your environment.

When you subconscious mind detects a threat it singles your body to make the hair on the back of your neck start to stand up and the stomach start to tighten and feel queasy in order to gear up for a fight or flight situation. 

We, after all, are just big primates; big dumb animals that are simply a little more evolved than other species but we still have all the programing we’ve developed during our evolution.  Our mind knows that if we sustain a penetrating blow to the body a major concern is puncturing our bowels and getting an infection that will likely be fatal.  So, as part of our fight or flight response our brain says to us, “Hey, we might just be in a life or death situation…it would be a good idea if we pooped first to empty our bowels.”  This is also why some people poop or pee their pants if they get startled or scared.

A common response to fight or fight in the animal world is to puff yourself up and make yourself look really big.  Cats are great examples of this as they extend their legs, arch their backs, and puff up their fur.  At one point in time we had fur too and we still have the “puff up” response written into our subconscious to a certain degree.  The hair standing up on the back of your neck is essentially your body trying to puff up its fur to make you seem larger by contracting the muscles at the base of your hair follicles.

Since your subconscious mind is aware of so many more things then your conscious mind ever could be it is very important that you pay attention if you ever feel the hair on the back of your neck stand up or get the butterflies in your stomach, aka the “gut feeling,” because it is not your body being weird, rather it is your subconscious mind detecting a threat and getting you into fight or flight mode.