The Simplest Ways to Avoid Becoming a Victim

Let me tell you an old joke which you may have heard before. Two friends are camping in the woods. They’re relaxing in their campsite when all of the sudden a giant grizzly approaches. One of the friends grabs his tennis shoes from their tent, throws them on and quickly starts tying the laces. The other friend looks at him and says “what are you doing, there is no way you can outrun that bear.” And the one putting on his shoes says, “I don’t have to outrun the bear, I only have to outrun you.”

The above story illustrates how simple it is to avoid becoming a victim in today’s society. You see, the next time you’re walking down the streets look at everyone who has a cell phone attached to their ear, or who is looking down toward the ground while texting. If you’re the one person who has nothing in your hands and you’re looking up and scanning your surroundings, it is not likely a criminal is going to choose you.

The same thing applies to your home defense.

Since I bet the majority of your neighbors leave their garage door open when they’re at home, the fact that you close your garage door at all times will obviously make you less of a target if some thief is looking to steal something out of a garage. (Or some 17 year old kid is looking to steal beer out of someone’s fridge.)

Also, it always amazes me how few people have home alarms. Even if you don’t want to pay for a home alarm at least spend a couple bucks on an alarm sign and stick it in your front yard. If you have an alarm sign and your next door neighbor doesn’t, whose house do you think he’s going to choose? (A fellow instructor I know told me that he has a decal on his windows and that there was a burglary of the three surrounding houses, but his house was skipped over.)

If you carry concealed…

Then you know you’re among the less than 1% of Americans who have a gun on them on a daily basis. There are too many ways to list how this will protect you, but one example is the deadbeat carjacker. When the carjacker tries to get in your car and you draw your gun and the carjacker quickly vanishes (or moves on to another car in line), at least you’re safe.

Or heaven forbid you actually have to use the gun, but again, at least you’ll hopefully be alive while the scumbag criminal won’t. My point is, unfortunately (but fortunately for you and me) society has become pretty lazy and nobody pays attention to their surroundings or seems to value their safety.
And if you and I just take a few more safety precautions than everyone else, then we’re a lot less likely to be targeted by criminals. It doesn’t take much, but if you aren’t doing it now, start paying more attention, start carrying your gun more often, remember to turn on your alarm at night, close your garage door, and never, ever answer the door for someone you don’t know.