Background checks

[WaterGal]

I am not exactly sure how one would go about performing a background check on students as a private citizen or independent group (not government or law enforcement etal). Students who would potentially misuse the art would be discovered fairly quickly by an observant instructor.

There are companies that'll do that for you - criminal convictions are a matter of public record. Many employers use them to make sure prospective employees don't have a history of theft, for example.

ETA: I'm not talking about the process for getting a Secret clearance, where they interview your neighbors and look into your family and financial history and stuff. I don't think you can get a company to do that for you, though they can sponsor you for the government to do it.

 

[lklawson]

Hi,

just wondering ... Do you do background checks before accepting new students? I am not aware of my teacher doing one on me. Do you think MA teachers should do this to make sure they're not teaching the wrong folks. I know it's no guarantee, but what do you think?

No. However, before I could be a volunteer instructor at the YMCA, I had to pass a background check. Before I could be certified yudansha by the USJA, I had to pass a background check.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[lklawson]

You mean... The people who could benefit most from learning some self discipline?



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk.

More like these guys.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[lklawson]

I can't think of any good reason to do background checks on students. Instructors, possibly, but not students.

I can. If you're convinced that you are passing on absolutely deadly skills, it is incumbent upon you to do some due diligence of some sort to make sure you're not giving them to murderers or people with nefarious motives.

It's the equivalent of selling a gun to just anyone who walks in off the street. You might at least want to ask "are you legally allowed to posses this firearm?"

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[lklawson]

I am not exactly sure how one would go about performing a background check on students as a private citizen or independent group (not government or law enforcement etal). Students who would potentially misuse the art would be discovered fairly quickly by an observant instructor.

There are several companies which perform this service. Some of them can even do good work. Some, not so much.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[lklawson]

the local drug gang doesn't spend it's time training it's members in unarmed combat, if they need someone killed, they give a gun to their 15 year old thug and have him shoot the victim.

It turns out that criminals spend more time training than we give them credit for:

http://www.stoppingpower.net/commentary/comm_cop_killers.asp

Weapon Choice:

Predominately handguns were used in the assaults on officers and all but one were obtained illegally, usually in street transactions or in thefts. In contrast to media myth, none of the firearms in the study was obtained from gun shows. What was available "was the overriding factor in weapon choice," the report says. Only 1 offender hand-picked a particular gun "because he felt it would do the most damage to a human being."

Researcher Davis, in a presentation and discussion for the International Assn. of Chiefs of Police, noted that none of the attackers interviewed was "hindered by any law--federal, state or local--that has ever been established to prevent gun ownership. They just laughed at gun laws."

Familiarity:

Several of the offenders began regularly to carry weapons when they were 9 to 12 years old, although the average age was 17 when they first started packing "most of the time." Gang members especially started young.

Nearly 40% of the offenders had some type of formal firearms training, primarily from the military. More than 80% "regularly practiced with handguns, averaging 23 practice sessions a year," the study reports, usually in informal settings like trash dumps, rural woods, back yards and "street corners in known drug-trafficking areas."

One spoke of being motivated to improve his gun skills by his belief that officers "go to the range two, three times a week [and] practice arms so they can hit anything."​

and

Shooting Style:

Twenty-six of the offenders [about 60%], including all of the street combat veterans, "claimed to be instinctive shooters, pointing and firing the weapon without consciously aligning the sights," the study says.

"They practice getting the gun out and using it," Davis explained. "They shoot for effect." Or as one of the offenders put it: "[W]e're not working with no marksmanship... We just putting it in your direction, you know... It don't matter... as long as it's gonna hit you…if it's up at your head or your chest, down at your legs, whatever... Once I squeeze and you fall, then... if I want to execute you, then I could go from there."

Hit Rate:

More often than the officers they attacked, offenders delivered at least some rounds on target in their encounters. Nearly 70% of assailants were successful in that regard with handguns, compared to about 40% of the victim officers, the study found. (Efforts of offenders and officers to get on target were considered successful if any rounds struck, regardless of the number fired.)

Davis speculated that the offenders might have had an advantage because in all but 3 cases they fired first, usually catching the officer by surprise. Indeed, the report points out, "10 of the total victim officers had been wounded [and thus impaired] before they returned gunfire at their attackers." ​

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[lklawson]

I trained in a gym that was in a very rough neighborhood. There were certainly guys with sketchy pasts. (Even not too distance pasts). Hard training weeds out the folks who aren't committed (as others said above). Background checks on students are not necessary. Look at it from a purely business standpoint. Are school owners going to do background checks on every white belt that begins class? The expense would not be worth any benefit you may receive.

Depends on whether or not there is a potential expense for training someone who misuses the training. While it appears to be fairly rare, those schools who had a student misuse the training and then it hits the public eye, such as the 9/11 hijackers or the BJJ rapists,... those schools tend not to do so well afterward. The instructors take a major financial hit. Some sort of insurance program might be considered a wise hedge against this sort of negative publicity. Such an insurance program could, theoretically, require background checks.

Another possibility is the threat of Legal action against the instructor. It's been a long standing precedent that if a person "arms" another one when they "know or should have known" that the person being armed would misuse and injure, then the person arming them can be held legally accountable. If I give a gun or a knife to a person who I suspect is going to commit suicide then I can be held responsible (there are cases). If I give a gun or a knife to someone who I suspect will go on a murder spree, then I can be held responsible. There are also cases, though rare, where a "trained martial artist" is held to a higher standard of care (i.e., when they hurt someone they were prosecuted beyond what a non-martial artist would have been). While I have never heard of it happening, it is not beyond the realm of possibility to combine these to concepts and posit potential legal liability to a martial arts instructor.

I think that the possibility of such a convergence is slim in our current society, but I certainly wouldn't say that it is impossible.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[lklawson]

ETA: I'm not talking about the process for getting a Secret clearance, where they interview your neighbors and look into your family and financial history and stuff. I don't think you can get a company to do that for you, though they can sponsor you for the government to do it.

They usually only do the interviews for Top Secret clearance, not Secret.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[EddieCyrax]

No. However, before I could be a volunteer instructor at the YMCA, I had to pass a background check. Before I could be certified yudansha by the USJA, I had to pass a background check.

As an employee at the YMCA in past life, this background check has to do more with child/domestic violence charges. These facilities are always full of children. The Y is very concerned and serious about the well being of kiddoes..

From this perspective, perhaps MA owners should check their instructors.....

 

[lklawson]

As an employee at the YMCA in past life, this background check has to do more with child/domestic violence charges. These facilities are always full of children. The Y is very concerned and serious about the well being of kiddoes.

Yup. This is quite true.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[RTKDCMB]

Actually now that I think about it we do do background checks on former students who wish to return to training or students who have moved to the area from another region. It just involves contacting their former instructor just to make sure they have not been thrown out because of misconduct or anything like that, but that is about the extent of it.

 

[Fritz]

Interesting question.

Are they needed? As mentioned the arts tend to week people out real quick, and most people who would give you a problem tend to not want to put in the time. Would it even be an issue? As for the dangerous stuff in any art, I can also understand that POV also.

 

[chinto]

I do not think most do background checks. also like the idea of government oversight of who learns, its counter productive and the 'wrong kind' usually do not even last a month! those that do, usually start to change a great deal or quit by the end of month 2 or 3.

 

[Blindside]

They usually only do the interviews for Top Secret clearance, not Secret.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

In the Fish and Wildlife Service most project leaders (typically GS-13 level) wind up getting a formal background check by the FBI that includes interviews with current and prior staff. I don't believe those positions include even rate as "secret" clearance.

 

[lklawson]

In the Fish and Wildlife Service most project leaders (typically GS-13 level) wind up getting a formal background check by the FBI that includes interviews with current and prior staff. I don't believe those positions include even rate as "secret" clearance.

I'll take your word on that. I was responding to WaterGals' statement of "I'm not talking about the process for getting a Secret clearance, where they interview your neighbors and look into your family and financial history and stuff."

Specifically with the military level of "clearances," interviews of friends, family, neighbors, etc. are usually reserved for a TS these days.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk