On Friday I took a 2 hour carjacking defense seminar in Costa Mesa. Lots of good strategy and techniques for dealing with an armed carjacker. It was prefaced with prevention and awareness skills which I believe everybody needs to practice, such as not talking on one's cell phone when walking to your car (distracting)and looking into the vehicle first before opening it. A lot of lives could be saved if only everybody took some simple precautions.
There was one thing that left me with questions however. We were cautioned that it is always better to give away the car rather than risk one's life, but then never to let oneself be taken with the carjacker to another location because there's a 90% chance of being murdered. In between those two scenarios is a gray area where you have to make a judgement call -- do you have reason to believe that you will be shot anyway if you comply and hand over the vehicle? What kind of thing determines this decision, is it a gut feeling?
We were given various ways to fight back which I thought were ingenious, but I am still unclear about when to fight back. It is very risky to use a disarming technique, so many things could go wrong depending on the type of gun being used, and we were told very likely that it would discharge once, and hopefully we will have been quick enough to deflect the aim away before that happens. How do I know when I'm better off "taking a stand"?
There was one thing that left me with questions however. We were cautioned that it is always better to give away the car rather than risk one's life, but then never to let oneself be taken with the carjacker to another location because there's a 90% chance of being murdered. In between those two scenarios is a gray area where you have to make a judgement call -- do you have reason to believe that you will be shot anyway if you comply and hand over the vehicle? What kind of thing determines this decision, is it a gut feeling?
We were given various ways to fight back which I thought were ingenious, but I am still unclear about when to fight back. It is very risky to use a disarming technique, so many things could go wrong depending on the type of gun being used, and we were told very likely that it would discharge once, and hopefully we will have been quick enough to deflect the aim away before that happens. How do I know when I'm better off "taking a stand"?