It often comes as a surprise to middleclass Americans to get their heads out of the sand and realize that the la-la land in which they live in no different the the events that they routinely watch on the news and read in the newspaper. The world is a dangerous place at its best, and there are a fair percentage of the population who are intent on victimizing the rest of the population. These predators, as they are often called, share many of the traits of predatory animals found it the wild.
First, they generally seek out the most vulnerable of society to be their targets of victimization, such as the small and seemingly defenseless, the weak and infirm, the elderly, the disabled, the mentally and physically impaired AND the unwary. Our discussion will refer to these types of victims as soft targets.
These predators, just as do their wild counterparts, are lacking sympathy or compassion for their victims. Often socio-paths, they have no conscience or worse, have a feeling that society, and their victims as a whole owe them something. Of they, being bereft of moral principles common to most humans, consider that they are merely doing their part in nature, fulfilling their roles as survival of the fittest.
This group of social misfits often gravitate to one another. They may work in tandem or in groups to distract and overpower their victims. They are more likely go target an isolated person or couple, where it would be difficult to run or to summon help.
They count on their targets being unsuspecting and defenseless. Sometimes they are wrong in their assessments, but not often. These predators learn the telltale signs unwittingly emitted by soft targets. These signs range in a failure to carry oneself with confidence to more easily and obvious signs, such as a disability, or an obvious unawareness of what’s going on around them.
The next time you go to the supermarket, sit for a moment in your car and observe various people as the come out and load their groceries into their cars. They may be females with two or more whining small children. Their attention is anywhere but where it should be. They are often parked on the far edges of the parking lot or behind a large van, other vehicle, or other structure in the parking lot. They sometimes are seen counting their money or straightening the content of their purses, without a thought about there surroundings.
Danger lurks in any gathering of people. These predators can sometimes be spotted too, hanging out or loitering in or around their own automobiles, or kicked back with no apparent cause, waiting outside the supermarket doors or in the store foyers. These people are seldom up to any good.
Another obvious soft target is the lone jogger of either sex, but especially those small of stature and females, who are wearing ear-buds making them oblivious to one of their most important defensive senses—their hearing, as they are taking it the lull of their favorite music or motivational speakers. By singling out females, I am not being chauvinistic.
Women can be just as tough as men, but women, by nature automatically have something that men have a propensity to want—sex. Whether or not we academically debate whether the sexual predator desires control or sexual gratification, the statistics clearly indicate women are more often the object of than are men.
Another example of a soft target is the family of four or five who have trouble finding protected and lighted parking at night, and choose to park on a dark side street in the rush and pressure to make it to a church or school function, restruant, or other event. Although they are maybe only one block off the main street, they are in no man's land. The best sprinter would have difficulty getting out of the reach of a well-place group of predators.
Sometimes I ask a class, what would you do under such circumstances? The gang leader demands your purse and your little girls. You are outnumbered, out-gunned, and out of luck. What are you going to do? Use your cell-phone? Yeah, right. Surprisingly few people have ever even thought through such a scenario, let alone have a viable answer. It’s almost as if these folks feel that if they never thing about such things, such things won’t happen. this is not rationale thought. Is it?
With home invasions on the rise, your family are not even safe while “safe at home”. Home invasions are by definition, burglaries or illegal entry to a home while residents are there. This as opposed to a mere burglary where the residents are not there.
These are just a few common scenarios that can spell disaster. We will illustrate many more during the course of this blog discussion. But never fear. The first step in converting from soft to a hard targets and thereby greatly increasing our survival chances, is first recognize your vulnerabilities and begin to observe your surroundings.
I will soon provide an alert system or two, which will greatly aid the novice in assessing their level of danger. Then we can logically seek to avoid dangerous situations when possible, or to adopt other appropriate evasive and defensive behaviors when they are required.
Before I leave this post, I want to make another point regarding our society as a whole. Unless you have had reason professionally or otherwise to observe a segment of society that we would prefer to ignore, you may not even be aware of this very unstable and potentially dangerous group.
I am not referring to predators in this case. I am referring partially to the mentally ill, the emotionally unstable, and the temporarily stress out people whom we pass by everyday. The tip of the iceberg is apparent by the increase of road rage cases faced so often if heavy traffic.
I have only one bit of advice regarding this group: Don’t aggravate, incite, or disrespect them. If you inadvertently, apologize profusely, swallow your pride, and retreat if possible. Just get out of their way.
So how do you know members of this volatile group. You don’t, which raises my main defensive point: Treat everyone with respect. Observe the golden rule. Think about this very carefully. The cashier whom you talk down to this morning, may become your executioner, this afternoon. DW
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