The dogs and I walked passed my neighbor as he stood brushing his teeth in an open garage. When I smiled and say “Good Morning!” his reply was:”You’re not going to let your dogs shit on my lawn are you?”. I smiled even bigger and looked him right in the eye: “No sir, I don’t think it’s your lucky day today.” Off he went, “Fuck you!”, “Fuck your dogs!”

Cranky old man. I boiled with anger but kept walking and told myself to shrug it off. I would be a fool to let his diatribe get to me. He is just a cantankerous old fart who clearly doesn’t value making friends. No, we’ve never shit on his lawn, and his shit-able space is only 5 feet wide anyways!

 

The point here is that conflict is everywhere. It is simply a trademark of human nature! If you put two children in a room, you’ll get a disagreement. If you put two adults in a room, you will get disagreement compounded by entitlement! How many disagreements does it take before the other guy decides that stabbing you is preferable to compromise?

Humans by nature have social hierarchy, and just like with dogs, horses, deer, or chickens, human interaction always involves some amount of posturing and fighting over social dominance and scarce resources.

“Social interaction yields conflict, and conflict engenders violence. How many interactions does it take to meet the wrong person at the wrong time for a violent confrontation to occur?”

The question of numbers is simple: All social interaction involves some conflict, and some conflict eventually involves violence. How many interactions does it take for you to meet the wrong person at the wrong time? One percent of one percent? How many people do you interact with on a daily basis? While violence is only a small subset of human interaction, it is as certain and predictable as the sun rising in the east.

When it comes to self-defense, you have two options: Pretend that conflict does not exist, or accept that conflict is fundamental to human nature.You can prepare the tools and knowledge for self-protection, or live in denial and cry after it’s too late.

Brian Wang is a full time firearms and self-defense instructor who resides in the San Francisco bay area. He is trained under the Massad Ayoob Group to guide everyday students like yourself through the complex legal, moral, and social  ramifications of the use of Deadly Force in self-defense. He and his fellow instructors offer group and private classes for civilian every day of the week in and around the Bay area. You can find more information about upcoming classes here.