One of the things I do in my spare time, for love (what I get paid doesn't cover the expenses), is to teach people survival skills with small arms. Survival begins with something we call a safe mindset and the resulting life style. This means knowing where threats will come from and having counters in place; it means considering threat and risk in making everyday decisions as opposed to pretending that there are no threats or risks; it means taking the well lit path that does not have clumps of loiterers standing around near the sidewalk rather than shouldering your way through them.
Self defense and security are, we teach, personal bodily functions that cannot be delegated and sure can't be automated. These things require personal attention and monitoring.
We teach that a person should never admit a crook to her home. What if the crook is willing to pay 75% of the rent and bring other great benefits? The answer has to be, always, no. The reason is simple: You can't be awake 24/7. Eventually you have to lock the front door, put the dog on watch, and get some sleep. None of this means anything if you permit a threat to live within the walls of your fortress, and no amount of money can be worth that risk.
The lesson we impart to our students is simple: Do not involve yourself with crooked people, and when you conclude that someone you may have trusted before is crooked, it behooves you to remove them from your life. Maybe you can watch a crooked person exactingly enough with people and systems 24/7 to make it difficult for him to harm you, but you can never make it impossible. Beware Greed, for it is an integral part of the Criminal Mind. Living, like business, is based on Trust whose foundation is the value of the Word of Honorable Men and Women. Only if there is trust can vigilance be relaxed far enough to have a life. We believe that advice like this serves our students well.
The parable is this. If a woman offers to fornicate with a violent felon for money, and if he beats her, she has no one to blame but herself.
Cheers - Greg
