I have a confession to make. My gun accompanies me every day in every place it’s legal. No surprise, right? Different folks carry for many reasons. There’s a reason I pack my heater — aside from the fact I worked my tail off for nearly twenty years to help bring right-to-carry to Illinois. I carry because I don’t like bullies.
In my childhood, I got picked on a lot. I suffered a lot of abuse from bullies. In my first few years of school my parents forbade me from hitting back.
In those days, both of my parents leaned towards the peace and love end of the political spectrum. Neither believed that violence solved problems. They tied my hands and told me to reason with my attackers.
The bullies knew that and, looking back, I believe my reluctance to fight back made me a target.
To make matters worse, the house I grew up in sat away from the rest of the subdivision. That made me sort the odd kid out at the bus stop. I regularly found myself on the receiving end of intimidation. On really special days I got knuckle sandwiches as an after-school snack.
By about the fifth grade, my parents told me I could start fighting back. As a skinny, clueless, glasses-wearing geek, you can probably guess how well that worked out against the older, bigger and stronger kids.
I quickly learned the benefits of “stacking” the opponents when they ganged up on me. Yes, I learned that and many other hard lessons. Over time, I got better at fighting when I absolutely had to. What’s more, I grew to appreciate the taste of my own blood. I certainly tasted it enough.
Things began to change early my freshman year in high school.
It started one morning with a kid a couple of years younger than me putting a wire hangar around my throat and choking me with all his strength. This happened as I sat directly behind the bus driver who was supposed to “protect” me from abuse.
I managed to turn around the keep the wire off my neck. Meanwhile, the kid still tugged hard on the hangar, which now pulled against the back of my neck. I reared back and hit the kid solidly in the nose.
I connected well. Something cracked under my fist and blood poured out of his nose and mouth like a faucet. Of course, he howled.
Minutes later at school, I went directly to the assistant principal’s office. I told him what happened and said I couldn’t ride that bus any more. Later I saw the ligature bruises on my throat in the bathroom mirror. I had a bigger problem though.
My attacker had an older brother. Far worse, the older brother earned his reputation as the biggest bully on the bus.
In the end, my old man and the assistant principal had a little pow-wow. I have no idea what was said, but I never saw my attacker or his older brother on that bus again.
Frankly, I didn’t ride that bus but a few more times during my school career. After that day, my mom or dad usually dropped me off an hour or two before school and spent that time in the computer lab. Or later, I drove myself.
Looking back, other incidents happened occasionally including a couple of baseball bat attacks. They hit me and when I had a chance, I hit them back. It seemed only fair. The bullying pretty much ended as a direct result of the judicious application of fisticuffs and “unfair” fighting techniques.
In adulthood, I’ve worked for many years to sharpen my skill sets and add to them with training. I can paper walls with all the training certificates. Years of work means I do okay with handguns, rifles and knives. About three and a half years ago, I took up Krav Maga earning my yellow and orange belts and will soon probably test for green.
While some people take golf or tennis lessons, I train to improve altogether different skills. Those other people can play golf. I prefer to study the art of self-protection. In doing so, I’ve become a hard target for bullies. And what stops bullies also stops criminals.
I don’t hide my skills under a bushel basket. I share them. For twenty years now, I’ve shared my passion for self-protection. My fellow instructors and I have taught thousands how to protect themselves against attack and I find it incredibly gratifying. Not only have my skills kept me from falling victim to bullies and criminals, they’ve done the same for more than a few of our students.
One student used his pistol to thwart a drunken knife-wielding thug in his living room. Several more dealt with home intrusions successfully. Others have avoided or survived criminal attack in public. Helping good people avoid becoming victims gives me a great deal of satisfaction. We’ve helped save good peoples’ lives. That’s a noble and gratifying endeavor.
So now you know why I love gun ownership. Now you know why I fight so hard to defend your right to defend yourself. Bullies respect force, not stern words or finger-wagging.
What do I carry? First off, I carry a strong survival mindset. I avoid trouble, and if it finds me, I will never submit or stop fighting using the tools and techniques I’ve learned, practiced and mastered. Yes, I carry a pistol that shall remain nameless. OpSec demands discretion today. I also carry an impressive folder and sometimes a fixed blade as well.
In addition, I’ve traded my karambit for another gun. While the karambit has great versatility and looks fearsome, a (second) handgun deploys more easily.
My troubles were not nearly as severe, but I know exactly where you’re coming from re: bullying.
I have only one criticism: you should never not carry a serviceable knife. Although karambits aren’t super useful as tools, so there’s that.
Karambits are exceptional tools, that’s what they were made for. They are working knives. The smaller ones that most people carry make fairly poor fighting knives in all but the most trained hands.
I yield to your experience.
The only karambits I’ve seen people carry are pretty small, more like tactical bling than anything, and I’ve never seen anyone do anything useful with one.
And now that I think about it, they could make excellent working knives. Some things they wouldn’t be good at, but the inward curved blade would be great for cutting, like a miniature scythe.
I don’t usually go for bendy-trendy knives, but I’ve been carrying the small Kabar TDI in my front pocket (really) for about 2 years now. I know that those knives caught a bunch of bad reviews, but I feel like its a good for those who can fight a bit, but know nothing about real defense with a knife (meaning, me). Weave, punch, bob, dodge, punch. It’s shape actually makes it very comfortable as a pocket carried fixed blade knife. Just info if you like the idea of the krambit, but can’t figure out how to make it work for you. I’m sure are those that disagree. I think it would work for me should I need it. Due to work, I’m not able to carry my pistol everywhere. I think its a good alternative.
“but the inward curved blade would be great for cutting, like a miniature scythe”
Yup, it was modeled after a cat’s claw, and it does very good at the cutting and ripping tasks a claw would do. It’s historical use was working in the field, and as a guy who’s spend a lot of time cutting herbs in a field, that curved “miniature scythe” is still the perfect shape today.
Fighting karambits are a real thing, but they are much larger than what most people carry. The reason why the ones most people carry aren’t particularly good fighting implements is that the blades are just too small to reach vital organs. That means that you will need to hit arteries and tendons that are closer to the top, like the neck. That really limits your options, whereas a straight pointy blade can just poke in deep anywhere, move around and do damage.
Of course, people who are really good with the karambits are absolutely deadly, but it takes speed and a lot of deception to make them effective.
I always preferred the nut-kick or throat punch to quell aggressors. To each their own I suppose.
I got picked on until I joined the wrestling team in 8th grade.
I was a shitty wrestler, but boy, the guys taught me how to fight DIRTY. First time I ever took a guy down and bit his balls was the LAST time I ever got jumped.
I guess I am lucky. The only two people I’ve hit were family members, and although I was taunted and picked on, I can’t say that I was bullied. So I never learned to fight (except for fencing), and after 61 years, I ain’t gonna neither; I would surely come out on the short end of THAT stick. Should the occasion ever arise, lead slugs will have to do my talking for me.
You get old, it HURTS to fight. Old man won’t fight you.
Old man will kill you.
Yup, plus, I guarantee you my attorney is better than the other guy’s, and I’ve likely got enough cash to beat the rap.
I confess I was something of a bully. as a yout. Probably because I was bigger than my older brother from age 5. But I don’t get the evil kill your victim or destroy his life. And I’ve told my sons you don’t take ANYTHING. Anyways thanks for everything you do for Illinois and us poor souls stuck here.
Giving kids permission to fight back and, even better, teaching little kids how to fight back can be truly life-changing. For little kids there’s a sense of self-empowerment that comes with those lessons that will stay with them the rest of their life.
I gave both my sons permission to defend themselves. They were like but we’ll get suspended dad. I was like so?
Good article. Personally I never really dealt with being seriously bullied so I can’t imagine how awful that is at that age.
I started martial arts pretty young but didn’t really take defensive firearms seriously until I was in my early 20’s and lived in an area where you learned the value of a handgun pretty quick. These days I worry more about the kind of thing that just happened (probably I guess, nothing confirmed in the way of reasons behind what’s being reported) in Manchester, England which is why I’ve expanded past just carrying a gun/knife/continuing with martial arts.
None of that personal preparedness would have helped much for those in Manchester.
Current reports indicate a homicide bomber, and they know the ident. of the attacker…
If you don’t get splattered you can help those who got semi-splattered instead of standing around with your foot in your dick or running away.
i just subconciously changed positions. i didn’t realize i contorted that way. pretty comfy, though.
But how is advising the President on the Second Amendment coming along? Where’s the NFA amnesty?
Hahahaha!
The NFA is NOT going away. Sorry.
Be happy you are getting to keep your semi-autos and pump guns.
I’d settle for another 90 day amnesty like the poorly publicized one in 1968, which never happened before or since…
Zero gun laws are going to be changed under Trump. He’s a corrupt douche that has no idea what he is doing and the Republicans in general can’t even pass a balanced budget let alone change gun laws. They are big government moral-less cowards and the Democrats are going to bury them under investigation litigation until 2020. Best we can hope for is Ginsberg dying before Republicans lose control.
I voted for Trump but I agree with everything you said. I’m afraid he’s going to be a YUGE disappointment …..
All in all, probably true.
Also true: Trump is doing a great job of not being Hillary Clinton, and if we get nothing else out of him, we should still be thankful for that.
I was absolutely certain Mr. Boch was gonna say he carried a Springfield XD
For parents who have children facing this bully issue Gracie Academies offer a threat-specific “Bullyproof” course to deal with the problem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybQ__WdAqvE
It’s not Krav Maga, but then you don’t really want your kid to cause permanent damage, do you? Stop the threat, get out of Dodge.
We actually worry about this with the kid’s classes at the Gracie school I attend.
Here in Colorado many schools consider fighting back in any way to be as bad or worse than the actual assault.
Literally the schools around here often teach kids that the only acceptable thing to do when physically attacked is curl up in the fetal position and wait for a teacher or administrator to break it up. Intentionally making contact with your attacker makes you just as bad, or as I said, sometimes worse and the schools are not afraid to file serious criminal charges against a kid who defends them-self.
It’s really rather disgusting.
It isn’t just Colorado…it’s pretty much national at this stage. Call me a tin foil hat guy, but based on experiences with my own kids the schools are doing all they can to teach a entire generation that only someone else, a third party and exclusively a person of authority, can solve their issues for them. Should they take matters into their own hands, or (heaven forbid) defend themselves against a physical or emotional attack, they will be punished equally to the aggressor. I like to call it Statism Indoctrination 101.
Children are natural born learners. And “we”, as a country, have pretty much taught way too many of them to be snowflakes. POTG need to do our part and pass on the skills to survive and thrive in the real world. And I’m not just talking about gun stuff either.
Things have changed (or are just different where I’m from). When I was in 5th grade, a couple of kids kept stealing my lunch. I’d get it back. I got annoyed and told them “if you do it again, I’m going to stab you with my pencil.” One of them did it again. I went after him. He ran. I didn’t let him make a liar out of me. I stabbed him repeatedly. This was all in the classroom. The teacher came back in and asked what was going on. I told her. The other guy got chastised. I didn’t have much trouble with bullies after that, and I was significantly smaller than almost everyone else.
I can’t believe your parents made you suffer that kind of ridicule for five years, that sucks. I remember the first day of first grade someone smashed my new superman lunchbox. I went home and my mother asked me where my lunchbox was, so I told her what happened. She told my dad when he got home and he gave me a long talk about self defense vs. being a bully. How I shouldn’t hit anyone first without warning (that changed as I got older) and those sort of things. Then he told me the next day when we all went outside to play, that if he came anywhere near me to smash his lunchbox…over his head. I remember telling him that his was metal (the one I had smashed was plastic) and he looked at me, smiled and said “try anyway.”
Well, the next day came and the inevitable happened…I got detention and after that, for some reason that kid never picked on me, nor would he pick on anyone else when I could see.
I also remember watching The Shootist with my dad when I was young and when John Wayne said “… I won’t be wronged. I won’t be insulted. I won’t be laid a-hand on. I don’t do these things to other people, and I require the same from them.” He’d just look at me and nod a little.
The only thing worse than a bully is the parents who don’t teach their kids to stand up to them…Im glad yours finally did.
My dad told me “you never throw the first punch, but once they have you make sure they don’t get back up.” Luckily I never had to try it, even though I was one of the smallest kids in my class I never really got bullied.
My grandfather (a veteran of three wars) told me “If you know for sure you’re about to get in a fight, throw the first punch and follow it up with a shot to the balls”
Yeah, I got that talk in third grade…lol. He told me almost the same thing, it was something along the lines of if you know its gonna happen, hit him first, hit him hard and keep hitting him until he’s in a ball crying or knocked out.
I love my dad!
To be fair, some parents just don’t realize how evil some kids can be. If you’ve never been bullied, you have no idea.
And I’m convinced that school teachers and administrators will never be able to straighten out most bullies. They are sneaky, cunning, and figure out how to perpetrate their treachery without being detected. To their teachers, they seem like nice kids, and their parents are just as clueless.
Sadly, it seems like teaching the victims to fight back is the only answer.
I’ve always been a protector against the bullies. From 4th grade on through 11th grade I hit my growth early, so I was generally a head taller and fifty pounds heavier than the other kids, all of it muscle and bone, so I kept the bullies from messing with the smaller kids.
Fortunately, this was back when fighting against bullies was accepted and allowed by the school administration. Now? I would hate to be in public school as a student now adays.
Home school people!
Opsec? Really? Lame.
Yeah… my middle and high schools were not too understanding about me fighting off bullies. For some reason, the cretins thought that the skinny Russian with glasses and broken English would be a fun target to pick on. Even after I sent one of them to the hospital. Got a nice five day vacation out of that one. Then junior year rolled around and I started putting on body mass. Funny how the bullies never thought it was a good idea to pick on me after that.
Is anyone surprised Boch was bullied? After reading that article where he can’t handle a 3 inch 12 gauge I thought it was apparent.
I was bullied pretty hard. Despite my parents telling me (in front of the principle even) to hit the kid, I held myself to the don’t throw the first punch rule. That pussy never would.
I finally escaped the situation in high school and learned to handle myself a bit. The kid saw me cutting my grandpas lawn- and threatened to mess with my sickly grandpa. I shoved his ass D his bike and halfway across the yard and made it very clear what I’d do if I even heard a rumor about him doing that. Never had any more problems. Grandpa apparently had watched it happen through the window. When I came in the house after I finished up he asked me if everything was ok. I told him yes and told him to tell me if he had any problems with the kid. He just shrugged and said “ok”. But i will always remember the look in his eyes. A mix of curiosity, a bit of concern but lots of pride and respect.
I will never let my son or daughter be in that situation. They will learn to grapple and fight with me-and the proper time to do so.
I’ve seen all of the EDC pocket dumps and all of high speed/low drag operator advice on how to operate operationally; what I don’t see very much of at all in this wonderful advice is the use of pepper spray in the force escalation continuum. Curious, no? Yeah, I’m probably just not as enlightened or hard guy enough. My bad. Sorry to bring it up. BTW, I don’t care for bullies very much either and have had a modest amount of experience mitigating them successfully. It’s good to have options and more than one tool in your tool box. To have to go from zero to homicide seems a little limiting and could well set one up for some seriously time consuming, cripplingly expensive and unintended consequences. Just a thought.
I bumped pepper spray from my EDC a few years ago to make room for a serious flashlight. However, I do miss it. It has decent range, decent intimidation and can be used for stand off. It keeps some things from even happening, can be used when greater force is unwarranted, and tends to have a chilling effect on further trouble when used.
The problem I’ve found is that it leaves too many people still upright, aggressive and wanting to engage in violence.
A high power light is more useful generally, does some of the same things as spray and the type I carry makes a fairly good impact weapon.
I miss the spray, but even for someone with a massive EDC load out like mine, there are just limits to what can be carried.
“force escalation continuum”…When a predator closes in on a victim I just don’t see a whole lot of time for an exchange of pleasantries and how’s your momma doing.
If I was an officer of the law I would carry the full gambit of force escalation (mace, taser, baton ect). As I am only a private citizen I will do my best to avoid bad situations and deconflict as best I can using words like a reasonable person. If that fails I will resort to overwhelming my opponent. The rest of my edc usually fits the balance between need vs size/weight restraints. I am not kitted up like a ninja nor am I defenseles .
“In my childhood, I got picked on a lot.”
Me too. As a half-assed intellectual prodigy, I was younger and smaller than everyone else in my class, and of the wrong ethnic group to boot. But then, in 6th grade, I snapped and kicked the schoolyard bully’s ass from one end of the yard to the other. It took three teachers to pull me off of him, and from that time on through high school I had a “reputation.” It served me well.
Now that I’m old, I prefer to just shoot the bastard. And if I have to, I will.
I was in a similar situation. I was put into school a year early for the same reasons. Being a full year younger than everyone else in your grade makes a huuuuuge difference when you’re in elementary school. I got picked on, but it was mostly verbal. I could actually hold my own physically because I had/have an older brother and we fought *constantly* (and that cannot be understated). My teachers and parents recognized the bullying though, and decided to hold me back in 4th grade. After that, it just stopped.
Then my dad introduced me to guns. At first, it was just small stuff: pistol-whipping teachers, celebratory fire at recess, you know. Just kidding- that last sentence wasn’t true. At all.
I don’t have my TX CHL yet since I just moved here, but when I get it, I’ll be carrying because I recognize and acknowledge that safety is MY responsibility, and as they say, “When seconds count, the police are just minutes away.”
Thanks Boba, for that laugh. And welcome to Texas!
My first of two bullies was in middle school. I was 5′ 6″ or so, weighed about 135. He was 6′ and about 220. All I could hope to do was avoid him, which didn’t always work. Eugene was a special needs kid before they had that classification, but he knew not to cause permanent harm. The other was Dontravious or some such nonsense. He was about 6′ and about 180, much more ripped than Eugene. Mean son of a bitch. My 9 year old son has just been bullied by a friend of a friend that’s only a little bigger than him. Wife called the parents before I could tell him to pop the fecker in the nuts and head but him in the nose. Thinking he needs an attack cat to keep in his book bag….
Crap, I had to fight my way to school, at school and going home from school, so be it. Means nothing. I train with firearm experts, self protection and shoot golf, so what. It depends on how you strut and keep alert, that’s all folks.
I remember getting beat up almost every week as a third grader. One day after a game of baseball I was confronted by my main tormentor, a much older boy, so using the tool at hand, a baseball bat, I stood up for justice. The next day I got the shit beat out of me by 5 older kids. Learned an important lesson, if it must come to fighting make sure you truly stop the threat.
I was homeschooled for a few years, freshman year of highschool was my first year back. Got suspended the second week for punching a bully in the mouth in class. My dad and I went out for pizza afterwards. My dad is awesome.
I’m every bit of 5’8 and 135lbs now at 40 and I haven’t shrunk. I was, like Ralph, something of an intellectual prodigy, and like Bob, started school an entire year early. I was underage, undersized, vociferous and frankly just far, far ahead of the poor, mean rednecks who made up the bulk of my classmates. I went to a school where football and your relative ability at it was the sole indicator of your worth, and since I didn’t like football or authority, I was even further on the outside.
I’ve been up against some pretty tight spots and some pretty nasty people as an adult, and I say truthfully, that I haven’t felt real, visceral fear in any of it, or about anything since perhaps my sophomore year in HS. They literally beat and intimidated me to the point that something slipped in my mind and my ability to experience fear changed. With no disrespect to our military veterans, I walked out of HS with a damaged fear response, hyper vigilance, occasional paranoia, free anxiety and bouts of depression and rage that look suspiciously like PTSD.
However, my reformed fear response is a certain calm and the realization that the only way to not continue on to abject terror is to attack, intelligently and strategically, but viciously and without restraint.
My EDC includes a brace of pistols, 2 spare mags, a powerful light, a stout knife. My training is extensive, including bits of many popular shooting, knife and empty handed fighting.
I have been studying the selection, maintainence and use of my gear and skills with the neurotic zeal of a person who is literally betting their life on them, for almost my entire life.
I joke that now, after so many years and skills and tools, that I’m the street monster, the thing you don’t want to run into in a dark alley. Maybe I’m whistling past the grave yard, maybe I’m that good, but I know that the only thing I’m really afraid of anymore is the idea of being made to feel fear, and the act of attempted intimidation makes me angry, really, really angry.
Anyway, F**k bullies, carry on, and good luck.
In most respects I was a lot like you when I was a kid. Didn’t much care for sports, was bookish and spent a lot of time in libraries. The only difference was that I was decidedly a red-neck. I didn’t look like it or act like it, but I knew how to fight and could defend myself against bullies quite well. Not bragging, but they always thought that since I wasn’t a jock, I’d be a push over. I wasn’t at all and always knew that I wasn’t. That kind of sense of empowerment comes from having confidence that you can defend yourself when necessary.
“Neither believed that violence solved problems.”
“So?” Mr. Dubois looked at her bleakly. “I’m sure the city fathers of Carthage would be glad to know that.”
” … I was not making fun of you personally; I was heaping scorn on an inexcusably silly idea — a practice I shall always follow. Anyone who clings to the historically untrue and thoroughly immoral doctrine that violence never settles anything I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and their freedoms.”
-Heinlein via Dubois, Starship Troopers
I was a pudgy youth til 8th grade when I shot up to 6’2″ and joined the wrestling team. I still had a few incidents of bullying, but they tapered off. In college I played rugby and studied tai-jutsu and iai-jutsu. My dad, who fought in WWII and Korea, was a POW in the former and Airborne in the latter, always said there was no such thing as a fair fight unless it was in a ring and had a ref. He said kick them when down so they stay down.
I am 50 now, and tell my 13 and 11 year old girls the same. Someone bullies you, f*@k them up. We’ll get ice cream while your suspended. My oldest had a boy threaten her for nude pics. She was afraid to tell me though I still learned about it. I told the principal as well as the resource officer (I know many of the local police), you handle this with the youth, or I will handle it with the youths dad. Problem went away.
as a bullied bully, i quite enjoyed this discourse.
with a high school graduation class of 1500 kids i saw all kinds of matchups. far and away, the girl fights were the most intense.
pops was ww1 navy, “if you get beat up, don’t come home.” too bad that didn’t guarantee a win. started school a year early as well. made damn sure my boy didn’t.
in the last seven years i’ve been messed with unprovoked twice. the results of those altercations make me smile a bit.
i would like to see the security video of the last one. a couple employees viewed it and told me, while slowly shaking their heads, “dude.”
Bullies don’t expect you to fight back, so there is definitely good reason to attack back if you can do so safely and confidently when you can’t get away quickly to get an authority or if you know that its your best chance of stopping further abuse. But you don’t want to escalate things if you don’t have to and make matters worse. I was hit plenty of times by older kids growing up. Several times my retaliation meant that instead of getting one kick to the balls or punch to the shoulder, I got pummeled into the floor as well. I grew up as a bit of a target in small school because of my interests, grades, glasses, etc. and was on the receiving end of plenty of attacks from getting jumped by two kids at once walking home, getting pelted with balls of ice at recess, being forced by the school gym teacher to wrestle a state champion who of course just put me into painful positions for everyone’s enjoyment rather than pinning me quickly and getting it over with, hit in the back of the head with footballs, etc. So I can relate to your situation.
I had a kid probably a good 1 1/2 times my size and 3 years older than me spit in my face when I was a freshman in high school on the bus. The bus was just about to stop at my house, so I quickly struck him as hard as I could on the nose and bolted. I got suspended from the bus for a week. My dad was completely cool about it when I explained myself. The school didn’t make that bully stop riding the bus, but he wasn’t there when I rode again.
The incident actually temporarily made things worse for me. I now had a reputation as someone you could goad into a fight. At lunch a football player purposely swiveled the ketchup while I was dispensing it for my potatoes and got it all over my shirt. I took my “boat” of ketchup and placed it neatly on top of his head upside down, smiled, and walked away. He didn’t mess with me, and his friends thought I was was hilarious. I still thought they were a bunch of assholes because, well, they were!
I can’t remember if it was the same day or not, but really soon there after another bully kicked my legs out from under me in gym class. The teacher wasn’t looking at the time but saw me getting up and didn’t do anything. Shortly there after the guy yanked down my pants (and underwear) when the teacher stepped out the room while we were in the middle of coed volleyball. When the teacher walked back in the room my ass was still hanging out (I managed to get the front part of my shorts up), and I was on the guy’s back slugging him repeatedly in the face. I got off, the teacher asked what was going on. The guy said nothing. He didn’t hit me we were just messing around.
Neither of us got in trouble, and I never was harassed in gym again.
When my kids were young we had a neighbor boy who was “worrisome” to us. We enrolled all the kids in the local Tae Kwon Do school. All moved up the ranks to earn their black belts.
I have to say, I have the nicest kids around. They never picked on anyone. Better yet, nobody ever picked on them.
If you have kids and have any worries about what they are running into in school, enroll them in some martial arts program. It is fun for them, teaches them to respect others and, once word gets out that they really can fight, nobody will mess with them.
I hate bullies too, but I don’t see what that has to do with concealed carry. You can use your gun only to prevent murder or imminent grievous bodily harm. You can’t shoot bullies, as satisfying as it may seem to be. The decades-old shoulder-chip of bully-resentment you are carrying around makes it especially important for you to be clear on the distinction.
Guns stop violent predators: murderers, rapists, robbers. Fists, words, and/or justice system stop bullies.
I’ve studied various martial arts from a very early age. My parent’s accepted it under the condition that I not get in any fights. As a result I had to allow myself to be “beat up” without fighting back. Truthfully, the neighborhood bullies could never dish out the physical punishment that I was taking through full contact sparring for fun. It was the mental punishment that hurt… I knew I could pound these kids but had to take their B.S in order to continue with a hobby that I loved. When I hit Sr. High my mom wasn’t able to protect them anymore. Scores were settled, lessons were taught, and paybacks were received. I learned a big lesson myself… None of it mattered. There was nothing cathartic about it, it didn’t improve my station in life, and I didn’t earn anyone’s respect. Fact is, I lost some; the bully of the bully is still a bully, and nobody likes a bully.
Ahh- high school…..
Walking home one day, get jumped by two guys because I’m white, and they were Mexican, and outnumbered me.
Spent the time not throwing any punches, just blocking as best I could.
Got my lip split, and nose bloodied.
“How are your teeth? Are they all still there?”
“Yes, mom”
Two weeks later, walking through the park, see one of them working on his bike in the driveway of his house.
Creep forward, grab the 2×4 from the pile of crap alongside the car in the driveway, an bring it down on his head/shoulders as hard as I can, kick him hard in the ribs, he screams, rolls into a ball. I prod him with my foot,
and tell him to look at me. He does. I hit him again. He catches it on his arm.
I tell him I will kill him the next time he, or any of his friends mess with me, because I (now) know where he lives.
He went to the hospital. Cops came to the front door of my house.
“No, officer, I didn’t hit anyone- I was playing Nintendo with a friend at his dad’s house.”
“What game?”
“Legend of Kage- it’s a ninja game”
“Thank you for your time”
Mom, dad, and step parents never mentioned it again.
From then on, I carried brass knuckles, but never got a chance to use them.
Both kids transferred schools at the end of the quarter- never saw them again.
ah…..good times…….
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