Violent Criminal Actors - Wrap Up

Well, as I said at the beginning of the DVD, William, I really do think you're one of the true experts, one of the few experts in this area, in our community and I really appreciate you being here. In talking about violent criminal actors, there's a lot of, I think surprising information, but it's insightfully surprising in that now, hopefully it can shift some perspectives and people can take this information and have it affect the way they train. If you were gonna emphasize two or three points about these violent predators, what would they be? I think the first is that taking their perspective, their view of the world, is incredibly important and it's often overlooked. It's far too easy to brush the violent criminal actor off as crazy and that's not helpful at all, because there is a process going on that even involves ethics and morality, not ones that we share, but a parallel process.

There's a parallel moral universe and a parallel behavioral universe and we have to appreciate it because we intersect with it all the time. I think the implications for training are pretty strong. We have to have much more robust and much more organic response sets. It can't be about technical skill applied under perfect pristine conditions. They have to be available, adaptable, flexible.

And I think, our thinking has to get much more flexible. Our thinking about our own process, our thinking about the decisions we've made, the decisions are not permanent. Though they may seem entrenched and we've gone over them again and again, we can revisit our own practice and review the choices we've made to see if they align with the world as it is not as we would hope it would be, or as we presume it is. You know, a very important point is that our consent, as the good guys, our understanding, are not relevant. Processes are underway that can involve us whether we like it or not.

It's a little bit like being thrown in the ocean, whether you believe in it or not, or think it was fair or not, you still get wet. Well, those are great points and important points. As we think about, summing it up, the higher level and deeper level, really important foundations of our personal defense. It's not just the gear, it's not just the drills, it's really the reasons that we're doing this in the first place, that we've been talking about. I really appreciate your information, your research, your work, and thank you for sharing some of it with us today.

Thanks for having me.