Self-Defense 101

Today I’m going to cover the basics of what you need to know in order to protect yourself legally after a confrontation has taken place. As it so happens, in order to protect yourself after the confrontation, you must take proper steps before the confrontation turns physical.

Sure, in later posts I will explain some techniques you can learn but in today’s litigation happy world you must learn how to protect yourself twice: once from your attacker and second from the attacking prosecutor should the incident lead to a court date.

As I mentioned in a previous post I highly recommend a book by Jerry Van Cook called Real World Self-defense: A Guide To Staying Alive In Dangerous Times that contains some very good advice on this subject and some subtleties that will probably shock you about our legal system and its enforcers.

So, how will you know that you’ve acted purely in self-defense and the judge will accept this defense for the crime of assault? As I stated previously, you must take steps to protect yourself before an encounter even begins. First you must avoid the confrontation if you can; walk away from the individual, drive away, or walk into a store where many people are. If you see a group of teenagers hassling people passing by your usual route, take another way home. If you cannot avoid it you must try to escape from the situation; if you are engaged by the individual, try to talk your way out of it and walk or drive away. If you are unable to escape from the situation you are in and cannot help but physically defend yourself then your only choice is to resist and use whatever self-defense techniques you feel are necessary to stop the attack upon you. However you must use only enough force to stop the attacker. Once the initial attack has been neutralized you must stop whatever offensive actions you took or else you may also end up being guilty of assault.

By taking the above steps you will be able to step into a court of law and tell the judge that there is no doubt you acted in self-defense. You did everything you could to talk your way out of a situation and avoid a confrontation. You had no choice but to punch the attacker several times to protect yourself (or someone else). Potential witnesses can also help you by corroborating your story about how you did everything possible to avoid a fight. Of course, witnesses can also give you hassles if you don’t take the proper steps while deciding when to act. More on this later.

Not only must you take your own actions into account but your potential attackers’. To aid in your legal defense of self-defense three things must be in place in relation to your potential attacker: He must have the ability to cause you harm; you must show that he had the intent of causing you harm; and the means to harm you.

There is an acronym I was taught to help me remember these steps: AIM

Ability: The opportunity to do you harm.
Intent: The intention of the attacker to harm you.
Means: The skills, or weapons, with which to do you harm.

For example, if you’re a fit 25 year old who accidently bumps into a 60 year old man and he makes some threatening remarks and gestures and you hit him and try to claim self-defense it most likely won’t hold up because your use of force was most likely too much for the circumstances. In this case the elderly man had the intent and probably the ability to harm you, but not the means due to your superior physical attributes.

However, if someone brandishes their fist and makes a threatening gesture and they are telling you that they are going to pound your face into hamburger and they are within arm’s length of you, then this situation contains all three: the individual has the ability, intent, and means to do you bodily harm and you felt it best to respond with a preemptive attack.

Of course, now we come to the reality of the witness. What they will tell the authorities varies on their particlar vantage point and distance from the encounter.

Let’s say, for example, that one witness tells police that you hit the man first because he made a physical and verbal threatening gesture but the witness who was standing behind you did not see the gesture and was too far away (or too hard of hearing) to hear the verbal threat. Now, it comes down to your word against the attacker’s. And the attacker has a witness (however wrong the witness may be, that’s what the police report will say) on his side. Not good for you.

One method of making sure any witnesses see the person attack you is to allow them to hit or grab you first and you employ your defensive abilities thwarting the attack. In this way, there should be no doubt that you were being attacked and had to defend yourself. Now the witness will (hopefully) see that you were the one in the right.

Some might discard this advice, but if you are properly trained and position yourself correctly, it can be done. Though it also depends on the situation. If the attacker is much bigger you might have an easier chance in court due to the disparity is size. On the other hand, if it is found out that you are a trained martial artist there is a common belief that martial artists are “deadly” and can take on hulking opponents and so it is possible for your training to be used against you. Being up against a much larger opponent, perhaps you decide to use an eye strike and a powerful palm strike up under the chin, knocking back the opponent’s head, jolting his vertebrae. In this case, the man comes into court with a neck brace and the prosecutor uses your martial arts training against you and asks why you used so much force. “Couldn’t you have just used a judo move to trip him, stopping his advance?” he asks you while you’re on the witness stand. “You’re a highly trained expert in [insert your particular marital art here] and you’re a third degree black belt; you’re a lethal weapon. Surely you could’ve used much less force in defending yourself.”

Thus is the reality of true self-defense.

In fact, in Arizona it is illegal to fire a preemptive attack and claim self-defense because of a verbal threat alone. The ARS (Arizona Revised Statues) state:

13-404. Justification; self-defense

A. Except as provided in subsection B of this section, a person is justified in threatening or using physical force against another when and to the extent a reasonable person would believe that physical force is immediately necessary to protect himself against the other's use or attempted use of unlawful physical force.

B. The threat or use of physical force against another is not justified:

1. In response to verbal provocation alone; or

2. To resist an arrest that the person knows or should know is being made by a peace officer or by a person acting in a peace officer's presence and at his direction, whether the arrest is lawful or unlawful, unless the physical force used by the peace officer exceeds that allowed by law; or

3. If the person provoked the other's use or attempted use of unlawful physical force, unless:

(a) The person withdraws from the encounter or clearly communicates to the other his intent to do so reasonably believing he cannot safely withdraw from the encounter; and

(b) The other nevertheless continues or attempts to use unlawful physical force against the person. [1] (emphasis mine)

Due to each state having different self-defense laws it’s best if you look up your state’s self-defense laws so you are prepared should anything happen, and you know what you can and cannot do, and when you can legally claim self-defense. There are many grey areas and sometimes you can get into trouble even if you fully believed you were completely justified in using force, but if you follow the above advice you should be OK and have the best chance possible of pleading self-defense should it come down to that.

I recommend talking with your lawyer about the actions you can take in self-defense. The internet can also be a good place provided you go to a reliable source. Your states’ statues will likely be online (which is how I found the statute for the AZ law above) which might make things easier. Another resource is books. One I have that is pretty good, though dated now, is called The Law and Martial Arts, by Carl Brown. It seems to contain some pretty good basic information and some interesting things to think about. Though I believe that some of his beliefs are a bit out there about how the state might treat martial artists in the future, like having to disclose your marital arts training for fear of being charged with carrying a “deadly weapon.” But overall it is a decent resource.

I hope the above advice is helpful and I’d like to end this piece by saying that I am not a lawyer; I am only repeating the little legal advice I was taught during my years of training.

Good luck and stay safe out there.


1. Arizona Revised Statues - accessed 9-5-10