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By Bradley J. Steiner, American Combato
Here indeed is a “first ever” question! It comes from a student who is a regular monthly visitor to all our web sites. We thought that this question—certainly deserving an answer—would be of serious interest to a lot of our regular readers; to include some teachers as well as students:
“How do you recommend handling a situation where an attacker seems to quit and give up after you initiate resistance but have not yet dis-abled him? It seems cruel to ignore his ‘giving up’ and just clobber him, anyway.”
First off, dismiss the “cruel” nonsense. What is cruel is starting violence against an innocent person. The only “cruelty” that we see is the attackers toward an innocent defender.
When someone initiates violence against another, except to preempt a dangerous, violent attack by an assailant, whatever he gets is his problem, his doing, and his responsibility.
We certainly do not suggest, recommend, or teach that force should be continued against an attacker once he has been neutralized and the danger is gone, but we believe that no proper defense has been achieved until and unless the danger is decisively ended, and the threat is gone.
A violent offender is no longer a threat if:
- He turns and physically flees
- His intended victim has created an opportunity for himself to safely flee the scene of the attack, and fleeing is clearly a feasible option at the time
- He has lost the capacity and the will to be any further danger to the intended victim. We do not see how or why a mere verbal “I give up!” or “I’ve had enough!” or “Stop, I surrender!”, etc. should cause a defender to cease aggressive action.
In COMPETITIVE SPORT, yes, it would be disgraceful and should be cause for immediate forfeiture of the contest to continue rendering punishment after one’s opponent gives up. But we are not concerned here with competitive sport or match contests.
An individual who is a violent felon ought to be assumed to be easily capable of lying, too. And the “words” that he utters should be ignored and dismissed (actually, your focus in defending yourself should be such that auditory exclusion takes place and you do not even hear the bastard!).
So long as that attacker remains physically capable and has not made any attempt to physically flee, continue your defensive actions. His words could easily be a ploy to give him a second to pull a knife or gun, or to recover and renew his attack against you—lethally.
Any extralegal violent offender must be stopped decisively before the defender is justified in ceasing his countering force against that attacker.
An individual who has initiated violence against an innocent person has NOT been “stopped decisively” just because he says that he “surrenders.”
You can be badly, permanently injured—even killed—when you are set upon by a violent offender. This has nothing to do with sport! Take no chances. If his “surrender” is a trick, you might end up dead.