We’ve all heard the saying: When seconds count, the police are only minutes away. But what does this mean to you and your safety?
All law enforcement agencies have an average response time to emergency calls in their jurisdiction. This is the time from when a call is received at the dispatch center until the first unit arrives on the scene. In small cities, that time may be as short as three to five minutes. In larger cities it may be 10 to 20 minutes, or more. Rural areas may be 15 to 30 minutes, or even as long as an hour for remote areas. This of course is an average and you may have an officer patrolling around the corner or every on-duty officer could already be tied up with an emergency and the responding officer will be coming from a neighboring agency. And no, living next to a donut shop will not guarantee a quick response.
Realize that when an officer is dispatched to an emergency call, they are going to do everything in their power to get there as quickly as possible. I know from my experience as an officer and the officers I worked with, we understood the urgency for the person on the other end of a 911 call. All the officers I’ve ever known and continue to be associated with in one form or another are dedicated to getting to you as fast as they can. If you don’t believe it, look up the statistics of officers injured and killed every year responding to calls for help.
So, best-case scenario you are probably looking at around three to five minutes. How long is that? As a comparison, a professional boxing round is three minutes. How do these professional athletes look after three minutes? If you’ve never tried to fight for three minutes straight, it can be pretty eye opening. Find a gym where you can put on the gloves and all the proper protection and go as hard as you can against an able opponent for one round. It’s a lot harder than you think. In real life you are going to be in a fight for your life and may be facing multiple, armed attackers in your home or on the street. In real life, there are no helmets, no padded gloves and no bell at the end of three minutes.
Now I’m going to toss in another variable that no one ever talks about. That average response time is AFTER someone calls for help. If you are alone and attacked, you’re not going to be picking up the phone and calling 911 while you’re fighting for your life. If there’s someone else with you who is physically able, chances are they’ll be helping you. It’s likely going to take at least a third person or uninvolved witness to see what’s going on AFTER an attack has started to recognize you need help to dial 911.
Why is this important? That time between the BEGINNING of the attack through when someone calls 911 to initiate the response and until the first officer is on the scene is all about YOU. It’s you having to defend yourself with whatever you have at your disposal.
If you are a member of society’s elite, a million/billionaire or political heavyweight, you’ve got at least one person or an entire team of heavily armed professionals whose only job is to keep you safe. You’ll probably weather most any type of attempted attack completely unscathed.
For the rest of us, our personal safety is our own responsibility. The police cannot be everywhere to protect us and quite frankly, we wouldn’t want to live in a society where we were under close government scrutiny 24 hours a day. Read George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four if you’d like a hint on how this world would look.
Each of us must all be responsible for the safety of our families and ourselves. This starts with not putting yourself in situations where you can easily become a victim and becoming a hard vs. soft target. It also means having the absolute best force multiplier you can safely, responsibly and effectively deploy on your person and ready – and willing – to use. Most importantly, it means having the right mental attitude to fight for your life or your family’s life when you have minutes to wait for help to arrive.
Bob
#oddstuffing #whensecondscount #responsetime #hardtarget #2ndamendment