A while back my local paper reported a disturbing incident. At a local bar, a dispute over access to a pool table turned ugly. Two men got into a “fight,” if you can call it that: One of them punched the other just once in the jaw.
The guy who got punched died.
Just like that, from a single blow: he’s dead.
The same thing happened more recently, too. After a softball game, an ex-convict with a bad attitude waited while the two teams were shaking hands after it was all over. He’d been arguing with the same guy during the game, and when he saw his chance, he took it. He punched that guy as hard as he could in the back of the head. The fellow who was punched died.
Those who advocate the preemptive strike understand the incredibly high stakes of every physical encounter. The human body is at once remarkably resilient and surprisingly fragile. Human beings shot or stabbed, incurring what should have been mortal wounds, have at times ignored grievous injury to the horror of those fighting them. At the other end of that spectrum are incidents like this one, in which a single, stupid, barroom fist thrown in anger left one man dead and another charged with manslaughter.
Because our society places so much emphasis on the question of “who threw the first punch,” preemptive strikes represent a very legally sensitive aspect of self-defense. Only the presence of a credible threat of harm can justify a preemptive strike, but this is no guarantee. We will assume, in discussing such strikes, that you have done your homework, understand the consequences, and would only strike first if you were reasonably and credibly in fear for your life.
So: with that said, in the presence of such a threat, what should you do? Do you dare give your enemy the chance to hit you first? It would certainly give you an advantage in defending your actions should you go on to fight and defeat him.
Can you go on to defeat him if he’s killed you?
Many people respond to these hypothetical questions with the notion that we should simply prepare ourselves and conduct our lives in such a way as to completely avoid such scenarios, effectively preempting the need for preemptive strikes. This is the same logic that says, “If you’re worried about getting into bar fights, stay out of bars.” Well, this is true, up to a point — one should not court trouble.
One does not always get a choice, however.
Trouble, despite our best efforts, may find us anyway. No matter how well prepared we believe ourselves to be, there will be some eventuality we do not anticipate.
More importantly, and what those dismissing preemptive self-defense often miss, is the problem of error. Are you perfect? Have all the precautions you’ve always taken been successful 100 percent of the time? Have you never made a mistake, a miscalculation, or an honest-to-badness screw-up?
No matter how you try to avoid the need to strike first in certain situations, you may face those very scenarios. When you do, you will be faced with a choice: Should you strike first, or should you let your opponent strike you before taking physical action against him?
The tragedy I cited at the beginning of this column could be interpreted through the lens of either philosophy. You could theorize that the man who struck first did so out of genuine fear for his well-being — and you would conclude that his “preemptive strike” may well condemn him to live the rest of his life as a felon.
You could, however, theorize that the victim might well have seen the threat coming. He might have chosen to let his opponent initiate force, justifying retaliatory action — and that was the last choice he ever made on this Earth.
Can you afford the risk? Can you successfully avoid every scenario in which that risk exists?
There are no easy answers to questions like these. When facing someone who means you harm, however, understand the very grave possibility that the first strike in any physical altercation could be the only strike delivered.
Choose wisely.