When it comes to personal defense, you have to ask yourself this question: will I choose to be safe or will I become a statistic? Today, many victims of assault could have prevented an attack by being prepared. What if you were handed the car keys as soon as you turned sixteen without any education or practice driving? That would be an accident waiting to happen. But many times we make that same mistake with our own self defense. The universal conundrum of most victims is that they never imagined that something like an attack would happen to them. According to the National Crime Victimization Survey, 68% of all rapes in the US were perpetrated by someone the victim knew: 47% of the perpetrators were a friend or acquaintance of the victim, 17% were an intimate partner, and 3% were a family relative.
The greatest weapon in your arsenal of self-defense is awareness. According to recent studies, a woman gains an 86% chance of avoiding the rape and additional injury simply by fighting back. Just like any other skill, we need to prepare mentally and physically so we don’t become one of these statistics:
- A woman is raped every 46 seconds in America… that’s 78 rapes each hour!
- Every day, four women are killed by their abusive partners
- 25% of girls and 17% of boys will be sexually assaulted by the time they are 18 years old
- 14% of all American women acknowledge having been violently abused by a husband or boyfriend
- 75% of domestic homicides occur after the victim has left the perpetrator
- 28% of all homicides of women are domestic violence related
- 95% of reported domestic assaults the female is the victim and the male is the perpetrator
- 70% of every rape is committed by a man that the victim knows
- 25% of rapes take place in a public area or a parking garage
It’s time to take action, not only for you, but for your family and loved ones. Whether it’s pepper spray, stun guns, training DVDs, or firearms, make sure that you don’t become another statistic.
Safety Girl Blog 