When seconds count, police are only minutes away … or hours… no matter how short the distance….
Quotes from the press, comments, and the lesson:
“The police arrived at an island massacre about an hour and a half after a gunman first opened fire, slowed because they didn’t have quick access to a helicopter and then couldn’t find a boat to make their way to the scene just several hundred yards offshore. The assailant surrendered when the police finally reached him, but 68 people died before that.” — By Ian Macdougall and Louise Nordstrom / The Associated Press
“Footage filmed from a helicopter that showed the gunman firing into the water added to the impression that the police were slow to the scene. They chose to drive, Sponheim [Police Chief] said, because their helicopter wasn’t on standby.” — By Ian Macdougall and Louise Nordstrom / The Associated Press
So there was a helicopter in the air, over the island, but no one in the police force could think of ordering it to pick them up, and drop them off at the island. Police have those powers, you know, they just would have to think, and that’s the trouble.
According to police, it took 23 minutes from receiving calls from the island to dispatching a SWAT team from Oslo, which then took 42 minutes to reach the island (and 15 more minutes to find the shooter).
The cause of the police’s slow response to the massacre
The response was so slow because, “People at the camp … trying to call Norway’s emergency services [were] told to keep off the line unless they’re calling about the Oslo bomb.” — By Shawn Pogatchnik / Associated Press
See, the Oslo bomb exploded outside the building that houses the prime minister’s office. Some ordinary people being shot is a low priority matter for the police. If the law in Norway is like the law in the U.S.A., then police there have no duty to provide protection to any individual citizen. Their duty is to protect those who pay them — no, not the taxpayers like you — but those who distribute taxpayers’ money to the police.
The lesson: You are on your own, and if your unalienable right to means of self-defense is violated by some government, the police will be busy making sure you are disarmed and set up to be a victim. In case that happens, the police are ready to come later and write a report. Then they will have pizza or doughnuts.
Self-defense tip from Thomas Kurz, co-author of Basic Instincts of Self-Defense and author of Science of Sports Training, Stretching Scientifically, and Flexibility Express.
Self-Defense Moves
To learn how your natural reactions can instantly defeat any unarmed attack, see the video Basic Instincts of Self-Defense.
Defend Against Weapons
To learn how the typical street weapons (club, knife, razor) are used by an experienced streetfighter and how to practice with them, see the video Self-Defense: Tools of Attack — Club, Hatchet, Blackjack, Knife, Straight Razor.
Mental Toughness
To learn mental techniques that let you calmly face any threat and act rationally in the heat of a fight, click here.
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