For the past five years I worked in the hospitality business as a security officer. By now I have ceased to be amazed at how people behave about their own personal security. For whatever reason, guests arriving at a hotel seem to think that whatever precautions they usually take at home, do not apply while on vacation or business trip. Nothing can be further from the truth. If anything, you should be even more aware of your surroundings and take extra care of yourself. I would like to share some ideas about being safe at a hotel with you now.

First: You are responsible for your own security! This should be damn obvious by now, but as I said before some people just switch off the basic survival procedures during a vacation. Just so you know. Hotel Security is not there to protect you but to protect the interest of the hotel. That is our mandate.

Sure, we are “trained” to look after you and try to see that nothing happens to you but the undercurrent in that is that Hotels are highly allergic to lawsuits brought by guest. If by some legal or legislative trick hotels were to become immune to lawsuits, the first department to disappear would be Security. We are just a legal excuse so in court the hotel can prove to the jury they took “reasonable measures’ to provide a modicum of safety to the guest.

Now, what can you do to be safe in a Hotel?

1. Make sure your door is closed and that all the security devices attached to it are operational. Not a day goes by that during my rounds I find occupied room with doors open, occupants gone and expensive items in plain view. Laptops, Ipods, expensive watches, wallets and purses just ready to be plucked by an enterprising petty thief just because the guest left the room without making certain the door was firmly closed behind them.  And do the same before you go to sleep: check the damn door. I have found doors unsecured and female occupants deeply into the arms of morpheus ready to be sodomized or worse due to their carelessness. Use all latches and privacy dohickies that come with the lock and if you are still unsure, get one of those wedge rubber door stoppers which will provide one more layer of resistance in case somebody tries to kick in your door. You’d be surprised how weak a hotel door can be around the lock.
2. Use the room safe, it is there for a darn reason. Most hotels only allow Security or a Manager the master codes or equipment to bypass a locked safe and having a small pool of suspects in case of an item missing from a safe makes almost everybody be very honest. And let’s face it folks, we (Hotel personnel) know all the goodie spots where you can “hide” your stuff in a room. And you will forget where you hid your extra cash of expensive jewelry, will not remember until you are back home and will have to call the hotel to retrieve it and send it. That is if you are lucky enough and the room has not been rented to another guest that found your stuff and decided that “finders keepers” apply to your possessions.
3. Be smart about room keys.  Yes you heard all the Internet tales of magnetic card keys encoded with all your personal information included your DNA and the name of your first sweetheart, but the the real problem is being careless with your card as in losing it or damaging it. If you misplace your card, immediately go to the front desk and demand a new one and make sure you specify you do not want a duplicate. This is very important because a totally new card will eliminate the security encoding of the old one thus preventing anybody who might have found your card and want to use it to gain access to the room. Again, demand a New Card, not a Duplicate. Never write down your room number in your card or have it with anything that may indicate which room or even what floor you are staying in. There is no reason why you should make life easy for critters. And please keep the card away from cell phones and any electronic devices or anything with a magnetic field that will damage the card. The last thing you want to do is being alone in a hallway at the wee hours of the night with an bad key possibly becoming a target of a marauding criminal.  Request at least one extra card and have it as back up to avoid unnecessary trips to the Front Desk and have them send a New Key. This will also help you know if the key sent to you is really a new one or a duplicate: once you insert the new key, the old one will not work anymore. If after inserting the new key, the old one still work, call the Front Desk, raise merry hell demand a new one and then call the Corporate Office and let them know of the flagrant breach of security.

Next: Part 2 of How to be Safe In a Hotel

Question: You are home with your children and someone breaks in and threatens harm. You should:

1. Retrieve your firearm and defend your family.
2. Call 911 and wait for instructions while analyzing the situation, see if you may actually be in danger and comply with the attacker’s desires.

If you choose number 2, you are doing the right thing according to “expert” Kathy Olevsky. And I would recommend that you should have your local mortuary & insurance agent in your phone’s speed dial while you are at it because you will probably will need one of them in a hurry. Ms. Olevsky then continues her advice with the use of “you could use to assist yourself in your defense. An ordinary household object gives women more power. If you can pick up a lamp, a broom, a baseball bat, or a fireplace utensil, any of these items can be used to help you out.” Can you spot the obvious missing item? Yep, no guns in the list.

Ms. Olevsky is a  is a sixth-degree black belt in Karate and God Bless her for her achievement and dedication, but traditional Martial Arts are tough to learn, even tougher to master and, unfortunately no match for somebody with a gun with an intent to cause harm. In my younger years I was one of those kids who never missed an episode of Kung Fu, and watched in amazement Bruce Lee on the Green Hornet making mincemeat out of the Bad Guys. I was small in stature in those days and easy pickings for bullies at school who thought that it was fun to beat me once a day between Math class and Geography class. So, like many kids of my generation I begged, pleaded and cajoled to my parents about allowing me to join some dojo. My mother did not want his baby to be battered and bruised so she refused time and time again but I knew  I was making headway so I kept at it. And when I knew I was close to success, something happened that changed my young mind about martial arts and dumped the idea altogether. Back then in Venezuela, the top martial arts school was run by two brothers: The Plancharts. They were on TV weekly in sport shows demonstrating their abilities (and they were good) and people were lining around the block to register in a class. One weekend one of the Planchart brothers got accosted by a couple of miscreants and, unlike a Hollywood Happy Ending, Mr. Planchart tried to defend himself with his arts obtaining as result a bullet in his thigh and a very fast trip to the closest hospital.That was the end of my desire to learn Martial Arts.

To quote Tom Clancy in his book Clear and Present Danger: “Armed combat beats unarmed combat every day.” Guns have always been the great equalizer when a less physical or less prepared individual is forced to fight against a superior opponent. And also the amount of training time required is much less than with unarmed combat plus the fact that while somebody with a handicap would be hard pressed to apply difficult katas for self-defense, firearms manipulation is a rather simple mechanical enterprise.

There is this stupid sense of superiority that somebody is morally better if he or she goes through life’s challenges completely unarmed and should solve the problem of a violent offender by placing some good karate chops on him like we see in the movies. Unfortunately life thrives on reality where the Bad Guy will cheat to win and you need every resource to beat him at his game. There is no moral victory in laying dead on a morgue table, just sadness.

So, get your gun, practice, take defensive classes which will train you not only to shoot but to develop the proper mental stance not only to survive an encounter but also how to avoid them altogether. Forget about kimonos and tatamis and bowing to your opponent as means for self preservation, you wanna live at the end of the fight.

In defense Ms. Olevsky I have to add that she did point out something important and I quote: “Do this today, don’t wait until you could be attacked. Be prepared, not scared.”

I have no idea why, but and old memory found me this morning. Back in the early 90’s when I was living in certain South American country now under the firm grasp of a Socialist, massive riots and looting occurred. It was long four days of absolute collapse of the government basic services and control which I lived awake in coffee, cigarettes with a single shot shotgun and a Walther PPK on my waist. Thankfully our property was not affected by rioters since I already had a reputation for being somewhat crazy in Sheepland I was seen in more than one occasion experimenting with home made napalm) and an assiduous patrol kept miscreants pretty much away.

On the second day I was witness to a mob attacking a two story bodega about a two blocks away from my house. As typical of many bodegas in the country, it was owned and operated by one owner and his family and they had their living quarters on the upper floor.  It had no side or rear doors, just the front store gated entrance and side stairs connecting the second floor to the ground level.  I have no idea why the bodega was attacked but looters usually do not need one. When I noticed the attack it was already in progress and I fielded a pair of binoculars from the roof of my house to get a clearer picture. I was upset I what I saw since the looters were people that lived in the area, people that bought from that store and even got credit to purchase items from the owner when they did not have ways to pay for them, yet they thought it was OK to destroy his means of living.

The looters breached the store’s gates and proceeded inside. Seconds later they came out holding on the liquor and cigarettes while whooping their victory. After the booze and smokes were depleted, looters came back pretty much for the rest but this time I heard a firearm discharged sending everybody out running while dropping whatever items they had in their hand. The Bodega owner appeared with a big frame revolver in one hand, surveyed the damage and alongside his family recovered what little they could and proceeded for the next hour or so to secure the store entrance with whatever means they had available. Once they finished, they went inside and I returned to my patrol.

I’d say that about an hour later I checked the bodega again and I saw a large crowd in front. Their demeanor appeared angry and they were looking up at a window on the second story facing the front of the store. Through the barred window I saw a hand come out making go-away gestures but the crowd did not heed. Some in the mob once more attacked the store entrance, but I am guessing the reinforcement was much sturdier because they could not breach it this time. I kept watching the impasse silently congratulating the store owner for his stand when I saw something that chilled me: some idiot looter appeared suddenly with a Molotov cocktail and launched it towards the second story window. Thankfully it missed and hit the wall creating a fireball of little damage against a cement block structure.

It dawned on me that this was now not a bunch of idiots trying to score some freebies from the neighborhood merchant but a full fledged lynching mob intent on murder and nothing could be done to stop them. Police was nowhere to be seen and those not in the mob were like me trying to protect their households or cowering inside them praying to be spared from the wolves roaming the streets. I saw another looter with yet another Molotov cocktail but this time carefully preparing himself for a perfect pitch. He never did. The hand came through the barred second story window but this time holding the revolver and shooting it. One looter down and a Molotov cocktail rolled off his hand harmlessly.

Another looter, incensed by the shooting of his colleague picked up the firebomb and tried to toss it. The revolver went off again and another looter fell to the ground. This one I could see was dead on the spot. My binoculars allowed me to see the head exploding with perfect detail and the body just switching off to a mass of uncoordinated muscles and bones.  I lost track of the Molotov cocktail but I guess it did not go off again because I did not see a fireball, but a couple more appeared in the hands of other looters. More detonations came out the second story window sending two more looters scurrying and at least one of them leaving blood behind him.

This sequence kept repeating itself for another couple of hours. Mob attacking the gate, failing, mob trying to firebomb the upstairs apartment and getting shot for their efforts. I counted at least four dead on the ground and some 8 wounded taken away when the mob finally decided that it was getting to steep a price to pay for their obstinacy and withdrew to seek easier targets. Some 45 minutes later, the store owner and his family came out, loaded their old pick up truck (amazingly left untouched by the mob) with whatever belongings they could pack and abandoned the store. That night the looters came back and set the whole place on fire destroying the only grocery shop in a mile radius forcing the neighborhood to go farther away for their supplies from now on.

I heard later that the Store owner and his family moved to another city. The store was sold for a pittance but the new owner transformed it into a bike repair shop that went bankrupt soon afterward. Last I heard was that the building was abandoned and became a den of druggies and cheap hookers. Nobody was prosecuted for the attacks to the store and thankfully neither was the store owner for defending himself and his family.

So what can one armed man do? When the Shit Hit The Fan, a store owner saved himself and his family against a crowd and bought himself enough time to escape to safety. This was the leasson I learned that day and I hope you may save this little story in your brain’s memory bank for whenever somebody tries to convince you guns are not the solution.

You will find the following instructions and several variations in the websites of various police departments and rape prevention groups:

Choices if it happens to you:

• There is no right or wrong way to respond. Here are some options to consider.
• Escape: Have a plan in mind and think it through. Use a surprise move to distract the attacker in order to get away.
• Defend yourself: Self-defense may be useful IF you are adept at it; it is useful only if you are ready to use it immediately. Often there is not time to use it effectively or you have not practiced it for some time. If you choose to use it, hit to hurt; run fast toward help and don’t look back. Eyes, nose, throat, knees, shin, foot and groin are effective areas to hit.
• Draw attention: Yell loudly, blow a whistle, break a window, make a scene and yell assertively. Yelling “Fire!” will bring more attention than yelling “Help!”
• Stall for time: Pretend to cooperate until you can get near people or possibly escape.
• Pretend you are crazy.
• Throw up.
• Talk your way out. Try to get the assailant to see you as a person rather than an object by telling him/her about yourself. Don’t plead or bargain with the assailant.

Throwing up as defensive method? Now that is peculiar. No, it is not peculiar, it is stupid! That somebody even had the time to think such retarded and infantile things denotes a deep disconnection to reality and a really politically inclined view on how things are supposed to be according to an anti gun agenda. Nothing stops an attacker better that the high velocity incursion of pieces of metal in the innards of a rapist.

At least there is one group out there that gives women the whole spectrum of self-defense: Arming Women Against Rape & Endangerment (AWARE) is a Massachusetts organization that offers women from how to be aware of your surroundings to avoid being attacked, to training with lethal and Less than Lethal weapons and that is a novel approach in the world that is killing and maiming killing women by political correctness’s idiocy.

Domestic Abuse best served unarmed.
Originally posted April 27th, 2008.
I found this little tidbit in the website Helpguide.org. Please click on the picture to view full size and check the highlighted part.

So let me get this straight: You have been a defenseless victim and, in order to avoid having the pulp beaten out of your brain, you must continue to be defenseless to avoid injury? Am I the only one who actually sees the colossal stupidity behind these “instructions”?

But the little voice in my head that goes by the name of Reason clamors: “Miguel, some people might not understand why you are so mad. You better explain.” I begrudgingly must grant the point so here it is: When confronted in a home invasion situation, those of us who are into the Personal Defense side of gun ownership, are taught that we must go to a room where we can lock ourselves with our gun(s), and wait for the Bad Guy to either go away or be ready to stop him if he decides to bust in that final door. Having a cell phone to call police is better because Bad Guys actually are known for cutting regular phone lines and leaving victims with a dead piece of cheap plastic and electronics to call nobody for help. If that happens, it is nice to have an actual piece of equipment that would be activated at a moment’s notice and stop the intruder rather than an electronic gadget that will either record for posterity the moment of your death, or do basically nothing to stop the attack.

Although somewhat dissimilar both Home Invasion and Domestic Abuse do run under the same principal: you are attacked by somebody at home, where you are supposed to be safe, by somebody who might have the advantage of initiative, surprise and/or power. Your life is at stake and the consequences of inaction can be deadly. You must act with the tools and strength required to stop the attack. Saying “Please Don’t Hurt Me” is not going to keep you safe.

So the fact that this article does nothing to empower the victim of domestic abuse when attacked by her abuser. It only ensures that the cycle of violence repeats over and over because we are not politically incorrect enough to show the victim how to stop being one. That is offensive and irresponsible. And that is why I am mad. Political Correctness Kills People.

On August 20, 2002 the Venezuelan Government under Hugo Chavez enacted the Disarmament Law under the promise of reducing the crime violence gripping the nation. Six years later the results are tragically in: Caracas, the capital and most populated city in the country now boast the dishonorable distinction of being the most dangerous metropolis in the world with a murder rate of 130 per 100,000.  The citizens of Caracas are in a literal state of siege and panic. The sounds of shots are more common than the sounds of birds and that is tough when you realize that tropical Venezuela is home to 11,000 species of birds.

Venezuela’s Disarmament Law is a Gun Control advocate wet dream. First of all it dictates that gun ownership is a privilege given by the Estate and to be removed without warning or compensation. You ask “compensation”? yes because it does not matter that you spent your hard earned money, filled paperwork, got fingerprinted, went through a psychiatric consult, waited up to a year and had to carry an specific permit for each gun you may be allowed to have, you do not own the gun, it belongs to the government, you are just renting it.

The Disarmament law voided all previous gun records and gave a 90 day grace period for gun owners to re-register their weapons. After that period expired, all guns not registered became illegal and the owner a criminal facing grave penalties and/or jail time.

But that, like infomercials say, is not all. This law complements The 1928 Law of Firearms and Explosives which defined the initial restrictions of gun ownership including what weapons & calibers are you allowed to “own.” IE: the good old 9mm is not a legal caliber to use because the Military uses it. Same for the .45 and the 30.06 and anything that has ever been used by any of the branches of the Venezuelan Military as standard weapon or caliber. That pretty much leaves the user with .22, .38, and .32 ACP.  Shotguns may be OK but slugs are not allowed and rifled shotguns are a no-no.

The last ingredient in the 130 per 100,000 murder recipe is the criminalization of self defense. I am no legal expert or pretend to know about law so I will give you a sad anecdote. A Venezuelan criminal lawyer friend of mine emailed me some years back regarding a case she was defending. She wanted to consult me (like I was a Spanish speaking version of Mas Ayoob, yeah right!) about shooting techniques used in self defense and about some other self defense issues related to guns so I explained her all I could over the phone while I was preparing an email with links to several websites that might shed much better information that I could give. I asked what was the case about and she explained that her client was confronted inside of his house by an armed criminal in the wee hours of the night. The criminal was armed and so was the client who triple tapped the miscreant sending him to his well deserved oblivion. The home owner did the dutiful thing and called police who promptly arrested him and dragged his butt to jail for murder.  I was shocked and asked why was he arrested if he was in his house, attacked by an armed criminal and he only defended himself. The lawyer responded that three shots, according to Venezuelan jurisprudence was too much, in fact it was legally considered “viciousness & savagery” (Ensañamiento in Spanish) and thus murder, not self-defense. The legal standing is that one should shoot only once, asses the damage done to the opponent and then shoot if the threat to one’s life is imminent.  I asked the lawyer if that means I would have to give the Bad Guy a freebie shot before I could make sure he was gone for good and she said yes, that is the statute. She said that she could explain two shots fired as the person being nervous and pulling the trigger too fast without thinking but that the judge would not consider three shots as “nervousness.”

At the end her client ended up serving 10 years (the judge was gracious enough) for second degree murder. My only thought was that he was lucky he did not engage in a Bill Drill or he would serve thirty years in a Venezuelan prison.

I bumped into several news items published in Ski News related to the rising gun violence in England and I am amazed that it happens at all! From unarmed police officers being shot by armed thugs to teens brandishing AK-type weapons and scaring the hell out of motorists to individuals making weapons to sell to gangs none of these were supposed to be happening in the Old Country. The Queen’s subjects were guaranteed by their govrnment that banning weapons from civilian possesion was going to keep them safe. The promise did not hold.

One in 10 brits say that they have been affected by gun crimes. The number should be zero according to the gun control “experts” that still insist on spouting their failed theories. And as the gun laws are slowly being eliminated in the USA with a corresponding degree in the number of crimes, England’s viloent crime rate keeps rising.  Still the “experts’s” solution is to add new gun control laws and increasingly more power to the police without realizing that decreasing the number of victims by empowering them to defend themselves is the answer and not disarming civilians and thus creating a guaranteed pool of unarmed product for the criminal consumers.

But what do I know? I am a gun nut and they are Civilized… and dying.