Personal Defense Scenarios You Might Want To Consider

JD Johnson, Talon Training Group, discussed what you should be thinking about, in advance, if you find yourself in these situations. 

Episode Transcript

(00:10):
Here we are turning the page onthe rundown quite literally. I mean that
we are in the month of April. Unbelievable that we are in the month
of April, and it is thefirst Wednesday of the month, which means
it's time to talk personal defense andback in his old stomping grounds here in
Studio one B. It's J.D. Johnson of the Talent Training Group.

(00:31):
He is the co founder and coowner and co host of Talent Outdoors.
He is the one and only J. D. Johnson A low friend.
How are you? I'm great?How are you good? You miss
being in the studio to recorder?You like being in your new confience.
I like our new studio. It'snice. It's nice to be able to
walk out of my office and goacross the hall though, and not have
to drive into town. But yeah, I miss it here, dude.

(00:55):
What's I mean? Come on?This is homie. Yeah, how you
been I've been good. We werejust talking about the different roles that you
have played when it comes to yourlaw enforcement background. Yeah. Did you
ever find anybody make ecstasy pills intodifferent things? I've never I've seen the

(01:15):
I have seen the different shapes andthe colors and all that. Really,
yeah, it's a you know,I mean it starts out as a compressed
powder and you can buy the pillpresses through through gray market sites and stuff,
and yeah, that's just nuts.Never actually found somebody. I have
caught a guy manufacturing ecstasy once upona time in another lifetime ago, but

(01:40):
it was it was all in thejust one big conglomerate form. It was
in a powder form at the time. It wasn't hadn't been pressed. Before
we get into some specific scenarios,I want to throw your way and get
your thoughts on broadly speaking macro view, do you think we're more violent society
than we were, say and youwere leaving law enforcement. No, not

(02:05):
necessarily. I mean I think we'vegone through there have been eras or short
periods of time when there seemed likethere was an uptick in violence along the
way. When when crack cocaine firstcame to Tallahassee, it was there was
a very violent time and it kindof there was a lull afterwards when it

(02:28):
kind of started to die down.But I think the I think the value
of human life in general has gonedown dramatically in the last I don't know
fifteen years or so, fifteen twentyyears, how much has the effort to
criminalize law enforcement by degrading them,defunding them, making them the focus of

(02:54):
whatever contributed to the challenges that lawenforcements facing today. Oh, it's you
know when when a when a lawenforcement officer has to go to work every
day and wonder if he's going toget in trouble or she's going to get
in trouble for doing their job correctly, because it it it's a it's a

(03:21):
takes a mental toll, and itkind of makes them not want to do
anything that they don't absolutely have to. I would think now I've been retired
for ten years and I don't havea I don't have my finger on the
pulse of the average street cop anymorebecause I don't other than when they come
out and go do some shooting atthe range. Yeah, yeah, I
mean I don't. But I'm notout there every day doing it. You

(03:45):
know. It's uh, but Iwould have to think that, and and
it's it's always even when I wasthere, it's it's always in the back
of your mind. But it's,uh, I think now more than ever
because of what you see on televisionand people taking you know, everything is
recorded now, I mean everything wedo is recorded. There's somebody with a

(04:08):
camera on something, or there's acamera, a traffic camera on the pole
up there that's getting us. Soeverything is examined. And a lot of
times you see those you see snippets, you see short, little verticate contexts.
You don't get context, you don'tget what happened before, what happened

(04:28):
after. You're just seeing the you'rejust seeing that that five second or that
ten second clip of things. Anda lot of times the context matters more
so than the than that five secondclip or whatever. When we come back,
I'm gonna I'm gonna segue from thisinto some scenarios and we'll start talking
through what you might think about inadvance, because again, as we always

(04:53):
talk about, with regardless situation,situational awareness and and such, it's really
helpful to think about what you mightor should do in a given situation before
it happens. Wherever you may be, from Florida Sunshine State to California.
They scratch that California is hopeless.For the rest, We're your Morning Show,

(05:14):
The Morning Show with Preston Scott.I actually have some pins in California.
We actually have a listener to gofigure JD Johnson with me from the
Talent Training Group our Personal Defense segment. JD, let's segue as we talked
about law enforcement officers and you know, now you mentioned cameras everywhere, the

(05:34):
dash cams, people video camera intheir phones, cars, just civilians have
dash cams. What's the best guidancethat we should think about if we see
a law enforcement officer in trouble andby that I mean something's going bad when
they're making they're pulling someone over,or they're trying to make an arrest.

(05:58):
Well, you have kind of haveto let your conscience be your guide and
your you have to understand, youhave to know yourself, your skill level,
your ability to actually help. Alot of times, being a good
witnesses his help. But yeah,I've been in situations that we're seeing it
now back to back to everything beingrecorded, we're seeing it's always happened.

(06:24):
I had a I was in afighting against fighting three guys one time and
a guy stepped in and said,you can't do that. He's a he's
a police and grabbed one of theguys that I'm literally was that guy physically
able? Yeah, he was biggerthan he was bigger than you or bigger
than me, So he clearly knewhow to take care of himself. Yeah,

(06:45):
And he grabbed one of the oneof the three guys that I was
trying to detain, and you know, and help me and and and it
wasn't a it wasn't a life ordeath situation. At least it wasn't at
that d and escalated to that.But I was sure glad to see him,
you know. And the big biggestthing is I would say, if

(07:06):
you're going to help you, letthat officer or officers that are there know
that you are there to help them. I'm on your side. Offer what
can I do to help? Howcan I help you? Alsir? I'm
here to help you, and makeit plain and loud and so that you
don't become part of the problem.What is protocol from the perspective of the

(07:28):
officer in a situation where you obviouslyyou don't know when it's going to go
south. But I tend to thinktalking to my brother and knowing you and
Charlie and listening to what you guyshave talked about over the years, you
develop a sense you just kind ofknow. Most times, if you're pulling
over a car and it's filled withguys, are you calling back up right

(07:51):
away, regardless of the pullover orhow quickly into the event, are you
looking for help? In other words, it's help on the way most of
the time. When a traffic stop, let's just talk about traffic stops.
When a traffic stop, excuse me, is initiated, you're trying to give
information to the dispatcher over the radio. You're saying that the location, the

(08:13):
tag number, the make, model, color of the vehicle, number of
known occupants. You know, you'reputting that information out. And you know,
in my experience listening to other peopletalk on the radio and having them
listen to me, you can tellby their voice, because you get really

(08:33):
familiar with somebody's voice on the radio, and you can kind of tell just
in the way they say what they'resaying, whether or not they're getting the
whether or not their Spidey senses tingling, or you know, you don't.
I didn't make a practice of alwaysasking for backup on every traffic stop,
but there were times when I immediatelysaid, get me another unit rolling this

(08:58):
way, get another a ruling thisway. Sometimes that's a long way off,
and then it's all you have totake into account. And with today's
technology, officers pretty much know canhave a they have a map going on,
a GPS tracking of the cars andthat kind of stuff that everybody kind
of knows where everybody else is.They may not know exactly what they're doing

(09:18):
or how busy they are, sure, but they kind of know where they're
at and what kind of call they'reon. So all that's taken into account.
If I were to recommend to motorists, obviously, Lass says if somebody's
pulled over on the side of theroad, that you're to slow down at
the very least, and if possible, pull over to give space, save
space. If I were to suggestto listeners, as you're slowing down and

(09:41):
driving by, just take a look, just pay attention to what's going on,
it might make a difference. Sure, is that good advice? Absolutely?
Well, you need to be inthat heightened sense of awareness anyway,
anytime there's a traffic stop absolutely goingon, you don't ever know how that
might all of a sudden affect you. And yeah, I mean it helps

(10:03):
to pay attention for Sure. Twentyone after the hour, Jad Johnson of
the Talent Training Group, My guestsare talking personal defense. We've talked about
how weather to intervene if you seean officer in trouble. Let's talk about
the scenarios that we see all thetime on video. We see stories about
it where something happens in a store, in a fast food restaurant and some

(10:26):
kind of business establishment. You're there, you're you're having a meal, or
you're a patron and you're just doingyour thing shopping and someone shows up with
a gun at the at the clerkand they're not just brandishing the weapon,
they are pointing it. The rulesof engagement well legal from a legal side

(10:50):
of them. You can put yourselfin the shoes of the person having the
gun pointed at them, so legallyyou're very justified. I don't like to
get into the forcible felony gives youthere, you know, intervening in aforcable
felony gives you the authority even thoughit does legally, but you can put

(11:11):
yourself in that person's shoes. Thestore clerks when you start interceding to prevent
a forcible felony yeah, that's thelegal grounds, but who are you to
who are you How do you knowit's a forcible felony? But you can
always say, Okay, if Iwas that person standing behind the cash register

(11:35):
and somebody's pointing a gun at me, and if I had the ability to
defend myself, I probably would atthat point. And in today's world we
see so many once. Like Isaid earlier, the value of human life
has become so diminished, I wouldsay you're probably on safer ground for your

(11:56):
own well being taking action, thenyou would be if you're able to do
so. Now, if you're theif you're the guy or girl that hits
the panic button and you become agelatinous blob under stress, you're probably you
probably shouldn't intervene. You probably shouldrun or hide or whatever get away.

(12:16):
If you have command of your facultiesand you have training, and you have
the ability to do something, andyou're paying enough attention to wait for the
right time to do that, youknow that's I'm I'm always going to take
action in those situations. I watchedand I told you about the video.
A guy decides to rob a fastfood place. The only couple in the

(12:39):
restaurant dining happened to be a husbandand wife that were both police officers.
She says to her husband, isthat what I think it is? And
they both immediately went and they wentinto tactical about it exactly. So my
question then becomes for the average person. They they've done some training, they're

(13:00):
proficient with a firearm. What arethe next considerations from that? You guys
are trained to just intuitively do theytook angles where they weren't gonna shoot and
hit the clerk. That was firstthing that I noticed. What about the
rest of us? You need tobe thinking the same way. I mean
obviously that's you have to limit theamount of it to the best of your

(13:24):
ability, limit the amount of dangerto innocent bystanders, and follow the cardinal
rules of firearm safety. You know, be sure of your target and your
backstop. Yeah, target in what'sbehind your target? You know, it
would be a horrible thing to dothe right thing and still end up hurting
an innocent person. That would bea terrible thing. So you, like
I said, you have to beable to think your way through this puzzle

(13:48):
that you've been you know, hadthrust upon you, and does that go
back to what we talk about withsituational awareness and thinking about it in advance,
like even now, what would youdo if right? And the way
you do that is through training.The more you train, the more confidence
you have, the calmer you're goingto be in a bad situation. That's

(14:09):
why we train. It's not toit's you know, training is not just
marksmanship shooting at a square target ona square range. It's not. That's
not what I'm talking about, ornot what we talk about when we talk
about training. We're talking about reallife you know, real life scenarios.
There's ways to train for that,and there is a certain confidence level that

(14:31):
you can acquire through doing that kindof training. And the more confidence you
have, and the more training youhave, and the more that then your
panic level or your stress level inthose situations goes down. What does the
laws say if the guy holding thegun on the clerk is holding a fake

(14:52):
gun? What did you believe itto be at the time. It's there's
because those stories are there's robberies thathappen every day with BB guns or airsoft
guns that look like real guns,and it is what you believed it to
be at the time. We readand see incidents all the time where police
officersp people that are just armed witha BB gun. Well, he didn't

(15:13):
know that exactly. If he knewit was a BB gun, he wouldn't
have reacted the way he did.And there's plenty of toy guns out there
now or BB guns or airsoft gunsthat look very very real. Let's just
start with the presumption that he's right. Believe me, it works around here.
This is the Morning Show with PrestonScott back with Jad Johnson of the

(15:37):
Talent Training Group. We're talking personaldefense and a lot of different arenas.
This is road rage, but it'snot. This is a scenario that happens
multiple times in every city every day. In this case, a grandfather,
though not a very old grandfather.The guy was, you know, probably

(15:58):
younger than me. It's going toa walmart, backs up to look for
to go into a parking spot.He did not see the lady backing out
of her parking spot. He hitthe car. Police describe it as a
scratch or two. He gets outof the car to apologize for being at
fault. She shot him in theface and killed him. First of all,

(16:23):
I don't know what he did wrong, But I also don't know if
doing the right thing in this dayand age is something you can do normally.
Yeah, yeah, without seeing hisbehavior when he got out of the
car, that's that's one thing youhave to look at. And then you

(16:44):
know, pull the let's go tothe video. If he just got out
to walk back there and say hewas sorry, then he absolutely just got
murdered. You know, that's justand and we'll go back again to the
value of the human life again.So well, let's talk about a thing
to do there, Preston. Imean, there's nothing we can't say.
Let's forget the apology. Yeah,you get into a fender bender. By

(17:07):
law, you're supposed to write,You're supposed to stop and exchange insurance information,
maybe take some photos if needed,you call police. Do you always
call police? I would recommend thatin a traffic crash, Yeah, in
a park, in a private parkinglot like that, you still have a
duty to report that, Okay,okay. If if the damage is there's

(17:27):
a certain and it's hard for usto say what there's a certain amount of
damage that requires a police report,and I don't know what it is anymore.
If it's one thousand dollars or fivehundred dollars or whatever. That requires
a police report. Now that canbe a self report. Sure there's the
ability to self report that crash forinsurance purpose, but just to have an

(17:51):
impartial person there to do it,I would always call law enforcement and let
them tell you whether or not youcan file it over the phone or well,
they'll send an officer. In thecase of of you know, whether
it's a fender bender in a parkinglot like this or on the side of
the road. I know that there'san immediate pressure on those in the in
the in the accident or the crashto get out of the way, to
not hold up traffic. Correct movethe car out of the out of the

(18:14):
road if possible, even if that'smaybe changing the perspective of the incident,
still required to do it. Okay, So the law says, move the
car out of the flow of traffic. Yes, all right. Having said
that, are we at a pointnow where you don't get out of your
car if you're armed, you keepa firearm handy, and you wait for

(18:37):
police to arrive before you approach theother person. No, probably not,
because how do you know that's notgoing to trigger them to get mad and
walk up to your window where you'rewhere you're in a more vulnerable position sitting
in a car. If they're madenough to shoot you in the face standing
outside your car, they're probably goingto be mad enough to walk up to
your car and shoot you through thewindow. And the what do you do?

(19:00):
He assess the situation, do thebest you can, and you absolutely
cannot prevent all of this stuff.There's there's it's impossible. I mean,
I'm sure that that man when hegot out of his car, if he
got out of his car to walkback and apologize or to just to say,
hey, what are we going todo about this, he probably wasn't
expecting that reaction. And that nowthat goes to my next question. Do

(19:25):
we then have to go to thestep of assuming that not everybody's going to
receive your apology or exchange information.Well, yes, and that is the
when we talk about minimal preparedness andpaying attention to your surroundings and all of
these things. He needs to belooking that you need to be paying attention

(19:47):
to the other person's reaction, whattheir hands and arms are, Yeah,
what are the how are they behaving? And that's the that's the being aware
of your surroundings right there, whatwe're talking about. So you do all
the right things, but you dothem with a sense of what could happen

(20:07):
and being prepared as you can be. Absolutely, and that's when you say,
oh, I need to go,hide, run, fight, whatever
it is I need to do tosurvive this incident. What a tragedy though.
Yeah. Absolutely. One final segmenthere, JD. Johnson, remember
talentrange dot com very simple, Andthat's kind of the the the point I

(20:30):
want to drive home here, JD, is you can actually do some things
other than just stand still and shootat paper targets. Sure, you know,
we we built our range in sucha way where you can move.
You can move forward, move backwards, move latterly and put yourself in those

(20:52):
scenarios if I've got to move tocover, moving to cover, putting,
putting an obstacle between you and whateverthe threat is is such a huge tenant
of good tactics. You know,standing in one place, if you have
a really really good shooting stance whenyou're shooting, your tactics are terrible.

(21:14):
Uh. That's kind of a that'skind of a running joke if you've got
a great stance, your tactics arehorrible. So uh so, assuming the
position to fire you practice. Youtalk about marksmanship, Sure, you talk
about grip stance, side alignment,and trigger control. Those are your you
know, side alignments like picture triggercontrol, those are your tenants of mark

(21:36):
good marksmanship. Well if you ifyou're practicing all of those in a in
a real life scenario, your tacticsare bad. If your if your stance
is good and your tactics are bad. So you know, the first thing
I would say is put some builds, some movement into your drills. The
other one, and the really onlytruly true way to train for this stuff

(21:57):
is by setting up some sort ofscenario to where you're moving to cover.
If you're life our doing life ourstuff, you're moving to cover. You
have cover there, you you havephysical barriers or whatever else. You have
covers to cover to move to,and you learn to shoot around those covers
from odd positions. One of themost valuable trainings that is really difficult to

(22:22):
do, is time consuming and expensive, is scenario based training. As you
or you have live players with eitherair soft or paintball or or simmunitions or
whatever law enforcement does this all thetime. With UH simmunitions, You're you're
simulating stress. You are it isit is stress and oculation is exactly what
that kind of training is called.Where you're you're putting the UH, the

(22:45):
the stress or the fear of gettinghit what they projectile that stings. You
can do this with airsoft. Youcan do it with paintball. You can
do it with with UH the simmunitionsequipment, which is very expensive, a
munition's equipment of the law enforcement usesis very expensive, but it's very worth
it. You know. You canalso do it with with with the the

(23:08):
paintball stuff. Some of your besttacticians combat tacticians are guys that play paintball
or girls that play paintball. Youknow, I'm gonna I'm going to mix
metaphors here. I had someone say, if you want to learn how in
the game of golf to be agood scorer of the golf ball, don't
practice with multiple golf balls at theputting green. Take one one ball,

(23:33):
chip with one ball, and puttwith one ball. Take the result of
would it be better to learn howto shoot effectively for self defense reasons?
To not ever do the stance tolearn the fundamentals, but to do them
in a more practical application. Yeah, you still need to know. You

(23:56):
still need to understand the shooting platform, okay, and the shooting plat form.
Most of the time happens from thewaist up the grip and the placement
of your arms and all that stuff. The shoot a good shooting platform tends
to happen with your upper body.It never hurts to stand still and shoot
from one place. It's it's alljust not afforded that right. But in

(24:18):
a real life situation, you don'twant to be standing still. If somebody
is shooting back at you or pointingthe gun back at you, you definitely
don't want to be standing still.You don't want to be where you were
half a second ago. You know, you always want to be moving,
uh to or from one place toanother. So there are ways to enhance

(24:40):
your abilities under stress. There are, Like I said, the best one
is scenario based training. We cansimulate that with with the laser shots system,
where you're interacting with with a videoscreen. You know, but like
you said, paying attention to thenews clips and watching watching the video that

(25:00):
we have the ability to see reallife situations, all because everything's on tape.
Every time you're rolling that through theroll of Dix in your brain,
you're learning something and saying, that'swhere that guy made a mistake. I
would have done this, you know, and just or I would have done
this. That guy didn't do that, and that's why he's still alive right
exactly, exactly as always. Thanksfor the time. I appreciate it,

(25:22):
my friend. It all right.J D. Johnson talent training group.
You can listen to him Saturday isTalent Outdoors along with Charlie Strickland and the
growing cast of thousands every Saturday.And of course we'll be back with Charlie
in a couple of weeks here inour personal defense segment