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What You Don't Know Can Kill You: How Most Self-Defense Training Will Put You into Prison or the Ground by [Marc MacYoung, Jenna Meek]

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What You Don't Know Can Kill You: How Most Self-Defense Training Will Put You into Prison or the Ground Kindle Edition

by Marc MacYoung (Author), Jenna Meek (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.7 141 ratings

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Most self-defense training, whether martial arts or firearms, is focused on instilling physical skills. Unfortunately, critical elements are being left out. This is commonly because your instructors don’t fully understand the topics covered in this book– or worse are completely unfamiliar with this information.

Information that will keep you out of the hospital or prison. If your instructor doesn’t know it, how is he going to teach it to you? For example:
- Do you know when you claim self-defense you are confessing to what is normally a crime?
- Did your instructor ever tell you that?
- Or did he – as so many instructors do – tell you what he's teaching you is 'self-defense?'
- How much of your training time has been spent on when to use that training?
- When not to?
- What about how crime and violence really happen? (Not knowing that you may not get a chance to use your training.)
- How do you explain to the police that what you did was self-defense and not you attacking your fellow citizen?
- What will you need to be able to do to prove your innocence in court?

You'll learn these and many more important topics in this introductory book about what you haven't been taught about self-defense.

Print length

171 pages
Language

English
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Publication date

May 28, 2018
File size

1944 KB
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Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07D8GBWF3
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Carry On Publishing/NNSD (May 28, 2018)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 28, 2018
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 1944 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 171 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #468,963 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #84 in Sports Shooting
- #277 in Martial Arts (Kindle Store)
- #333 in Shooting in Hunting

Customer Reviews:
4.7 141 ratings

About the authors

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Jenna Meek
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Jenna Meek is a self-defense instructor holding credentials from the Massad Ayoob Group and the NRA. She specializes teaching firearms and self-protection. Jenna and her husband Jeff run Carry On Colorado, which is located in the greater Denver metro area. Jenna has also been spotted travelling, teaching, and learning from other instructors. When she's not teaching, she is homeschooling her son and battling the affections of her pack of dogs.
For more from Jenna visit her blog, Jenna is Carrying On ... Again at https://jennacarryoncolorado.wordpress.com/
and follow Jenna on Facebook: Facebook.com/jennameekauthor
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Marc MacYoung
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Marc MacYoung has never fit well into simple categories. That's because of his diverse past. When his family fell into situational poverty he found himself facing lifestyles and problems that most people have no idea exist, much less have experience dealing with. It was during that time the earned the street name "Animal." Many of his stories start with qualifiers like "The first time I was shot at..." and "The last time I had someone try to stab me..." (It was a long hard climb out of that lifestyle.) Decades of experience in environments and professions where violence was common, would eventually lead him to being a court recognized expert about violence, crime, and self-defense.
This wide ranging background gives him a completely different perspectives of the complex problems involved with personal safety, conflict, violence, and crime avoidance —especially how there are no simple answers (e.g., martial arts or carrying a gun). Those approaches may soothe fears, but they don't actually address danger —or the problems you'll face if you have to use them.
Over the years his works have evolved from that of a streetfighter to taking a more practical approach of avoidance and/or deterrence. This opens far more effective and non-violent options for his readers. As he often says "I'm not about fear management. My goal is danger management. I'm more interested in teaching you how to avoid walking into the lion's jaws than giving you false confidence about doing so."
See more on the author's page

Customer reviews

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Scott R. Morris

the truth about your sense of safety from taking a martial arts class or a gun course

Reviewed in the United States on June 2, 2020

Verified Purchase

You can only learn self-defense from real-life training and actual fighting, not from a book alone. What MacYoung teaches you, book after book after book (and always getting better -- read them all) is everything else. What you encounter outside of the dojo. And where your training may be so effective (but incomplete) that it sends you to prison. Or so ineffective that it sends you to the morgue.

This time, MacYoung brings along a respected gun expert, Jenna Meek, as the subject matter leaps from the micro to the macro level on the topic of self-defense -- an excellent choice of co-author for this topic, as Marc is admittedly not a gun expert. And when I say, "gun expert," I am not just talking about the lady's marksmanship skills. This author is as knowledgeable as Marc in her arena of the full spectrum of gun violence on par with MacYoung's knowledge of melee violence. They are a great pair, and the book is made very readable by their shared sense of humor.

This is a real, practical, and very timely refinement of a point Animal has been trying to make for years. And a point that is being tragically lost in the din of screaming about the Second Amendment, the "21-foot rule," and the belief that saying "I felt my life was in danger" is the summation of a successful self-defense plea.

I can honestly attest, as someone who has been in the military and taken martial arts, and has also struggled with substance abuse and trauma, that reading Mark's books have probably kept me out of prison or the graveyard. Yes, reading a book!

If you own and/or carry a weapon of any kind, take any sort of self-defense class, or are simply concerned about the legalities and practicalities of self-defense in America, you need to read this book -- and possibly refer to the long list of references in the back.

Furthermore, as a student of criminology and forensic psychology, I was deeply impressed by the both detailed, practical, and succinct assessment provided by the authors of how to recognize various types of both criminal and social violence, and how to respond to each of them, in dramatically differing ways, with minimal bodily and psychological damage. I have never seen this in such a usable form for the everyday Joe like me anywhere else!

Cheers! Look forward to the next books from both of these authors!

5 people found this helpful

Excellent info!

Reviewed in the United States on April 16, 2023

Verified Purchase

Lots of great info in this book, something that needs to be re-read occasionally for a refresher. I SO wish there had been an editor, it's frustrating to read along & have to figure out exactly what is meant occasionally with missing words, misplaced or no commas, grammar issues. Such a shame, it could have been made much more readable.

Critical Supplement/Pressure Check for Effective Self Defense

Reviewed in the United States on June 7, 2018

Verified Purchase

I’ve been reading Marc MacYoung since 1989, when I stumbled across his first book—Cheap Shots, Ambushes, and Other Lessons—in a Paladin Press catalogue. I was a Career Trainee the CIA at the time, and MacYoung’s emphasis on thinking like the opposition, situational awareness, and various stages of alertness all tracked perfectly with Agency counter-terror training. I’ve been playing around with martial arts since I was about 15, but I’d never come across a civilian instructor who even touched on this stuff, let alone knew it at least as well as the paramilitary instructors at CIA. Suffice it to say, I was hooked.

And I still am. MacYoung’s latest, co-written with firearms instructor Jenna Meek, is essential reading for anyone who recognizes that your problems might be far from over after you’ve physically defended yourself. “Self-defense” is a tricky and surprisingly poorly understood legal concept, and MacYoung and Meek deal with it crisply and clearly, with plenty of case studies and hypotheticals. The book is a fast read, and having just finished it, I feel I have a much more solid idea of how, where, and why doing too much to defend yourself can be as dangerous as doing too little.

I should add that in the course of addressing the ins and outs of legal self-defense claims, and how getting them wrong can put you in prison or in the ground, the authors have also managed to put together a good primer on different types of violence (social, asocial resource predators, asocial process predators) and on various cost-effective counters.

If you’ve invested significant time and money in self-defense training, whether empty-handed or with weapons, I’d strongly recommend that you spend a few more bucks and a few more hours reading this book. Any self-defense system that doesn’t integrate the concepts MacYoung and Meek cover will be dangerously incomplete. It would be a shame to figure that out when it’s too late—especially when you have the opportunity to figure it out so easily right now.

37 people found this helpful

Steven Hetletvedt

Reviewed in the United States on November 26, 2022

Verified Purchase

There are many things in this book I did not know about when it came to claiming self defense. I will be looking back on this book for reference reminders do that it sticks with me and I will remain better off and alive.

in a word,,,, comprehensive

Reviewed in the United States on September 1, 2022

Verified Purchase

Well beyond the typical self defense gibberish spewed about by others claiming to know.

There is waaaayyyyy more to the arts of self defense than mere physical skills.

"Big George" Afutu Jr.

Winning fights is safer than worrying about jail!

Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2019

Verified Purchase

This book teaches a lot about self defense law and what is needed to avoid legal trouble as a result of getting into a self defense incident but it fails to have as it's primary focus escaping safely and neutralizing the attacker. You can't win a streetfight or ambush attack with a halfhearted effort second-guessing your intent through fearing to go to jail for hurting and injuring the assailant too severely. In reality, there are only two options in self defense after the conflict cannot be avoided: non-lethal force and lethal force. Having about 30 fights in the street and elsewhere in my lifetime, it is too dangerous to hold back and not give it your all in a real fight, no matter what the consequences are for the attacker. As Mike Serr said: "You can always talk your way through the court system but if your family is burying you in the casket at the cemetery, you are done talking." Therefore, do whatever is necessary to escape safely with little regard to the assailant's safety except for the decision to use or not use lethal force. As Mark Slane said "They will eventually let you out of jail but you are in the grave for good". Many attackers "play for keeps" nowadays and focus on using lethal force against their victims so learn to read your opponent's intent. This book is primarily useful for avoiding danger and to adequately explain yourself to the police, not for being safer in assualts. It's best advice is for avoiding danger altogether.

32 people found this helpful

An Indispensable Introduction for Students of Martial Arts

Reviewed in the United States on June 22, 2018

Verified Purchase

While Marc MacYoung’s In the Name of Self-Defense is a definitive work on the topic, the shear volume of that book can deter some readers. Collaborating with Jenna Meek, MacYoung has overcome that potential obstacle with a book that is much more readily approached while still providing a substantial introduction to the non-physical components of self-defense – subjects that tend to receive no more than superficial consideration, if that, in most martial arts schools. While the content is critically important, it should also be noted that What You Don’t Know Can Kill You is a very enjoyable read. The MacYoung/Meek writing style is as thoroughly entertaining as it is informative and reinforces the accessibility of the book. What You Don’t Know Can Kill You is now required reading at my dojo.

7 people found this helpful

I am a martial artist and school owner and have ...

Reviewed in the United States on June 20, 2018

Verified Purchase

I am a martial artist and school owner and have been practicing and teaching for about 25 years. I have been following Marc MacYoungs for quite some time and still picked up a lot of new things from this book!

This should be required reading for anyone that claims to teach or traing in self-defense. Students looking for self-defense instruction should use it as a guidepost to determine if the school you are training it actually teaches self-defense, or just teaches you how to get yourself arrested or killed (as the title of this poke so directly points out).

Thanks for putting this one out! I will be reading it again in a few months :)

7 people found this helpful

Excellent, Not a one time read

Reviewed in the United States on May 29, 2019

Verified Purchase

This book is so full of need to know information that I was overwhelmed on the first read. Re-Reading it again. My back ground is in law enforcement and military. I have probably been taught most if not everything contained in this book, however never have I seen it all collected in a single book. I was surprised at how much information is contained in the book and will very highly recommend it for anyone who is serious about self defense and defensive shooting.
Included on must read for anyone who asks me for direction regarding the defensive lifestyle.

I suspected there would be something special about this piece and it didn't disappoint. Mr

Reviewed in the United States on May 31, 2018

Verified Purchase

My husband, Liam Jackson, a noted federal "counter-terrorism SME (subject matter expert) purchased this book for me and insisted I read it. Although he is an author and therefore knows many others, he seldom recommends books for me. I suspected there would be something special about this piece and it didn't disappoint. Mr. MacYoung and Mrs. Meek have written a book that should be on a shelf in every home in the U.S. The subject of violence (and it's myriad of consequences) can be overwhelming in it's complexities. This important work dispels many myths and cuts through the murk associated with the issues of "before, during, and after." Highly recommended.

J.S. Jackson, Psy Ph.D

20 people found this helpful

Matthew Higginson

Reviewed in the United States on February 18, 2020

Verified Purchase

This book is a must read for anyone training, or anyone who thinks they are prepared for a altercation. In this book I have seen things that I have suspected about training I have received and articulates the flaws in soundbite logic that I hear from so many people.

Great read for self-defense

Reviewed in the United States on September 26, 2018

Verified Purchase

This is a must read for those civilians interested in self-defense. It will dispel much of the tough guy mythology you hear from the untrained or Internet/ social media warrior.

Many useful principles and tips.

3 people found this helpful

Amazon Customer

Great read. Learned something on almost every subject

Reviewed in the United States on March 12, 2019

Verified Purchase

Completely opens your eyes on how to train and prepare yourself . Well written, looks at everything from the physical to the legal side

One person found this helpful

Must Read Marc MacYoung

Reviewed in the United States on June 24, 2019

Verified Purchase

MacYoung usually needs a better editor, but his stuff reads easily. All the info passes the sniff test.

Reviewed in the United States on November 4, 2018

Verified Purchase

This is an excellent book that should be a must read for anyone who is considering carrying a concealed firearm for self protection.

One person found this helpful

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