I taught tae kwon do in Perth’s western suburbs for more than 25 years (1995–2023), and an issue that I constantly saw was the apparent complacency towards personal safety held by many people in the area—and bear in mind, this includes people who had chosen to enrol themselves or their children in martial art schools. For anyone unfamiliar with the western suburbs, they are home to many of the wealthiest people in Perth. These are people from affluent and well-educated families; highly qualified professionals in whatever field they are working. The western suburbs are some of the safest suburbs in the city, and therein lies a problem: it is all too easy for people living in those areas (and I was one of them) to become complacent about their personal safety. After all, if you never ever run into violent situations, why would you worry about them?
The problem is, of course, that an assault or some other violent incident can happen anywhere. Just because it does not happen frequently does not mean that it will never happen. Sadly, over the years, there have been various violent incidents in the western suburbs, including murders.
One thing that I taught my western suburbs students over many years was that one of the most dangerous types of people they could meet is the person who has nothing to lose.
Someone who is destitute, potentially on drugs, and likely already experienced in crime … well, in all likelihood, there is little or nothing that they fear. After all, they have nothing to lose—no family, no home, no income, and so on. Obviously, this is not to suggest that everyone who is in a desperate situation is going to be a criminal or to have criminal intent. But the bare fact is that someone who has nothing to lose is not going to be as inhibited as someone who does have something to lose.
This can be a very foreign concept to those who have lived in comfort for most or all of their lives. They may find it difficult to conceive that someone else is prepared to harm them, and there is no shred of fear of the police, the law court, or the prison. As above, this is not to suggest that people who are wealthy or well-educated are all idiots when it comes to personal safety. But my observation over the years is that living in a safe area seems to lead to a lack of appreciation of both the risk of an assault and the potential mindset of the assailant(s).
Some months ago, YouTube channel 411 Outdoors LLC released a video that sums up the presenter’s view on the three most dangerous types of people. In first place was, unsurprisingly, people who have nothing to lose.