Replies

> The one thing that amazed me, is that you don’t carry. That REALLY amazed me!

Cheers, mate! Being unarmed is a counter-intuitive concept but our oldest Tradition. No Guardian Angel anywhere in the world patrols Armed. Not even in South Africa, where my good mate “Morpheus” patrols, and where just about everyone is packing heat and murder is a commonplace event. It is a part of our public accountability.

We train in the martial arts, first aid and CPR as a disciplined unit. But always unarmed: that way we have the moral (and legal) right to reinforce, as private citizens on behalf of our communities, the concept that crime and all the misery that goes with it is not welcome amongst us. Without an armed “Or Else” accompanying this expectation.

Mostly, we are there to change Attitudes, and by doing that we can change Outcomes. You can’t change Attitudes by pointing guns at people: you can only secure their immediate and begrudging compliance Or Else. But it is the Attitude change we want. We do that by persuasion and example, providing sensible alternatives to crime.

We’re not there to enforce the law, we are there to deter crime: this is a subtle-but-important difference.

Definitely, we train to defend against attack from all weapons: often harder than the local cops do. As professionals they have Occupational Safety and Health guidelines that they have to follow with their training: if they get hurt then they are an expensive resource that the community ends up paying for.

In our case, we’re Volunteers (thus amateurs by definition), so it makes sense for us to train hard: we’ll get hurt if we don’t, and if we get injured it is our own stupid fault. Nobody can prevent us from training hard, after all — in the same way that nobody held a gun to our heads and forced us to be Guardian Angels!

Some people play soccer, others surf, and still others go skydiving: all of these are dangerous hobbies. We do the Guardian Angels thing: statistically safer than playing golf.

> You guys stay safe, and even though I don’t live in NZ, a big thank you, for those that do! yorkie

(grin!) it’s our pleasure, yorkie, and thankyou for your kind words.