Instrument of Death
With an upsurge in crime rates across the city, I like many often wonder how we may actually react when a pistol is shoved into our face, many times I have resolutely decided never to resist for the sake of ones life but in a state of panic the mind reacts in a very strange way, read this narration from Khurram Siddiqui’s Blog for a very good insight on how the mind works in a crisis.
A few days ago my friend had an experience that many living in Karachi dread – mugging. The mugger took his cell phone at gunpoint. He placed his chromed pistol in front of my friend’s face, to which thankfully, my friend did not react aggressively. Soon after the incident I had a chat my friend and he told me that he felt frustrated because he “did not do anything.” But, of course, he realizes like most of us that any retaliation could lead to disaster.
According to Dave Grossman, author of ‘On Killing’, the optimal state is when the heart rate is between 115 and 145 beats per minute. “After 145,” Grossman says, “bad things begin to happen. Complex motor skills start to break down. At 175, we begin to see an absolute breakdown of cognitive processing. The forebrain shuts down, and the mid-brain — the part of your brain that is the same as your dog (all mammals have that part of the brain) — reaches up and hijacks the forebrain.”
Read the entire post at Khurram Siddiqui