The people who do not recognize an urgency for self-defense preparation like to throw around the word, without really knowing what it means:
Suspicion and mistrust of people or their actions without evidence or justification.
Truthfully, everyone accepts that a certain level of preparation is relevant and necessary, but people disagree on where the line is to be drawn. Ironically it is the under prepared that think they have all the answers because they don’t understand the scope of the problem. I see a lot of people try to use statistical arguments for their lack of preparedness:
“Getting attacked by a serial killer has pretty low statistical probability, therefore no preparation is required.”
The corollary to this reasoning is that if you are unlucky enough to be attacked by a serial killer then you are just dead. It ignores the fact that the skills and equipment necessary to thwart the serial killer are useful in situations at occur more frequently. It also ignores that situations evolve and escalate. The application of single finger salute in a parking dispute can transform an irritation into a deadly force encounter.
The position of the defender is always reactionary. To my way of thinking we don’t really get to make a lot of choices because the actions of the aggressor dictates what our responses will be. If the assailant poses an immediate deadly threat, we don’t have a lot of options: run, fight, or die. My suspicion and mistrust of people is based upon the simple fact that many people in our society do not have our best interests at heart, are willing to do us harm to further their own ends, and people really do get killed. Having the will to succeed, a plan to do so, and the training and equipment to ensure success is not paranoia, it’s prudence.
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