Thanks, all I could think of was the gun fight average of three rounds, at three feet and under three seconds. That just didn't fit with your post.

Ted Bundy ...
I just learnt about him. WOW !!!

OK.
Given all the possibilities in a survival situation, do you think that a surviving woman should include birth control pills in the BOB just in case she ends up with someone who would not take no for an answer ?

Condoms ?

It would be better to include a D-Cell Mag Lite.

Jeanette Isabelle

I'm with J-I.

But if she hasn't been taking regular birth control pills, taking one that day isn't going to do anything. And I don't think most women routinely carry morning-after pills. Well, mostly.

But it's better to avoid him and try not to even let him know you're nearby.

Sue

Look up Jeffrey Daumer & Richard Ramirez too!

IMHO, the first line of defense anyone has is intuition. Humans have a great ability to ignore their guts, make excuses, and deceive themselves but, assuming you can avoid the worse of the above, it is pretty hard for anyone really dangerous to avoid the condemnation of that little voice that issues warnings. Sociopaths tend to play off peoples weaknesses to avoid potential victims digging deep enough to see through their superficial charm.

Intuition isn't infallible but it is, when it allowed to work and be herd, is a finely tuned machine based on thousands of years of evolution.

The second line of defense is having friends around. Males are never entirely safe. Many a wife, daughter, sister, and coworker has found out that people you can trust for years can have a dark side. Friends can compensate for the momentary or long term failure of one in a group.

Physical defense is a pale third choice. A lot depends on how comfortable, and capable, of putting up a fight you are. Even seemingly decisive weapons like a .38 are not a sure thing. If you are not willing to use deadly force on short notice it tends to get taken away. An acquaintance ran a rape prevention seminar and she had a story about being a girlfriend with a .38 and it being used to pistol whip her. Almost killed her.

She spent weeks in the hospital and months in therapy getting over it. Part of her recovery was getting trained in Krav Maga and teaching rape prevention classes. although she seldom mentioned it she also became quite a shot with a pistol and had won several competitions.

She was the one I picked up intuition and friends as the first and second lines of defense.

As a friend of mine often said, "I've shot down more men than the Red Barron." Kira would never let a smooth-talking snake near her.

Jeanette Isabelle

That's a pretty big assumption. I don't know about other countries, but here people are pretty much trained to take people at face value, and I do mean 'face'. Good-looking people are considered safe, and uglier people are considered dangerous. I've known at least three psychopaths in my life, and all of them were extraordinarily good-looking. People fall for their lies and manipulations like a puppy following a bowl of hamburger, and they do it repeatedly. People are even indoctrinated to fear dark-faced dogs in comparison to light-faced dogs.

And how many times have you heard about a man killing his wife or kids, or a chronic wife-abuser, where all the people who know him said, "Oh, it can't be true, I've known him for years"? Even when confronted with the bloody remains and the bloody killer, they are staunch defenders of the killer/abuser.

Sue

Sue, you are sooooo right.

About 30 years back, an old friend told me his sister married a guy, and I met the guy . If my friend didn't tell me he is his brother in law, I would have feared coming close to him. He was that ... unattractive. !!! A few weeks down the road and a few lunches and dinners together, I learnt how great a guy he was.

ON the other side of the coin :
A few years later, I heard in the news from the U.S. that a mom drowned her kids ( I think she let her car roll down a lake while the kids were in it, or something like that ) . When I saw her picture, I said ( She did !!??? ) She was good looking by my standards. Even later, when I started to believe the story I started to feel sorry for HER, and almost forgot the poor kids !!

You are right, and our ignorance is very cruel sometimes.

Art, I have to side with Susan on this. Neither one's "instinct" nor initial (i.e., not over prolonged periods) observations will tell you if he is or is not someone who will be motivated to try to harm you. You won't detect a psychopath. Unless specifically trained, "experts" are correct 1 of 3 times in most studies. With specific training, most predictions barely beat a toss of a coin (51%)unless a protracted professional assessment is done. Even then, the misses are plentiful. The most accurate data is the person's history: he isn't going to tell you that in the woods.

I stick to my opinion: you are NOT going to be able to determine if he would harm you. You have to decide if you can adequately defend yourself should he attempt to do so, and if in doubt, pass him by.