The Stats Trap: Why You Need to Research Before You Share

If I can give one piece of advice to any self-defense instructor—or honestly, anyone trying to make sense of this chaotic world—it’s this: don’t fall into the statistics trap. In the age of disinformation, where everyone has a platform and every post comes with a fact-check badge or a viral headline, it’s incredibly easy to latch onto numbers without context. We’ve all seen it: stats repeated endlessly without a single person asking, “Where did this come from?”

What I mean by the “statistics trap” is simple. Instructors read a stat—often a flashy one—and then they memorize it, repeat it, and start building entire curriculums or arguments around it. It becomes a badge of credibility. But they don’t question the source. They don’t dig into the research. And they definitely don’t consider whether it even applies to the real-world environments they’re teaching for. The truth is, statistics can be twisted to support anything. Without context, they’re just numbers that sound smart.

When I first started teaching, I made this exact mistake. I used a stat that said 80% of knife attacks come from underhand stabs. Edmonton, Alberta—where I’m from—is nicknamed “Stabmonton” for a reason. Gun violence is low, but blade-related assaults are common. That stat seemed to align with what I assumed about street violence, so we built our early knife defense curriculum around it. Underhand stabs, low-line kidney shots, all textbook.

But then something weird happened. EMTs, paramedics, bar staff, and real-world operators started giving me feedback. They said most stabbings they saw were overhand, chaotic, and looked like a windmill of rage. Even my own experiences didn’t line up with the stat. I’ve been stabbed two and a half times—once in the leg, once in the face, and once by a fork (which I still only count as half). All of those were overhand attacks. They looked nothing like the low-line, controlled thrusts we were training for. I was ignoring my own story to stay loyal to a stat I read in a book from another country.

Eventually, I dug deeper into the research behind that 80% figure. Turns out, it included prison stabbings, where shanks are the weapon of choice—small, point-oriented, and optimized for low-line strikes. No wonder the data was skewed. And yet, I had been correcting people with lived experience—because I had a “statistic.”

This is the danger of the stats trap. You start sounding authoritative while disconnecting from actual, lived truth. And because people see you as the expert, they stop challenging you. That’s not teaching—that’s parroting.

Let’s take another example: the infamous “1 in 4 women will be sexually assaulted in college” stat. It’s used widely in media and education. But if you read the original study (which many people didn’t), that number wasn’t based on the entire student population. It came from survey respondents, a group that already included a high percentage of survivors. That matters. I’m not saying the issue isn’t serious—it absolutely is. I’m saying we do victims a disservice when we quote incomplete or misleading numbers just because they’re shocking enough to go viral.

It’s not just me saying this. Comedian Bill Burr has a bit about stats that nails it. He jokes, “Most shark attacks happen in shallow water.” And then he says, “Well, yeah. That’s where the people are.” It’s funny—but it’s also painfully true. A stat without context is a trap. It supports whatever narrative you’re already leaning toward. Want to prove your program works? Find a stat. Want to scare people into signing up? Find a scarier one.

Rory Miller—one of my biggest mentors—puts it perfectly: “Correlation is not causation.” His go-to example: “The more churches in a city, the more violent crime.” Sounds ominous, right? But the reality is, more churches means more people, and more people means more crime—nothing more. If you're not looking at the whole picture, you’re just playing stat bingo.

Now let’s bring this back to self-defense. Stats are all over the marketing of our industry. And I’m not saying don’t use them. I’m saying understand them. Every stat should come with a little asterisk: Based on this study, with this sample size, in this specific context. Because no stat ever reflects the full population, and none of them are immune to bias, flawed collection methods, or straight-up misrepresentation.

As an instructor, it's your job to make people safer, not more confused. Don’t fall into the trap of grabbing the first statistic that supports your worldview and repeating it like gospel. Click through the link. Read the full article. Look for sample size. Ask who funded the study. Ask who was surveyed. Don’t be the person quoting nonsense about “cannabis not being from Earth” because you didn’t read past the headline.

If you're an educator, a coach, or even just someone who shares information online—do your homework. The world doesn’t need more parrots. It needs critical thinkers.

Stats aren’t the enemy. Misusing them is.

—Randy King
@randykinglive
#SelfDefenseEducation #CriticalThinking #StatsTrap #KnifeDefenseMyths #MartialArtsMarketing #RandyKingLive #TeachingWithIntegrity #DisinformationAwareness #InstructorTips #DataNotDrama