Chapter 10
MANAGING SCARCITY
You may not realize it, but you don’t have unlimited resources. Even if you are wildly, independently, obscenely wealthy your resources aren’t unlimited: you have only so much time and so much energy, and even the biggest bank account can’t change the fact that you have only so many hours on this planet.
Why do I mention this? Because the reality that your resources are limited affects your training decisions. You can’t really train for everything that could possibly happen to you, because even if you had the money you certainly don’t possess the unlimited time on this earth to do so. Your training resources, just like mine and everyone else’s, are scarce - and managing that scarcity is critically important to your defensive preparations.
WHAT’S POSSIBLE?
There are all kinds of things that are possible in this world, and I mean ‘possible’ in the sense that the laws of physics don’t preclude them from happening. For instance, as you sit reading this paragraph it’s entirely possible that a platoon of North Korean paratroopers could land in your neighborhood and take you and everyone in the vicinity hostage, in exchange for a large shipment of wheat to their country to aid in feeding their starving millions. Again, there is nothing in the laws of physics that would render this impossible - but, let’s face it, it’s pretty darned unlikely.
If you’d spent all your training time preparing for a North Korean paratroop invasion, however, you’d likely be ill-prepared for dealing with the knife-wielding guy that came around the back of your parked car while you were busy getting groceries from the trunk. Training for the myriad number of things that are merely possible is a waste of your resources because it can leave you with serious gaps in your ability to deal with those things that are far more likely to occur.
Which is more likely - this scene, or North Korean paratroopers?
If you’re going to make the best use of your scarce training resources, you need to first focus on those things that are likely to happen: things that are probable.
PROBABLE BEATS POSSIBLE
Probable things are those events that have some level of mathematical expectation tied to them. In other words, they are things which have happened to others in similar situations frequently enough that it’s likely you could face them yourself.
It’s these probable events to which you should devote the bulk of your training and practice. I mentioned the work of Tom Givens in the Introduction; his research shows some commonalities which serve to greatly define what is probable. For instance, it’s likely that you’ll be surprised by the attack, that you’ll be between three and five yards from your attacker, that you’ll be standing, and that you’ll be shooting using both hands with the gun in your line of sight.
Your training time, money, and effort are most efficiently utilized by spending their bulk in responding to an ambush attack (one that you didn’t know was coming), within those distances and under those conditions. As I mentioned at the start of this book, those skills will certainly be usable in those cases where you do have some foreknowledge of an attack - but the reverse is not true.
Your probable may not be the same as someone else’s. Understanding the crime patterns in your area will help you decide how to bias your training.
What’s probable might vary a bit from person to person, because probability is somewhat dependent on the environment. For instance, someone who works on a farm beyond the suburbs faces a different set of daily risks than the urbanite who lives in a trendy housing development. There is some overlap, of course; a home invasion is a home invasion, and the fact that the farmer gets to town frequently and the city dweller goes to the country for recreation every so often means that the bulk of training for each of them is going to be very similar. Still, it’s worth spending some time to understand the crime patterns in your area to help you decide how to bias your training. A well-informed instructor should be able to help you with this; if he/she can’t or won’t, it’s probably a good idea to seek better guidance.
Once you’ve developed the skills necessary to deal with the most probable events, you can expand the conditions under which your skills can be used beyond what is most likely; you can use them to deal with events that are plausible.
PLAUSIBILITY: THE OUTER LIMITS OF TRAINING
If possible things are those that could happen within the laws of physics, and probable things are those that are most likely to occur, plausible things are in between: those with historical precedence or for which there is reason to conclude that they could happen to you.
For instance, the probabilities are that you won’t need to shoot with one hand - but it’s plausible that you could be injured in one hand and need to shoot with the other, because it occasionally happens. It’s plausible that you could need your other hand to hold a flashlight or open a door or protect your child because the way you live your life, the environment in which you live, puts you in those situations with some regularity.
Plausible things might include shooting somewhat beyond the five yards where the best data says attacks usually happen, or the other extreme - in direct contact with your attacker (the techniques for which would fill another book). Some amount of your training, then, should be devoted to those plausibilities.
The Combat Focus® Plausibility Principle says that you should first spend your scarce resources on those things which are likely - probable - and only after that should you expand the range of circumstances under which you can use your skills to embrace the plausible.
A CAUTION ABOUT PLAUSIBILITIES
Remember that there is often a fine line between plausible (which is a good use of your scarce resources) and what is merely possible (a bad use of your resources.) The problem is that the merely possible is often a whole lot of fun! Running in and out of shoot-houses, negotiating assault towers and shooting ‘tangos’ on your way down is an adrenaline rush - after all, who doesn’t like playing a real-life video game?
You’re going to need a hard-nosed attitude with regard to your defensive training resources, because it’s all too easy to get caught up in the Walter Mitty fantasyland of shooting instruction. Sadly, a very large portion of the training industry is in fact devoted to things and situations that are distinctly implausible; it’s up to you to recognize that and devote your scarce resources to preparing for those things that you may actually face.
What if you succeed in doing that? What if you actually manage (though I doubt it’s really possible) to become very well prepared for all of the plausibilities in your life? Wouldn’t it be okay to spend some ‘me time’ playing hostage rescue?
No, I don’t think so. Why? Because developing personal safety skills - the reason, hopefully, that you’re reading this book - goes beyond shooting, beyond even hand-to-hand skills. If you expand the idea of personal safety, you’ll probably discover the need for skills to face a whole lot of very likely life-threatening events that can happen to you and those around you. In fact, the need for these skills is probably more likely than you ever needing to draw your defensive firearm.
What might some of these skills be? It’s not often talked about these days, but defensive driving is becoming a more important part of daily life. The road rage incident you have on the way home is probably better handled by learning to drive away from the danger than by practicing shooting out your car window, for instance.
Take severe trauma - the kind that results in massive blood loss. This kind of trauma can be caused by an accident in your workshop, in your kitchen or even while hiking. If you’re a bow hunter, you’re a slipped step away from a nasty broadhead wound. Knowing how to deal with this kind of trauma, and putting together a kit to help you do so, is probably more important than a weekend playing like you’re on a SWAT team.
How’s your generator? Your backstock of food? Do you have evacuation kits in your house if you’re forced to flee from a devastating fire? Do you have proper extinguishers mounted around your house to help you prevent a little fire from becoming that big one from which you must escape?
If you spend a little time thinking about it, there are more threats to your life than just the bad guy with the switchblade. Spend some of your scarce training resources evaluating ALL of the plausibilities in your life, not just the ones that require shooting.
I realize that as a defensive shooting instructor I’m probably cutting my own throat, but integrity compels me to point out that not every threat to your life is a shooting situation. Make your training decisions accordingly, but remember: your resources are not unlimited. Spend them wisely.
Spending time learning to deal with massive trauma (blood loss) is likely to make you safer than a weekend playing Special Forces soldier.