CHAPTER 1

MIND-SET

Tactical is an adjective. Survive is a verb.

Would you rather Do or Describe?

PREPAREDNESS IS NOT PARANOIA

When we deal with preparedness, we are performing risk assessments. We look into our daily lives and environment, identify threats, categorize them by seriousness, devise methods to deal with those threats, and then take precautions based upon balancing the seriousness of the threat with its likelihood. For example:

An asteroid strike would be devastating, but it’s not likely to happen.

Paper cuts happen all the time, but it has such minor consequences it does not require prevention.

However,

Car crashes are serious enough and are likely enough to happen that car insurance is sensible.

Preparing for likely, serious threats is both prudent and responsible. At any time you could be involved in a car crash, your house may catch on fire, or you could get sick. As a society we understand that these types of problems happen and the responsible person takes precautions to manage these risks. In a world where fire alarms and first aid kits hang on the walls in every public building, we attribute preparation for these situations as a reasonable precaution, but in the same breath consider preparing for physical attacks from actual people paranoia.

What we need to realize is that, while the vast majority of people in this world are normal, well-adjusted, law-abiding people, there are criminals who prey upon weakness. There is an even smaller subset of criminals that actually enjoy inflicting pain or terror upon innocent people. Luckily for us this group is small, but it does not make it unreasonable to identify your likelihood of being attacked and take appropriate preventive measures.

However, that does not mean that it is prudent or reasonable to take preparedness for attack to levels of paranoia. I have known people so ready for a violent attack that they willingly admit to having a plan to kill everyone they speak to if they think the need arises. This level of preparedness is not healthy for the vast majority of the population. Unless you are a secret agent, simply recognizing there is a threat, preparing your reaction to that threat, and then continuing to live your life is a much more reasonable way to act.

Most homes have a basic first aid kit because it is a reasonable, accepted preparedness measure. I doubt you obsess about your kitchen first aid kit on a daily basis. Owning a firearm is similar. It obviously requires a deeper commitment than buying a first aid kit. The level of training and practice required is far more extensive, but the idea is the same. If you feel you need it, get the equipment, learn how to use it, and take comfort from knowing that it is one less thing to worry about. If you have a constant nagging feeling about your firearm, you probably unconsciously feel you haven’t done enough.

PROPER MIND-SET

Part of owning a firearm for self-defense is developing a defensive mind-set. There are a large number of very good books on this subject. Even though a large amount of money is paid to trainers for helping people develop the proper attitude, you still must do this part yourself. No one can train your mind but you.

You must consider all the ramifications of firearm ownership. Besides parenting, there is no decision you can make that entails the level of responsibility as gun ownership does. When taken with the proper level of seriousness, it is (and should be) a life-changing experience. Deciding within yourself that you are now the master of your destiny, changing from a sheep hoping not to be attacked by the wolves into a shepherd standing firm against attack is a sobering decision. It involves a serious commitment to an idea of self-determination. You have decided that your right to exist is more important than some cretin’s desire for pleasure at your expense.

AWARENESS

Part of a proper mind-set is awareness. It does no good to carry a handgun, have the will and the skill to use that handgun, and then to be surprised by the thugs lurking just outside the light of an ATM machine. Without awareness, you are still living with the mind-set of a victim.

Cooper/NRA awareness chart.

There are two tools used to help you understand situational awareness. While they both describe the same idea the same way, you rarely hear of them at the same time. These tools are the color code system popularized by the late gun-training icon Colonel Jeff Cooper and the National Rifle Association awareness levels as taught in their Personal Protection in the Home curriculum. For purposes of clarity, I have included them both in the following chart.

Condition White / Unaware. Photo by Oleg Volk.

As you move up the levels of the chart, certain changes take place. This happens because the more your mind becomes ready to fight, the more it prepares your body to fight. (We will study this later when we discuss what happens in an actual gunfight.) At this time, all you need to know is that the higher you move up the levels of alertness, the less you are able to perform complex tasks or critical thinking. We will go into the reasons for this in chapter 4.

CONDITION WHITE/UNAWARE

You are unaware of what’s going on around you. You are not ready. This condition, sadly, is the one most citizens (and all sheep) live in their entire lives. There are some situations where this is unavoidable. Sleeping, for example, is an activity where it is impossible for you to be in a higher level of awareness. While there is no moral connotation of evil attached to this level of awareness, it is not the proper mind-set of a person concerned with his or her own safety. Anytime you are outside your home you should strive to not be unaware.

CONDITION YELLOW/AWARE

Condition Yellow / Aware. Photo by Oleg Volk.

You are alert but calm and relaxed. You are scanning your surroundings for threats. You know who’s in front of you, to your sides, and behind you. You are not anticipating an attack, but you are mentally ready in case of one. With practice, you can maintain this level of awareness for extended periods of time. This is the best compromise between readiness and exertion. This is the gold standard of preparedness; try to maintain this level as much as possible.

CONDITION ORANGE/ALERT

You sense that something is not right, and that you might be attacked. Something has alerted you to danger. Perhaps there are a number of suspicious men standing around your car. Or in the classic Jeff Cooper example, a guy wearing a raincoat comes into your shop on a sweltering summer day. What’s wrong with this picture?

In the Orange level, you are aware of the positions of all potentially hostile people around you, as well as any weapons they may be able to use, either in their hands or within their reach. You are developing a plan for dealing with the potential hostilities: First I take out the guy with the bat, then the big guy near the truck . . . You have also identified multiple escape routes, depending on what response you will use. In addition to being mentally ready, you are physically ready as well.

Condition Orange / Alert. Photo by Oleg Volk.

At this stage, you have pre-decided “trigger-points” that cause you to move to the next higher level of awareness. I wholeheartedly endorse this type of thinking. At this level of stress, it is hard to make complex decisions, especially when your decision involves life and death consequences with their respondent legal ramifications. Your decisions deserve and require extensive thought about possible actions you might take to certain stimuli. You most likely will not have the luxury of time to make these decisions in a gunfight if you have not thought seriously about them beforehand.

I run a firearm simulator for a local criminal justice college program; this simulator uses a modified handgun that projects a laser beam on a movie screen. A computer then reads where this laser hits and causes the scenario to change based upon the actions of the student. When new students first use the machine, they think it’s a high-tech video game, but very quickly learn how hard it is to juggle all the factors in a lethal force scenario. Legal justification, tactical considerations, and actual shooting fundamentals all come into play. It’s not as easy as it looks in the movies. Without a firm understanding of what is and is not justified, most of the students tend to either freeze or respond too quickly. Luckily, once they have been through a scenario or two, they are able to articulate exactly what justifies lethal force, and how far they are willing to go to protect themselves, and then they begin to react much more appropriately. The lesson is that just being able to shoot is not enough. You must sit down and decide exactly what would cause you to pull your gun in a defensive situation.

CONDITION RED/ALARM

Condition Red / Alarm. Photo by Oleg Volk.

The fight is on. You are being actively attacked. There is little time for thinking or second-guessing your decisions. You have to do what you need to do to survive.

There are only three ways to prepare for this: practice, practice, and practice. Bruce Lee once said, “I fear not the man who has practiced ten thousand kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick ten thousand times.” You have to burn your actions into your muscles so that when the time comes you don’t have to think about how to run your gun.

Remember when you first started driving? It took thought to start the car, to put it in gear, to navigate through town. What would have happened if a dog ran out in front of you your first week of driving? After ten years or so of driving every day, has it changed? Do you have to think about starting your car or do you just get in and drive?

If you’re going to fight, you do not have time to figure out how to draw or what your sight picture should look like; you need to be in the fight.

TIME-CRITICAL DECISIONS

In the 1950s a young USAF fighter pilot named John Boyd—cocky even by fighter-pilot standards—issued a standing challenge to all comers: starting from a position of disadvantage, he’d have his jet on their tail within forty seconds, or he’d pay out forty dollars. Legend has it that he never lost. His unfailing ability to win any dogfight in forty seconds or less earned him his nickname, “40 Second” Boyd.

While this Air Force pilot undoubtedly had a high level of skill with his fighting tool, what made him great was that he knew how to make decisions quickly and accurately under stress. The Air Force was so impressed with his skills they had him create a formal briefing to share this knowledge with the other pilots. This short briefing turned into a larger course taught at the Air Force Academy. His system has been partially credited for the outstanding success of the American fighter pilots in the Korean War. Colonel Boyd’s system is called the OODA Loop. OODA is simply an acronym for Observe, Orientate, Decide, and Act.

OODA Loop Cycle.

Observe—A car with engine running parked near your bank, with suspicious looking man in a trench coat loitering near the teller (Yellow).

Orientate—Is this an attempted robbery (upgrade to Orange), or is someone waiting on Granny (stay at Yellow)?

Decide—Does the situation call for force, retreat, or no action? What are you going to do in the situation? How are you going to do this? If you followed my earlier advice and created pre-designated actions based upon certain “trigger-points” your response would be made even faster.

Act—Do it! Act decisively and with purpose as “half-steps” and lack of “follow through” cause injury.

The OODA Loop explains the mechanism of decision making. The basis of how it applies to self-defense is simple. Once you understand how your attacker makes decisions, you can get inside his OODA and do things that force him to reorient himself so that you can gain a speed advantage. Basically, you want to make your attacker react to you rather than play catch-up to him. Instead of allowing your attacker to act, change the environment to force him to reorient himself. If you are able to do this, it will seem like your attacker is moving in slow motion because you will begin to act while he is reacting to you. This can be easier said than done, but it is an area that deserves attention.

The main purpose of awareness is to create a reactionary gap. It takes longer to react than to act. No matter what level of awareness you start at, when attacked you are going to jump automatically to Alarm/Red. Imagine being awakened to a man on top of you with a knife to your throat. This is a classic example of a condition White to Red response. Being more aware allows you to recognize a threat while there is still time to take appropriate action (note, this is not always lethal force; sometimes the appropriate action is leaving the scene, or even submitting). Whatever you action you choose, you will need time to implement it.

Part of reasonable action in a lethal force situation is that your attacker must be able to use deadly force against you right then. While we will discuss this later when we go into the legal aspects of gun ownership, something that will help to reinforce the importance of being aware of your surroundings is knowledge of your reaction time. In law enforcement circles it is commonly taught that the average policeman can draw and fire two rounds center mass in approximately 1.5 seconds. It is also taught that the average attacker armed with an edged weapon can, from a standstill, cross 21 feet and inflict a lethal wound in 1.5 seconds. What this means is that if you are reacting to a threat of this nature, you are going to get hurt. In order for you to properly respond to threats, you need to be aware of the threat before the attack begins.

In-class demonstration of “21-Foot Rule.”

In our classes we use a rubber knife and a gas-powered airsoft pistol. I get a student to role-play an armed citizen who is armed with a holster and the airsoft gun. I go across the room with the rubber knife hidden in my pocket. I then ask the student for money, and when they say no (they always say no) I pull my knife and say something like “How ’bout giving me the money now!” Once they say no to me after I have shown the deadly weapon I run at them with the knife raised. Generally the student gets one shot off but it normally misses me completely (which is good, because those BBs hurt). They always look surprised, but the point is made that distance equals time.

The above scenario, the “Tueller Drill,” is named for a police officer Dennis Tueller, and is part of the basis for defense against “edged-weapon” attacks. This is not to imply that you should shoot every attacker who wields a knife, but it does illustrate that if you wait until the attacker is about to cut you, it could be too late. You must be aware of your surroundings so that when placed in a situation, you have already orientated yourself to the possible outcomes.

If you have created those mental trigger points, have confidence in your skills, awareness of your surroundings and situation; you are way ahead of the game. So much so that in all likelihood any potential criminal can tell you’re not an easy target and will not put you in the situation to start with.

COULD I SHOOT SOMEONE?

Being prepared to act violently is not the same as wanting to act violently. Like John Wayne in the movie The Shootist, I don’t mistreat or insult others and I don’t tolerate people treating me that way. Ninety percent of us live by some version of the Golden Rule, but because wolves make up other 10 percent of the population, we need to cultivate a defensive mind-set. We need to determine in advance if we will use lethal force against someone who is attempting to kill our family or ourselves. This is not the same as wanting, desiring, or planning to kill.

Before I allow someone to take my defensive firearm courses, I speak to him or her to get an initial feel of the type of person he or she is. If I get the impression that the prospective student does not have a respect for human life or is not mature enough to handle the responsibility that comes with self-defense firearm ownership, the prospective student will receive a standard, “I am sorry, but our class is full.” I will not train someone who wants to kill. I preach avoidance, preparedness, deterrence, and that lethal force is a last resort.

What I do not teach is to feel sorry for your actions. Apologies equal guilt. Imagine the following: you are coming home from a late shift at work, rushing to pick up the kids from the babysitter. Your spouse is out of town on a business trip. You stop at the ATM to get money to get something for the kids at the drive thru. You notice someone standing near the ATM. He appears to be waiting for someone. He is waiting for someone; he is waiting for you. He sees your harried look, your business clothes, your soccer mom car, and the “My Kid Is an Honor Student” bumper sticker. He approaches you, speaks roughly, and produces a knife. Wisely, you gain distance from the attacker by putting the car between him and you. You cannot flee, as the passenger side door is locked, and that’s the side you ran to. You try to convince him to leave, but he starts to come around the car. You draw your gun, but he doesn’t care. The criminal even makes the statement, “What are you going to do with that?” He starts running toward you. He grabs your arm as you attempt to push him away. He even slices at you with his knife. You have no choice—he forces you to shoot him.

Did you have any other choice in this situation? Did you ask for, desire, or wish for this situation? Was your attacker an innocent person who had no intention of violently killing you? I think you will agree that the answer to these questions is no. Your response is reasonable, and your actions appropriate. While I am not remotely suggesting that the act of taking a human life should ever be taken lightly, it is my belief that modern society artificially creates guilt in the minds of citizens who take action to protect their own lives.

Let’s put you in a simple scenario. Let us say that a criminal has decided that for whatever reason he wants to graduate to murder today. This criminal goes out and finds a victim, draws his gun, and prepares to kill the innocent. Just before the killer commits his act, a police officer appears. What should the officer do? Should he shoot the criminal or let the victim die? Is it moral for the officer to just stand there and let the murderer kill the innocent? If you said no (I hope you said no!), explore the feelings behind this.

Why do you feel it is immoral for the police officer to allow the murderer to kill the innocent? Why do you want the cop to shoot the bad guy? Either way someone dies. Why should the person killed be the bad guy? To me it’s a simple thing, choice. The only person that chose to commit violence that day was the criminal. The victim sure didn’t and the cop would rather end the shift without drawing his weapon.

Let us take away the officer, and make you the innocent. Is it moral for the murderer to kill you? Did you make the decision to seek out a murderer and become a victim? I say to those who say “It is never moral to kill,” that it is never moral to murder. Choosing to allow a criminal to kill you rather than fighting back is saying that the murderer has more of a right to live than you do.

We are not police officers. We have no legal duty to protect. If we go out with the intent to kill, we become murderers; it does not matter the reason. The above exercise illustrates the moral authority for self-defense. If someone must die, then let it be the one that instigated the situation, not the innocent.

Not everyone has it in them to fight back or to defend himself with lethal force, and that is morally acceptable. However, it is equally acceptable to defend yourself from attack if able, especially when you are an innocent being attacked by a criminal with a felonious motive. All I ask is that you explore this question in depth, with your spouse and clergy if you have that desire, and honestly decide what would trigger you to use force to defend yourself and then use this knowledge to prepare ways to incorporate self-defense into your lifestyle.

ANDY VS. BARNEY

My mother once said that a lot of today’s problems could be solved if school kids watched thirty minutes of The Andy Griffith Show each day. I think she’s right; there is a lot of good tactical knowledge to be gained from this old show.

How many times has a bad guy laughed at Barney, or Barney negligently fired into the ground trying to quick draw his pistol? On the other hand, how many times has Sherriff Taylor stopped a crime without even using his gun? The difference is mind-set. It’s based upon confidence. Andy does not need to prove how tough he is, he knows exactly what he can do, so he does not need to prove it at every chance. Barney feels like he gets his authority from his gun, so it’s a crutch. A gun is just a piece of iron and wood. It’s your mind-set that makes the difference. You build that mind-set by training and deep contemplation on what you would or wouldn’t do to protect your own or your loved one’s life.