In the Spring of 2006, my then high school aged children came to their father in real and apparent distress. The short story, is that while attending church service in the “young adult” ministry, the pastor who was the shepherd of that group preached to the youngsters and his message was upsetting to some of the children. The young pastor had conveyed his moral outrage in respect to the war in Iraq- to the point that he drew comparisons between US Soldiers and common murderers.
I defended the man because by estimation he was genuine in his position. Considering that he had in his bible class several of the youngsters including my own were children of Iraq veterans- and his defiance and approach towards the remainder of the older veteran population within the church did not help his cause, I still stood up for him. A man that takes an unpopular opinion does so from a position of honesty.
While I don’t agree- obviously at all, I am envious. This man lives in a world of faith, in which he would rather give his life than have to defend it. I would suppose that would be at the top of his profession, the absolute arrival for a man of the cloth, praying in the face of certain death by being martyred by cannibals during a missionary mission in the jungle, or something similar. That is if his faith is that strong- or maybe, just maybe, he has been lucky enough to live in a world where he has not seen a devil evil enough to try to stop.
I don’t live in his world, and sadly I cannot. My world has devils it in, the kind that can talk a 13 year old boy into putting on a suicide vest and walking into a crowd of other children in Kabul, causing great casualties. If the acme of missionary work is to martyr oneself while praying- a soldier looks to stand in the gap, to stop it or die trying, and if so, go out with his boots on. This is where I draw the line, as I have no interest in either martyrdom or sainthood.
All said, having to shoot defensively is a very traumatic thing, and really the fourth worst thing that can happen to a fellow any given day. I am exceptionally hopeful that I am never in another fight and would nearly sacrifice everything I own to prevent being in another, although I believe that there are things that must be defended- and defended at all costs.
This brings me to the aspect of mindset, and the importance of knowing one’s personal boundaries in when to fight and when to not. As a soldier, I have always couched this in terms of “mission”, and fight or flight in my mind has the same gravity.
Mission number one: Protect my family. One should be totally committed to defending their family, and with this be willing to sacrifice everything to order this effect.
Mission number two: Protect my people. By my people, I am talking about my friends, my clients, my co-workers, my soldiers and airmen, and those whom I am responsible for. Again, worth dying/ going to jail for.
Mission number three: Survive to perform mission 1 and 2 again tomorrow. So, protect my SELF, in that I intend to make it home tonight- and anything else that happens today I am going to live with.
Outside of these missions, the armed citizen has no responsibility to defend the lives of individuals that are not family, people, or himself in the face of a shooter, mass or otherwise. NO RESPONSIBILITY. That is a very tough statement to make- an armed citizen has responsibilities, and ought to, should, needs to act more positively in the face of a shooter, right?……RIGHT? If it is your thing, drive on. I understand this, would likely be driven to do the same as well under some circumstances, but a private citizen has no reason to protect those that should otherwise have seen to their own protection, and incurs great risk if he believes that he should. One must look to his own interests and make hard choices.
The fact of the matter is that it is not your mission as an armed citizen to defend anyone else’s interests but your own and grabbing your weapon and entering the fray willy nilly could make things just that much worse. As good a name as any other, the Zimmerman effect- is a failure of combat mindset. When a man goes looking for a fight, he normally finds one, and when this happens the fight will come outside of his control at this point. The fellow that would never travel to X neighborhood before he carried a weapon and will now venture forth to the same with a Beretta on his hip- is a fellow looking for a fight. “I am armed- stand aside citizen.” Spare me.
Likewise the armed individual that believes himself intimidating because he is armed, but otherwise cannot export physical harm to another person, regardless of the threat to oneself, or one’s people. I have heard people believe that simply brandishing a weapon is enough. Some will say “just rack the slide” because obviously a sane person will run after they hear a weapon of this unmistakable type being made ready. Considering that the nature of the threat, at best only one third are within their right mind, this attitude is one that will also get the good guy killed. It is also harmful and potentially disastrous to demonstrate “as a bluff”, without the mental discipline to commit totally if your life becomes truly in jeopardy. What if the fellow calls your bluff? This is not the time to determine that you have not the proper resolve, because in your mind you thought an action hero catch phrase or the sound of the slide was the ultimate defense. Nope- within your mission and no opportunity left to avoid or deescalate, it is time to shoot or die.
The perfect stage of civilian defense is that everyone in society adopts the notion that self-preservation and personal defense become both a moral necessity an individual responsibility- and as such cannot be exported to another individual other than oneself. That everyone does dedicate themselves wholly to their own missions 1-3, and only their missions 1-3. At the point mass shootings will become a thing of the past. Until that time, when other non-armed individual citizens take no personal responsibility for their own defense, those of us that have accepted that responsibility have no responsibility to them. Harsh, but truthful.
The pistol, rifle, shotgun, body armor kit, holster, etc. are all tools of the first order, but the only weapon that we truly have is that soft squishy one between our ears. Make sure that it is combat worthy, when it is time to be combat worthy. Do not confuse your tools for proper weapons. Bring all your tools together, in a system- to form your ultimate weapon.