Massad Ayoob - Gun Digests Combat Shooting Mindset Concealed Carry eShort

Skill with the safety equipment is #3 priority. This qualification target was shot under time with S&W .44 Magnum Mountain Gun and Federal 180 grain/1600 foot-second hollow point.

In the word gunfight, the operative syllable is fight.

John Steinbecks classic quote, popularized by gunfighting instructor Jeff Cooper, was: The mind is the weapon, all else is supplemental. Men have fought each other to the death since they dwelt in caves. All the gun did was expand the personal distance potential.

For decades, Ive taught my students that the four priorities of surviving a violent encounter are:

1. Mental awareness and preparedness.
2. Proper use of tactics.
3. Skill in combatives, which includes but is not limited to the firearm.
4. Optimum selection of equipment to cope with the predictable threat.

Note that awareness and preparedness are taught together, even though at first blush they appear to be separate concepts. The reason for this is simple: they are two sides of the same coin, and the one without the other is useless. At Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the awareness was there, but the preparedness was not. The blips on the radar screen were observedbut they were dismissed, and in minutes, one of the mightiest battle fleets on Earth was on its way to the bottom of the harbor.

Awareness begins with the realization that armed conflict with a violent human can occur. It does not require a high risk occupation; any of us can simply be picked as the next victim by one of the many predators that roam abroad in society.

Awareness encompasses alertness. There is no better way to quantify that than the color code, popularized beyond the military by the aforementioned Col. Cooper. He described four levels. In Condition White, one was totally oblivious to what was going on around him and likely to miss an early danger cue. A person in Condition White would be unprepared, slow to react, and likely to survive a homicidal attack only through luck factor or what Ive come to describe as schmuck factor. (With luck factor, we survive simply because we were lucky. With schmuck factor, we survive only because our attacker was an even bigger schmuck than we were. Neither is a reliable strategy for survival.)Next up is Condition Yellow, which the Colonel described as a constant state of relaxed alertness. It simply means knowing what is going on around us at any given moment. If a friend said, Close your eyes and describe who is within ten feet of you right now, you could do so. If a companion said, Dont look at the GPS or the street sign, but tell me where we are right now, you could. Cooper made the point that a well-adjusted man or woman should be able to spend their entire waking life in Condition Yellow with no adverse psychological effects.

SAFETY, SAFETY, SAFETY. These shooting glasses saved the eyesight of a top firearms instructor in Idaho.

After an adult lifetime of trying to follow Coopers advice and live in Condition Yellow (and passing his advice on to a great many students) Ive come to believe that its even better than the Colonel predicted. That is, it is not only without negative effect, it brings a positive effect. You may have started out looking for possible bad things, but your enhanced observation allows you to notice good things you were missing before. A common remark when I meet old students goes like this: I took you seriously when you talked about casting out a sensory net and Jeff Coopers color codes of awareness. Ive been looking for bad guys ever since. I havent found manybut Ive become a people-watcher. I notice the way the young lovers look at each other, the little boy playing with the puppy, the smile the passing grandmother gives her granddaughterand thank you for that, because I was missing it before.

You know how people are always telling us to stop and smell the roses? I think the corollary is that when youre actively looking for thorns in the bush, you cant help but smell the roses.

The next notch up on the color code scale is Condition Orange, a heightened alertness that occurs when we know something is (or may be) dangerously wrong. At this point, we actively focus on gathering intelligence to determine exactly what that potential danger is. We are looking and listening and analyzing. We are particularly monitoring things like avenues of access and egress (for us, or for potential opponents), and looking for cover cover that we can take, and cover an opponent may be hiding behind in ambush.

At the top of the Cooper scale was Condition Red. This was armed encounter level: the moment of truth.

It is time for a brief digression. It is said that when Jeff Cooper was a young Marine j/g in the Pacific Theater during WWII, the USMC had already developed a color code that had five levels. In that particular framework, Condition White meant something like Safe at Base. Condition Yellow was the alertness one would have on patrol. Condition Orange was an intensified level when something led the Marine to believe that contact with the enemy was imminent. Condition Red was one or more enemy soldiers in sight, and at the top was a fifth level: Condition Black, or combat in progress.

Ive always felt the latter, five-level version of the color codes made more sense in the domestic sector, for the armed private citizen as well as the law enforcement officer, as distinct from military operations. In this Condition Red, we are confronting someone who more likely than not is a dangerous criminal. It escalates to Condition Black when that individual actually attacks.

The continuum as related to the gun is as follows. A person totally in Condition White might not even want to be armed. One does not have to be armed to be in Condition Yellow, but if one is armed, one should definitely be in that state of mental awareness. The homeowner hearing the burglar alarm go off, or the police officer receiving a radio call to respond to an armed robbery in progress, should instantly escalate to Condition Orange. They dont know the exact nature of the danger or the exact face of the enemy in question, but they are aggressively looking for those things. At this point, the gun may or may not be drawn depending on the totality of the circumstances, but the firearm should most certainly be instantly available. In Condition Red, we have spotted the potentially lethal gunman, and it is probably now appropriate to take him at gunpoint an act that would be felonious aggravated assault if done without just cause. Condition Black is a lethal assault in progress: the opponent is trying to kill or cripple you, or kill or cripple someone you have a right or even a duty to protect. It is at that point that we unleash deadly force, and actually open fire.

In Colonel Coopers code, developed by a wartime Marine who killed enemy soldiers with his sidearm in both a hot war and a cold one, it made sense to combine Conditions Red and Black into a single Condition Red, and that the circumstances would determine whether we shot our opponent or not. That makes sense in military combat, when ones very mission is to shoot and neutralize enemy combatants on sight.

In domestic society, it doesnt work that way. Cop or civilian, you are far more likely to be in a situation where you need to take someone at gunpoint (Condition Red), than you are to be in a situation where you have to shoot someone (Condition Black). On the witness stand, well be cross-examined as to what our standards and our state of mind were at the time we fired the shot or shots in question. Topping the spectrum with a single Condition Red allows a lawyer with an unmeritorious case to argue, So, this Condition Red thing, youre telling us that capturing a man at gunpoint without bloodshed, or killing himthats all the same to you, and doesnt make any difference?