In theory, should you find yourself in a nasty situation where you may need to go to guns for your survival, it’s a simple matter of drawing your weapon, point muzzle toward threat and press trigger – right? Well, what if that simple solution to a complex problem turns out to be not so simple.
Widening our scope of study from pressing the trigger to the totality of managing an active threat from the onset, there are four contributing factors to your going to guns for survival that must be considered: Awareness, Psychological, Physiological and Performance.
Awareness Factors
Mindset
Referencing confronting an active threat such as an active shooter, knife attack or similar physical violence, threatening yourself and/ or those with you, first and foremost is mindset.
You have three to choose from: 1. “It will never happen to me.” 2. “Someone else will handle it.” or 3. “It’s my responsibility.” Which of these will best serve your own personal security? Obvious, but not to everyone. Minus this mindset you’re so far behind the power curve that you may as well just assume the fetal position.
Next in terms of mindset, is having the will to take the life of another human being. If you may have any religious or philosophical proclivity toward not harming another regardless of circumstance, then you probably shouldn’t be carrying a gun in the first place.
Awareness Condition
Second is the condition of your awareness. Developed by Col. Jeff Cooper, there are four conditions of awareness applied to environmental observation. If you’ve never heard of them, they are a critical component of situational awareness.
The lowest, is Condition White which offers the least volume of awareness. This describes when you’re sitting comfortably at home in front of your TV with doors locked, perfectly safe and in a completely controlled environment replete with locks, alarms, cameras, firewalls, etc. Your home is your castle, your sanctuary and Condition White is perfectly applicable at home.
However, the second you pop your head outside your front door, it’s time to click up to the next level of awareness – Condition Yellow. A condition recommended at all times in public.
Observing a potential threat, you are placed on a mental alert clicking you up an awareness notch. Here, you apply Condition Orange, which means that you have identified a specific threat.
The highest is Condition Red, which means that you’re in the fight, and as things have now gone physical, you are called to action.
Threat Identification
You can’t respond to a threat if you can’t recognize one. Being in relaxed state of general awareness (condition yellow) affords you the opportunity to identify a threat. Using your senses, to hear it, see it, smell it coming, you can observe who or what is the threat, what direction it’s coming from, and additional environmental information that can help you formulate an appropriate solution.
Judgement
After identifying a potential threat, you must then decide “Is this an active threat?” Either it is or it isn’t. If not, then you go about your business without interruption, if it is, then it may require one of two solutions – either a tactical solution where you quickly remove yourself from the threat area or a shooting solution, requiring use of lethal force.
You must then decide is this a shoot or no-shoot scenario? You must immediately weigh out the pros and cons of going to guns.
Time is not on your side during this judgement process. If you determine that it is a shooting solution, then your considerations multiply. Is my weapon accessible? Can I deploy it in a timely manner? What is my backstop? Can I take the shot?
All active threats are dynamic, and the conditions surrounding that threat are in a constant state of flux. The condition of the threat, the condition of your environment, and the condition of your weapon can and will change in the blink of an eye.
Psychological Factors
If it does end up being a shooting solution and you make the decision to go to guns you are rendered subject to two critical psychological factors –stress and Psychological Refractory Period (PRP).
Stress
Stress is nothing more than physical duress. Your heart rate is accelerated, your body’s primary stress hormones –adrenaline, cortisol and norepinephrine are dumped into your system and consequentially, your normal world isn’t so normal anymore.
When I was running qualifications back in the day, even the very best shooters on the line performed slightly below their capacity when they had that pass-or-fail-to-stay-on-the-squad qualification monkey on their back! When you must guarantee that a-zone hit, the price tag is time.
Psychological Refractory Period
Psychological Refractory Period or PRP, is a psychological state impacting your performance. You can see how this works next time you go to the range. Set up three targets at about ten yards. Using your shot timer, draw from the holster and fire one round into the “A” zone of target one. Let’s say this takes you 1.5 seconds. Do this at least three to five times (the more the better) to find your average time. Try to be consistent and don’t miss that “A” box – remember to guarantee your hits as if you’re life depended on it!
Next part of the drill, fire one round into the “A” zone of target one and then another round into the “A” zone of target two. You will notice that the time it took to hit target one, drawing from your holster, might be slightly longer than when you were firing only one round.
Next, fire one round into the “A” zone of target one and one round into the “A” zone of target two and then one round into the “A” zone of target three.
Compare the time it took to hit target one when you were firing only one round versus your time on target one when you hit all three targets. PRP is a psychological factor directly impacting your actual round placement response time.
Physiological Factors
In addition to awareness factors and psychological factors there are certain physiological factors which cannot be ignored when considering a shooting solution. One of the most critical is your own personal reaction time.
Personal Reaction Time
Former FBI Agent, renown small arms expert and holster designer, Bill Rogers, has measured the average unit of Human Reaction Time (UHR) at approximately .25 seconds. Calculated as the amount of time it takes your brain to send the electrical signal down to your trigger finger, you can measure this yourself by again going to the range with a shot timer.
Have a buddy hold the shot timer to your ear. Point your fully loaded weapon (yes, includes one in the tube) safely down range and take up any slack in the trigger. On the beep, press the shot and don’t worry about hitting a target. The measurement from beep to boom is your UHR.
Human Processing Time
Stepping back from the actual trigger press, and looking at the totality of circumstance, per Dr. Daniel Johnson, a human factor psychologist, when you are overloaded with new, unfamiliar and threatening information you enter a state of temporary mental paralysis. This is because your mind must run through several steps to process the new information before your body can react. Per Johnson; Cognition, Perception, Comprehension, Decision, Implementation and then Movement are the steps needed to process new information.[1]
Cognition – the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience and the senses[2]. Perception – a method or mental impression of that cognition. Comprehension – the act of understanding that mental impression. Decision – a conclusion or resolution reached after consideration of that mental impression. Implementation – the process of putting that decision into action. Movement – the physical manifestation of that process. All of which takes time – a survival factor that cannot be ignored.
Physical Impairment
Physiological factors can include such graduated levels of physical impairment such as your own personal eye-hand coordination. Impairment can also include personal injuries, either the ones you brought with you, or perhaps those incurred during the ensuing physical violence.
An oft understated physical impairment is visual acuity. Whether it may be chemical agent(s) introduced such as OC spray or acid thrown in your face, blood, sweat, cut (someone slashed your face/ eyes), significant tearing, not wearing your readers, you experience tunnel vision, or you can’t focus your bifocals quickly enough to pick up that flash sight picture – these can all impact effective combat round placement.
Performance Factors
The fourth contributing factor to your survival during a shooting response are personal performance factors. Completely subjective and based squarely on your background and experience, your performance factors include operational and skill level considerations.
Operational Considerations
Sworn peace officers and civilians alike are subjected to three non-negotiable operational considerations – legal, policy, and tactics.
Paramount to these three is legal – are the physical actions you are about to execute with your firearm within the letter of the law. Every cent of your life’s retirement, your home, your vehicle and any other nest eggs you may have spent your entire existence building, is etched onto the nose of that one bullet sailing downrange from the smoking muzzle of your registered firearm. Your actions must be justified.
If you’re a cop you must consider agency policy. Approved by the department and legal counsel you are required to stay within the yellow and white lines of approved policy. Even as a civilian you are required to stay within the guidelines of reasonable use of force.
Although you would think that in a shoot scenario, combative tactics would, and should be the primary consideration, our society is constructed in such a manner that law enforcement professionals and defense-minded citizens, are forced to place tactics at the very bottom of their split-second decision-making process, lagging behind legal and policy.
Skill Level
Whether you are a competitor or a tactician (tactical skills) or both, you will never rise to the level of your expectations as a shooter, but fall to the lowest level of your last training. Under duress, shooting mechanics can easily break down and with it your performance.
Shooting mechanics are any gun handling skills, primary shooting performance considerations, to include rapid deployment from cover, marksmanship, and the ability to deliver combat effective round placement with speed and accuracy under extreme duress.
Recoil management is a contributing factor to the speed and accuracy of effective round placement. The difference in skill of controlling the recoil of a 124g factory 9mm round compared to a hot 45ACP for nine rounds, can cost you a tenth of a second per round (minor versus major to you competitors) for a total of nearly one second – which can be a very long time when your fighting for your life.
Trigger control on multiple rounds – can you perform a rapid trigger press without disturbing the muzzle through an entire magazine? What are your average split times (time measured between round placement from the last round on the same target) and transition times (time measured between the first-round placement on your current target and the round before it placed on a previous target)?
What happens when you’ve exhausted your gun’s ammunition supply and must replenish your source of ammunition with a new magazine? How long does it take you to reload your weapon when it has fired to slide-lock? Do you even carry a spare magazine? If so, are you proficient at access and exchanging it with the empty magazine in your weapon?
Whether you never had any formal training to start with, or you may be currently out of practice – shooting, like any other hard skill is highly perishable.
What can you do to stack these survival factors in your favor? You can influence most of these factors. Just knowing what they are, and how they impact you is a tremendous first step, however, you can certainly do yourself one better.
Situational awareness is not something you can afford to omit from your daily routine. As a soft skill, it must be practiced daily for it to be effective in threat identification and judgement. Situational awareness doesn’t cost you any bullets or range time, but its benefits are immeasurable.
Performance can be enhanced and maintained through training and practice. As a hard skill, a recommended once or twice a month session at the range to run through a few basic performance drills, will help keep the rust off your muzzle.
[1] You are not so Smart, David McRaney, Oneworld, 2012
[2] Oxford Dictionary definition, 2012