POINT: The weak link is the mind. Most people in our society are non-violent (sheep). Others are wolves. If you are legally allowed to use your proper tools (gun) and you go out the door without them, baaa!
Power plants are hard targets. They will be attacked sometime. Do the things you can legally and morally do to prevent attacks.
Sheep dogs protect the flock from the wolves. Only a predator can hunt a predator. Only a killer can hunt a killer.
Will you emotionally, physically and mentally be prepared to snuff out a human life in defense of others’ lives?
If you can’t answer that question, you should not be carrying a gun. Sheep don’t like having a predator around until the wolves show up. After Rodney King and pre-911, we were needing so many police that they allowed felons to qualify as cops. Nobody wanted to be a cop. Post 911 everything changed. 1. You will see a lot more cameras and these will help the cops. 2. Easier requirements to use tazers. The wolf is at the door. Denial turns us into sheep. Violence without empathy is a sociopath, psychopath. What if you have a capacity for violence and desire to use it righteously, you have a cop (a sheep dog). Sheepdogs are bulletproof. Resiliency is the buzzword for people who do not get PTSD. This means their mind is not affected by an incident. They get on with life. What makes it possible? If this act renewed our faith that you are doing the right thing. 1. Motivation: The sheep are always trying to pull you down. Our children are great motivators. Who would not take a bullet for their kids? 2. Motivation turned into action. Preparation is the opposite of denial. The more you prepare the less you will be psychologically shattered. There are scary things in the night, it’s us.
You have the skills and equipment. Sheep come up with weird scenarios to prove there is nothing they can do, so they do nothing. The sheep dog is just the opposite. Even if that weird scenario happens, you don’t get PTSD. Preparation saves you because you have the tools and the skills but even if you fail, you can live with it because you did everything you could. Internal focus of control. Identify what you can’t control and turn that over to a higher power. Identify what you can control and do it.
There is only one thing in the universe that you control, yourself. A sheep, when they heard about 911, said, “Thank God I wasn’t on that plane.”
A sheep dog says “I wish I could have been on that plane, I might have been able to do something.” More people are murdered in houses of worship than in schools. One of the most dangerous times of the week. So do carry a gun in your house of worship. Identify the worst thing that can happen and prepare for it.
Get knee deep in school board politics. Keep our kids safe. The wolves live to destroy, and use lambs as human shields. The sheep dogs live to protect, they are the human shield for the lambs. Sheep dogs believe in the redeeming power of love.
They have a positive self-fulfilling prophecy. Hollywood loves the pity party (poor guy, home from the war, divorced, alone ….) What doesn’t kill you is a good book. It talks about post traumatic growth. Example of bad media release: What was said: More than 100 veterans come home and commit murder. Actually their rate of murder is much lower statistically than the regular population.
It’s all politics. What ratio of veterans have PTSD? Veterans Administration says 8 percent. When they first returned from the Gulf War, VA said 30-40 percent had some symptoms of PTSD. It is normal. Not total PTSD. Media took out “some” and “symptoms” so it said 30-40 percent have PTSD. The vast majority of veterans need jobs. A few need help, and they get it. Veterans are better prepared for a gunfight if they have already been in one. Don’t be a macho man, get help if you need it. You must believe that they can help you. Most mental disorders can be treated. PTSD can be treated, and the person can fully recover. It will make you stronger. But don’t look for problems if you don’t have them. Have your body ready for the moment of truth. Be physically fit. Do not be sleep deprived. This is the best way to improve resiliency.
For thousands of years we slept when it was dark, then they invented electricity and we got a lot less sleep. Manage your sleep. In the military sleep deprivation is the major predicator of suicide. Video games are responsible for 15 percent of sleep deprivation in America. It interferes with your job, family, and life. Video games give an illusion of control. They are so addictive. Military and major sports league are establishing curfews. Twenty-four hours without sleep is the equivalent of being drunk. Sleep 101, take 30-minute or more naps. Hitting the snooze every 10 minutes is a waste, just sleep half an hour longer. Set the alarm so it gets progressively louder. Get up and turn it off. Good reference: Sciencedaily.com. Light coming in under the door deprives you of your melatonin. Use the sleep mask. Extra sleep on weekends can charge your batteries. Nicotine is of zero value to stay awake. Caffeine is valuable if you use it responsibly. Go cold turkey for one day. If you get any withdrawal symptoms it proves you have built up a tolerance for the drug. Cut off your caffeine after lunch. There’s nothing in soda or energy drinks that’s good for you. Caffeine has a half life five hours later. Too much caffeine can interfere with quality sleep. You need quality deep sleep. Your body can’t get the deep sleep it needs with caffeine in your body. Sleep deprivation makes us fat. We eat stupid stuff because we’re up longer. Sleep deprivation takes years off your life. Sleep prepares you for a long day. The hardest time of the day is the second hour after lunch.
He said when you’re in stress the only color you can see is red.
Grossman told of a free app which 100 schools in eight states are now using. Should a 911 call originate from one of these schools, then every cop within a five mile radius will be notified so they can respond. He has paid to have the system installed in his grandkids school. It needs to be in every school. hero911.org and schoolguard.com
It needs to be in place, it saves lives. Grossman said you can also read more about these systems at www.grossmanacademy.com
Grossman explained the physical reactions in the body to stress and fear. The heart will pound, anger will make your face red, if a face is pale and white it could be a sign of rage. There is basal restriction, blood pressure sky rockets. Your body goes into survival mode. Soldiers who have been injured in battle don’t bleed excessively, but after the battle is when the danger of bleeding to death increases. Grossman told of the importance of breathing. Most of the body’s reactions we can’t control, but we can control our breathing. Right before a basketball player takes a freethrow he takes a breath, when you’re shooting a gun you take a breath to relax before the shot. In the battlefield the helicopter pilot must remain calm, airline pilots must remain calm. You can train and condition yourself to remain calm with your breathing. You can also calm someone else down with your breathing. We are what we practice, practice to be calm. You must make a conscious decision every day to remain calm. Don’t let everyday things blow your cool. Sit at the back of restaurants with your back to the wall, always be alert to what’s going on around you.
National Geographic says a baby born today can live to be 120 years old. It’s the forebrain that makes us human. It produces rational thought. The mid-brain controls fight, flight, feeding and reproduction. If there’s an interaction between the brains and an angry, hormonal surge then the forebrain shuts down. If you’re angry or frightened then rational thought goes out the window. There’s no rational interaction with an angry person, you must calm them down first. Get them some food or a drink, calm them down.
Grossman said in his work debriefing people if they started to get emotional he would have them stop and breathe and take a drink of water. The key is to remember the incident, but not to relive it.
Grossman said in cases of extreme stress blood drains from the face, there’s a loss of peripheral vision and loss of control of bodily functions. Another thing Grossman taught the officers is if they are involved in a shooting, they won’t hear the shots. A state trooper was at a road block and a vehicle blows right by it and he shot the tires out, but he thought he had bad ammo because he couldn’t hear the shots. Nobody told him you won’t hear the shots. There are some things you can’t learn in peace time. Shots get quiet in combat. Sports psychology teaches mental toughness skills. Does sports psychology work with battle. Grossman said it’s very similar. Grossman said the American martial arts is gun shooting and marksmanship. Hojutsu is the ancient Japanese word for “the Art of Gunnery.” As practiced today, Hojutsu is the combination of the Modern Technique and traditional Japanese budo. Hojutsu trains in handgun, rifle, shotgun, submachine gun, and precision rifle; unarmed defense, various impact weapons, edged weapons, and ground fighting. However, Hojutsu is primarily a shooting art explained Grossman. Simulation training is good for stress inoculation. Shooting targets is one thing, but having someone shoot back is different. Paintballing and air soft is good training. In Florida, a lady had her three kids in the car in the garage when three armed invaders entered her house. The responding police officer Jennifer stayed calm, she had been trained. She took out one of the shooters, was wounded and kept shooting until the situation was under control. The woman and her three kids were unharmed. She took out three bad guys by herself. She was trained. She said the real life situation was less stressful than the training.
Make sure your people show up for firearms training. Give them hell, the ones that don’t show up. Make sure your officers are trained and know how to handle seeing a dead body, before they are exposed to a crime scene. Stress inoculation. Use training where they are attacked by the K9 officers. This is a stressful situation.
The mission is to stop the threat. The goal is to deter. A crime that didn’t happen is the best achievement. The mission is to stop the threat, shoot to save lives. In Ferguson, he attacked a cop and tried to get a gun. It was on a Saturday and it took four hours for the coroner to get there. That was wrong. They should have sent him to the hospital.
“I am thankful some people are willing to use deadly force,” said Grossman. Study the dynamics of using deadly force. A coward doesn’t do anything. Not shooting is not the answer. Don’t be afraid of being sued. Be afraid of doing the wrong thing. Sometimes you must use deadly force. You might have to defend yourself. Don’t take this lightly. Train. Men and women must be willing to use deadly force, or someone willing to kill will take over.
When the moment of truth comes and someone dies by a sudden violent death, the first reaction is that could have been me. That’s the survival response. Help yourself survive, first, then you can help others. Someone is trying to steal your life away.
You will do what you’re trained to do. Grossman told the story of a police officer and his partner who trained every day. They took turns confronting each other and removing the weapon from the other officer and then giving it back. One day the police officer was off duty and there was a hold-up man in the supermarket, the officer confronted him and took his gun away and then gave it back. “You do what you’re trained to do,” said Grossman. Events will seem to happen in slow motion. Some people experience memory loss after a traumatic incident. Sometimes it’s best to wait 48 hours to take a statement, after memory comes back. Some cops will have memory gaps and they will have memory distortion, remembering things that didn’t happen. Wounded people have hallucinations. Under extreme stress, you may experience temporary paralysis. Your body does things. If you’re trained about what it might do, you are forewarned. At one training in California, an officer was relieved to know, it’s normal not to hear the shots because that had happened to him. It’s normal to suffer memory lapses and memory distortion. It’s important for officers to learn that.
One Arkansas trooper at a swim meet, had a panic attack when the starters gun went off, no one had warned him, this might happen. He was not taught what to do. You must learn to separate the memory from the emotion.
Soldiers in Iraq have seen a lot of battle. How do you know he’s ready to hit the streets when he gets back. Three million have come home with no problems. Very few things scare us more than the thought of losing our life. These soldiers need training on what to do when they get back. Sometimes you might wake up with your heart pounding, but don’t let it mess you up. One soldier was home for a week when the backfire from a car, sent him into the gutter. His wife and kids were standing there looking at him, he got up brushed himself off and told them it was normal. He was warned this could happen.
You can control your breathing. Do an experiment. Go to Walmart take your blood pressure. Sit for a minute take a few deep breaths and take it again. Breathing is part of marksmanship. Take a deep breath, push your stomach out of the way. Concentrating on the act of breathing can have incredible results. Breathe in through the nose for four counts and then out through the mouth for four counts. Panic is contagious, calm can also be contagious. Control the fear in combat and control the fear after combat. Courage is not about not being afraid. Courage is controlling your fear. Ask for help if you need it. Doctors can help.
People are taught their whole lives, thou shalt not kill. If you have to kill someone in battle it can kick your butt. The Bible says thou shalt not murder. There’s a difference, the lawful use of deadly force.
We don’t take natural disasters personal, but when someone kills humans, we take it personal, justice not vengeance, life not death. If I give my life for you in battle, don’t waste it. What do you want for your family after you’re gone. Joy and happiness, that’s all anyone wants. Suicide is a problem with military and police, but it’s less than the general public. Nobody takes your life without a fight, not even you. Fight for your life. Seek counseling, take medication.
Lt. Grossman went back and showed the picture of Christopher Amoroso again, the New York police officer. His face was white and drained of all color. He was not thinking rationally he was just doing what he was trained to do. Save people. Going into the burning building again and again and saving people.
People were leaping from the towers. He went in and never came back out. Self-preservation was cancelled out when he was helping others, we see that in nature, mothers are willing to die for their babies. Cops/soldiers are a band of brothers, they will fight long and hard for each other. One soldier was willing to fight back because the enemy was killing his friends.
What is the opposite of fear, love quenches fear as water quenches fire. Christopher Amoroso loved others more than life itself. The sheep dog will die for other people’s loved ones. Not a spirit of fear, but of love. The word Amoroso means one who loved. He was a hero because of his sacrifice. Live a life of sacrifice, put other’s needs ahead of your own.
In 1941 at the battle of the bulge.
The Nazi had shattered a portion of the American lines, the Nazi were cutting in. They would capture troops, the troops were out of supplies, an American tank was fleeing and the Nazi were chasing.
An American soldier stopped the tank and said where are you going.
The tank was looking for a safe place. The soldier said park that tank behind me, this is as far as those Nazi are going. You have responsibility, be a sheep dog. God bless you and your family and God Bless America.
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