State of Mind

by Dave Spaulding

One common theme that should be readily apparent to anyone who follows the Paladin Press website is the emphasis on self-reliance. It doesn’t matter if the subject is firearms, combatives, wilderness survival, or military action, Paladin Press is certainly behind what I like to think of as my mantra: we must all be active participants in our own rescue!

There is no other state of mind that offers greater peace of mind than knowing your are ready and willing to take whatever it takes to prevail in whatever trial or tribulation life sends your way. If I were to make state of mind look like a mathematical equation, it would look like this:

Awareness + Willingness = Prevail

They are a team with neither one more important than the others. Awareness means knowing what is going on around you at all times, being in a state of relaxed preparedness so you are not caught off guard. The best way to handle danger is to either avoid or evade it, and neither one is possible if you do not see the threat before it is thrust upon you. That said, the harsh reality of life is such that not all threats can be avoided; there will be times when fighting is your only option. For those who serve in the military or law enforcement, engagement is an inevitability. Cops and members of the military seek out those who would do us harm, so combat is par for the course. If one is not willing to engage in combat, failure is almost ensured.

The best explanation I have ever heard regarding willingness came from the 1976 movie The Shootist starring on John Wayne. Wayne’s character takes a teenaged stable boy out to shoot and when the young man out shoots the legendary gunfighter, the veteran of many gunfights explains the key component of prevailing in armed conflict:

“It’s not being fast or even accurate that counts, it’s being willing! I found out early that most men regardless of cause or need aren’t willing . . . they’ll blink an eye or draw a breath before they pull the trigger, and I won’t!”

This quote is almost verbatim from the book of the same name, and it encapsulates the state of mind necessary to win in the direst of circumstances, but it is not new. Those who have faced death in combat have long known that it is the more ruthless of the two combatants who will likely prevail, the one who has no hesitation about killing. While this may sound harsh, it is reality. If you want to know more about proper state of mind, I strongly suggest you read The Deadliest Men and More of the Deadliest Men Who Ever Lived by Paul Kirchner. Both books are full of men and women who understood the proper state of mind.



Dave Spaulding is a retired lieutenant from the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office in Dayton, Ohio, where he worked in all facets of law enforcement, including SWAT, training, crime-scene investigation, undercover operations, and violent crime investigations. He is a graduate of most of the better-known shooting schools and the author of more than 1,000 articles in firearm and law enforcement publications. He is the author of the two best-selling books Defensive Living and Handgun Combatives, and has been featured in Ruger’s Tactical Tips at www.ruger.com.