PDN Feature Length - Bulletproof Mind: Mental Preparation for the Coming of Hard Times

In this video, we're gonna hear from Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman about his Bulletproof Mind Concept and learn why he thinks it's incredibly important that Americans wake up to the reality of the threats that we have in our everyday lives. The threats that are probably coming in the near future and how they can prepare to deal with them in the best way possible, with their families, communities and our entire country in mind. Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman is a known expert in the industry, and a well-respected speaker who's able to convey important information in a way that everyone can grasp. He's worked with military, law enforcement, and security professionals for well over two decades. Helping them to understand what they need to know about the fights that they're eventually going to be in, how to deal with them in the moment, and also how to prepare for the aftermath of those violent encounters.

He's taken his Bulletproof Mind Seminar on the road and he now speaks to thousands of people around the country just like you who are interested in personal, family and home defense. His Bulletproof Mind concepts are incredibly important to your preparation and I think that you're gonna get a lot out of this video. I'm here today with Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman. Great honor for me to have you here at Personal Defense Networks Sir. It's my honor bro, my honor.

And I appreciate everything that you've done. The books that you've written, the generous forward that you wrote for my latest book, "Counter Ambush." The work that you're doing now with the Sheepdog Seminars and the Bulletproof Mind Concept, to help our citizens understand the problems we face and how they can best prepare to deal with them is incredibly important. Give me a summary of what the Bulletproof Mind Concept is. Well step one, is to understand the magnitude of the threat. This month's issue of "The Economist" says that "The Curious Case of the Fall in Crime." And they give just a very very inept explanation for why crime has come down.

Here's the biggie. The murder rate's being held down by medical technology. The doc's save ever more lives every year. There's a whole issue on the decrease in crime rate that uses the murder rate over and over again. And the murder rate completely misrepresents the situation.

Anytime anybody says, I saw crackpot article by this goofball reporter. "Don't worry about the kids today, murder is at the lowest rate in 50 years." That's where your BS meter goes off. Anytime they talk about the murder rate it completely misrepresents situation. UMass Harvard Study, Peer Reviewed journal, irrefutable data. If we had 1970s medical technology, the murder rate would be four times what it is.

If we had 1930s medical technology, the murder rate could easily be 10 times what it is and that data is already a decade old. The leaps and bounds of life-saving medical technology in the last decade's amazing. So first take anything about murder and represent however many are dead, horrendous murder rate in Chicago. It would be at least four times what it is if we had 1970s technology. So the murder rate completely misrepresent this situation.

Those sneaky dang docs are keeping even more people alive every day. The other factor that they completely miss is medication. Now it is not true that all the school killers were on medication. FBI studied 19 killers in the school, juvenile killers in the school. We've never had juvenile mass murderers in the school in history, now they're everywhere.

In the FBI study, none of them were in Ritalin. Two, maybe three of the 19 were prescribed anti-depressants, we're pretty sure they were off their meds. I've gotten the goofy email, three times in the last year. "The top 10 mass murderers in modern history were on psych meds." Not true, but there is a core of truth here. You believe me when I tell you, the vast majority of people that die of heart disease are taking heart meds, but the heart meds didn't cause their problem.

A large portion of people with psych problems are taking psych meds. But the psych meds didn't cause their problems. If it weren't for the medication, it would be vastly worse. Front-page article nine months ago, USA Today, the primary thing that got us through the recession is a five fold increase in per capita prescription of antidepressants. The sneaky docs got us through the recession by medicating more people.

It's like some science fiction novel. Where we medicate more and more of our population. I tell people, "There's nothing wrong with that." If you have an iron deficiency, we can help. If you got a serotonin deficiency, we can help with that. There's no shame in that.

Somebody in your life has had their quality of life improved by the developing of modern anti-depressants. Somebody you know, live, love and work with. But how much worse would it be if all the Prozac and Zoloft trees died hard frost tomorrow? And why do we need it? And if it weren't for the medication, it would be vastly worse.

So we medicate ourselves to the gills and it's a key factor in the equation. We incarcerate ourselves mandatory sentencing. Every single year from 1969, until 2008, 40 years straight without fail, per capita incarceration rate went up. If the incarceration rate was the stock market, we'd all be billionaires right now. Because every year without fail for 40 years, we put per capita more people in jail than we did the previous year.

And start in 2008, we ran out of jails and that's scary. Across America, they're letting people out of jails. Cops are mad. They put people in jail, they let them back out again. Well the jails are full.

Somebody's put in somebody's got to come back out again. This is one thing that did cover well in The Economist. All the technology, the closed circuit TVs the DNA analysis and the tasers. And that was another thing. So car doors lock automatically when we drive off to prevent carjacking and a whole class of crime.

As we once know carjacking went away by one thing, having the car doors lock automatically when you drive off. And a thousand other things. But here's the big issue that they didn't mention. Concealed carry. Wherever concealed carry has gone in, crime has gone down.

And it's the biggest grassroots movement in America because it works. So what I want you to understand is, take our schools. We've never had a juvenile mass murder in the schools in human history until 1975 in Brampton, Canada. Double homicide in school in Canada. That's right.

The first one was Canada. In 79, we had a double homicide in a school in San Diego. One of the few females a juvenile committing a mass murder, double homicide. You'll see more females, it's coming. In the entire 1980s, there was one double homicide by a juvenile in the schools.

In the 1990s, it began to explode. Now what we do in our schools is we deter them. We put tens of thousands of armed people in our schools and it works. We have not had one single, multiple homicide ever occur in a school when there was somebody in that school that could shoot back. Either they don't try it, or they just, they're stopped before they can get a body count.

If there's somebody on scene that can shoot back. In Utah, I do a lot of work in Utah. I don't believe there's a school left in Utah that doesn't have armed educators. Across Ohio, across Texas, many other States, they're training and arming their educators. So in our schools, we deter.

Lockdown drills are deterrent. In every single school there's a kid thinking about it real hard. And he fears one thing. He fears failure. You do the lockdown drill, the SWAT team, suddenly thunder down the hallway.

What's a little one be thinking? "Oh, better not doing it here. They're ready for me." The ultimate shame of the crime that didn't happen. We deter these little killers. We detect them.

The Columbine killers would have been caught three or four times over today. They're just kids. They're not that sophisticated. If we look for it, we can spot it. And every cop, every educator, can tell you one or two cases where we caught the kid with the hit list.

We caught them building bombs. We caught them planting it, and it never got in the news. If you know one or two cases that never got in the news how many other nationwide? So we deter them by thousands. We detect them by hundreds, we defeat them.

They ain't going to be no more Columbines. We're going in the door and we're gonna shoot this kid before he gets a body count. Most people never heard about what happened in Spokane, Washington. Cops are in the high school in Spokane, Washington immediately. Cops on scene tell me first words out of the kid's mouth after they shot him and he survived, nobody died.

Not on anybody's list. Nobody died. Cops on scene say the first words of the kid's mouth was, "How did you get here so fast?" Ain't gonna be no more Colombine's, we're going in. So we deter them. We detect them, we defeat them.

And remember, medical technology is defeating them by saving ever more lives. With all that said, there'd never been a juvenile mass murder in the schools until 1975 and now they're everywhere. People don't realize that the all-time record school massacre by a student, Was in Erfurt, Germany. Two years after Columbine was 17 dead. But he was 19.

He don't qualify to be a juvenile HIPAA right. In Winden, Germany in 2009, a 17 year old high school student in Germany killed 15 all by himself. The current all-time record juvenile mass murder in human history is Germany. Germany has had two horrible massacres in their high schools. There've been two mass murders in the schools in Finland.

All the great European gun laws didn't do them a lick of good. Around the planet, children are committing crimes never seen before. So the DOJ report on dead by violence in the school tells us in 1997, we had 57 dead by violence in the school. Our children are more likely to kill by violence in the school than in every other possible cause of death put together. We have fire sprinklers, fire exits, fire alarms firetrucks, fire drills, fire hydrants.

Not a single kid's been killed by school fire in over 50 years. But most of the schools just refuse to prepare for the possibility of violence. So in 97, we had 57 dead by violence. In 06, we had 63 dead by violence. The year that Sandy Hook happened.

I don't have the final count from this last school year. With 27 dead in Sandy Hook, I guarantee you this last school year is a new all-time record dead. And we've been saying for years the kids that gave you Jonesboro Middle school, Columbine in the high school, are gonna give you pure hell in the colleges. And Virginia Tech was just the beginning. NIU, Louisiana Vo-Tech, the little college in Oakland, California last year.

It's just the beginning. Now the colleges are doing it. They're deterring them. If you're sending your kid to college, and you're paying for your kid's college , and your college ain't got armed security on site, get them the hell out of that college and put them in a college that gives a damn about your kids. If there's people on site that can shoot back it's far less likely to happen.

In Virginia Tech, if there had not been good, solid, trained, armed responders on scene, the body count would have been far higher. So in the colleges, we're deterring them. We're detecting them. We're defeating them. So I tell all my audience, I'll make a prediction.

Ain't much of a prediction we see at the news every day. The kids that gave us Jonesboro Middle School, Columbine in the high school. Virginia Tech in the college are all grown up. And they're gonna give you a hell in the workplace and domestic environment. These guys are not just gonna commit suicide.

They're gonna murder the wife and kids and then commit suicide. How many have you seen of that in the news? Man murders wife and kids. I know three cases last year where mom murdered the husband and kids and then committed suicide. It don't even make the national news anymore.

They're gonna get their 15 minutes of fame. They're gonna go in the old folks home in North Carolina and murder your grandparents. So the girlfriend who works in that old folks home will know how sad he is that she broke up with him. They're gonna workout center in Pittsburgh and murder a bunch of women he's never met. So the world will know how sad he is he could never get a date.

Remember that one? Mm-hmm. They're going to the wife's workplace a beauty salon in Seal Beach, California. They're going to murder the wife and every other woman in that building. So the world will know how sad it is that he couldn't get custody of their kid.

And yep, they're going to a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. That guy passed multiple movie theaters where concealed carry was allowed. And he picked a movie theater where concealed carry wasn't allowed to commit his massacre. And don't anybody dare call these things shootings in front of me. These are massacres.

The Boston massacre, five dead. Set up the American Revolution. St. Valentine's Day massacre, seven dead. Add up the Boston massacre to St Valentine's Day massacre double it.

And you still got more dead at Sandy Hook or Virginia Tech. These are massacres. We call them shootings. Number one, well, it's just another shooting. It happens everyday during deer season.

Just another shooting, happens in the range all the time. These are massacres. But what they've done is they've taken our sport, our hobby, our activity shooting, and made it a synonym for the most horrible crimes in America. Everybody out there, do not use the word shooting. Do not use the word shooter.

You're a shooter. I'm a shooter. If need be, we might even be killers but we're not murderers. And there's all the difference in the world. These are not active shooter response.

This is active mass murdering response. Call it what it is. These are not shootings. These are massacres. So when we look at these massacres, these killers.

I was there in Hartford, Connecticut on the morning of the Sandy Hook massacre. And that morning I told the cops, you're gonna see kindergarten massacres. I was wrong. It wasn't in kindergarten. It was the first grade.

They came to the kindergarten first. You're gonna see daycare massacres. We saw a daycare massacre in Belgium with a butcher knife. Man walks into a daycare center, wounds one daycare worker, kills another and hacks and stabs 12 little babies in the crib. Now all the gun laws didn't do them any good.

Google knife massacres in China. There's a dozen different massacres in kindergartens and daycare centers in China with hatchets and knives. In Japan, we saw a daycare massacre. We're gonna see daycare massacres. We're gonna see more elementary school massacres wherever we have helpless victims and no guns are allowed.

We're gonna see it in the hospitals. We've already seen some hospital massacres add we'll see more. Half of all hospitals refuse to have armed security on site and they're gonna hit those hospitals. We've got daycare centers. We've already.

We saw it around the world, it's gonna happen in America. Old folks home. We saw one, there'll be more. Every place where there's helpless victims who can't fight back. Little League games, school buses, but in particular daycare centers and elementary schools.

And Sandy Hook is just the beginning. We have raised the most vicious generation the world has ever seen. They've given us crime since children like nothing we've ever seen before. And every couple of years, there's a new all-time record dead in our schools. We deter them.

We detect them. We defeat them. And still every couple of years there's a new all-time record dead in our schools. And what the kids do in the schools today, predict what's coming down the road. And those same vicious, vicious kids who by the way, the new factor around the planet is the sick movies and the sick video games.

The FBI studies, all of the European studies on these killers tell us they got one thing in common. They dropped out of life and they do nothing on earth but play the sickest games and watch the sickest movies. And the kids who do nothing but watch the sickest movies and play the sickest games, are the sickest kids the world has ever seen. And it is the one factor they all have in common. Yeah, they're growing up, giving us crimes we can't imagine.

And those same sick, sick kids are gang-banging cop killers. Change gears and talk about the gang threat. Mexico is our future. Study Mexico. There's more loss of life in Mexico than Iraq and Afghanistan put together.

And in Mexico criminal gangs, the cartels, are at war with their Nation. "Oh, Dave, gangs at war with our nation? That would never happen in America." In Mexico, over 20 mayors were murdered last year. "Well see, criminals murdering elected officials and public officials in America? That would never happen." The Prison's Chief in Colorado and his wife murdered in their home Two prosecuting attorneys and the wife one of them murdered in their home in Texas.

This Sheriff in West Virginia and whatever one you hear about in the news lately, where criminals are systematically hunting down prosecuting attorneys, prison's chiefs, sheriffs elected officials. This is just the beginning. In Mexico we see 10 cops beheaded here. Six cops beheaded here. 20 cops murdered there.

"Oh see, criminals systematically attacking and murdering cops? That would never happen in America." Lakewood, Washington. Man walks in a coffee shop and murders four cops. The gangs have declared war on our cops. The gangs are their nation.

Your nation says go to Germany and kill Nazis. You do, right? Your nation says kill cops and you do. The all-time record number of cops killed by single perp in a single incident. The all-time record number cops, four dead cops in a coffee shop in Lakewood, Washington.

He walked in that coffee shop and murdered them. Had he ever met those cops before in his life? No, why did he kill them? Because of the uniform they wear. When people that don't even know you try to kill you, 'cause of the uniform you wear, there's a word for that.

What do they call that? They call that war. It's called war. And the gangs that declared war on our cops. Now you know medical technology is holding down the number of dead cops.

You know, body armor and tactics and training is holding down the number of dead cops. The number of dead cops has been going down for decades because of tactics and training and body armor and most of all medical technology. So in 2009, we had 57 cops murdered in the line of duty. In 2010, we had 77 cops murdered in the line of duty. In 2012, we had 82 cops murdered in the line of duty.

Do we see a pattern here? If that was your mutual fund, you'd be a very happy customer. Systematic murder execution assassinates your cops like criminals. Now in 2011, we had more US Marshals murdered than any year in the history of the Marshal Service. I train all of our Feds, I train in all 50 States.

Very special place in my heart for my Marshals. We lost more of my Marshals in 2011 than the previous 10 years put together. More than any year in the history of the Marshal Service And it was all the fugitive apprehension teams. Our fugitive apprehension teams have slammed head on into a new generation of video game trained killers. The gangs of their nation and their nation's given them permission to go to war.

The video games are the simulators. Cops know what the simulator does for you. You're in the simulator of the bad guy it says boom. You shoot. You've tightened OODA loop.

You don't even have to think you've made the decision. Well, they've been in the simulator since they were six years old playing Grand Theft Auto. Rehearsing killing cops every spare minute. And the video games are the recruiting tool. Gang membership is exploding.

The United States Army spent millions of dollar on games like America's Army. 'Cause we know kids will play the game and say, "I'm gonna be a soldier. Just like the guy in the game." Millions of people play these sick games say, "I'm gonna be a gang-banging cop killer. Just like the guy in the game." In World War II we made propaganda movies. "Here's the Nazis they're evil.

We've gotta kill them." Today, Hollywood makes propaganda movies for the gang-bangers. How many movies are you seeing where the cops are the bad guys? Crooks are the good guys. Even the good cops spend all the time hunting down the bad cops. So what we've got is gang members declaring war on our cops.

Go back to my Marshals. We lost the all-time record number of Marshals. Gang membership's exploding. They'd been trained and they've been given permission through movies and their gangs to murder. The following year we lost no Marshals.

How'd we do that? Many things. Tactics, training, equipment. But here's one of them. The previous year, this fugitive apprehension teams were taking down three or four bad guys a day.

We know who the bad guy is. You gotta go get him. Now they're taking down one bad a day at 4:00 o'clock in the morning. We ain't losing no Marshals when we go in the door at 4:00 o'clock in the morning. "Oh, the number of dead Marshals are down.

It's all better now." No, it's not better. Once again, we threw our tactical bandaid on this wound. We're taking in a third as many bad guys. Just to make sure that we don't lose any cops in the process. It's bad and it's getting worse everyday.

We medicate ourselves. We incarcerate ourselves. We arm ourselves. We equip ourselves. And one of the things holding out the crime rate is they're fudging the figures.

Across America, they're fudging figures. Look at a book called "The Crime Numbers Game" by two John Jay college professors outside of New York. One of them is a retired NYPD Precinct Commander. The whole Comp Stat thing, it's a great big lie. And basically the Comp Stat what you do is, you bring the precinct commander once a week and you beat them up.

"Precinct Commander, aggravated assault is up in your precinct. You bring it down or we'll find somebody who can." Now, what's the fundamental flaw in holding people fiercely accountable for information that they report? Ag assault becomes simple assault. Breaking in becomes trespassing. Auto broke becomes vandalism.

And everything becomes criminal mischief. "Police officer, can you explain to me the difference between an aggravated assault and a simple assault?" "Huh, pretty simple. I get too many Ag assaults I get my tailed chewed." That's as simple assault, simple, see? So the internal threat of our gangs and our kids they're the best of this society out there is very good. The kids are going to war are the best we've ever seen.

But the worst of our society are very, very bad. And the internal threat's like nothing we ever saw before. Then we have the external threat. When are they gonna give us the next 9/11? We don't know.

But we can try to predict future behavior based on past behavior. We've been around this block once before. Russia was in Afghanistan for 10 years. The enemy is not stupid. As long as Russia was in Afghanistan there were no major terrorist attacks on Russia.

Because they knew they'd never get Russia out of Afghanistan. Their policy was very straightforward. Wait till the stupid Russians get sick of the war and leave Afghanistan. And then it's our turn to give them hell. If they give us a major 9/11 on American soil right now.

And of course the Boston Marathons, the kind of nickel and dime homegrown self-starters we should expect. That they'd give us another major 9/11 scale attack. They'll never get us out of Afghanistan. I think they're praying that nobody does anything stupid until we leave Afghanistan. And when the last to leave Afghanistan, all hell is coming home with them.

So Americans can smell it. They can smell it. They're doing what Americans can do. They're buying ammo. Anybody having trouble getting ammo?

I've checked on it. You know who's hoarding ammo? The government's not buying any more ammo than usual. You know who's hoarding ammo? I am.

You are. Guys, if you got more ammo at home than you can carry. then you need to start using that ammo and training with it. What Americans have always done is they circle the wagons. They get guns, they get ammo, and they train.

The missing ingredient today is training. But Americans can smell it. Bad, bad times are coming. I don't know about the whole economic thing. I don't know about the whole political thing, but I know our gangs are out of control.

Our kids are out of control. And I believe with all my heart when the last American soldier leaves Afghanistan, all hell is coming home with them. And 9/11 is just beginning and Israel is our future. And we've gotta become Israel with armed, trained citizens everywhere. So the next stage in the process is, is understanding the magnitude of the threat and then preparing for that threat.

What you just lined out for everyone is a very stark look at reality and why we need to be prepared. Why we need to have a Bulletproof Mind and work towards a Bulletproof body, and a Bulletproof proof community and a Bulletproof country. Internal, external, kids becoming adults. Now when they become adults, joining the gangs, going to war with the police. And it's one step removed from just going to war with everybody.

Overt war. Yeah. That violence being brought to someone who hasn't thought about these issues. That violence being visited upon people who aren't prepared to deal with it is what we read about every day. That's true.

The home invasions, the violent attacks on the street, violent attacks in workplaces. Where do we go from here? So we've laid out that the problem. Yeah. Where do we go?

What Americans are doing is they're reaching back into their roots. The concealed carry movement is the most powerful grassroots movement in our lifetime. Completely grassroots Americans reaching out and demanding the right to protect themselves. They're reaching back to their heritage. But the part of the equation that has been left out is the training piece of the equation.

And we gotta be trained. You can't get ammo, don't whine to me. Do air soft and paintball, do dry fire drills. And pellet guns, my grandson and I in the basement plugging a way with our pellet pistol. But let's start using some of that ammo that you're stockpiling.

Folks, if you got more ammo than you carry on your body it's a waste that should be used to train with. You need a reserve, but not much more that you can carry on your body. And the rest of it, if you're not training with it, it's being wasted. Go out there and start using that ammo. We've stockpiled enough ammo now we gotta go train.

Now I got a model that I use. I call it piss on golf. Real Americans go to the range. You gotta have a hobby. It's a pure and beautiful thing when your hobby reinforces your survival skills.

And our war cry is piss on golf, real Americans go to the range. Real Americans go to the dojo. Real Americans go to the gym. There ain't no survival skill found on the golf course. Ain't no cardio demands found on the golf course.

For a warrior, the golf course is a willful and deliberate misuse of a perfectly good rifle range. And I'm not impressed you hit a golf ball 200 yards. Hit a golf ball from 200 yards, I'm impressed. Now what I'm gonna do is give you some quotes from some great Americans. And I want to start with Teddy Roosevelt.

This is Teddy while he was president talking about a problem a hundred years ago. It's vastly worse today. He said, "We should establish shooting galleries. in all of the large public and military schools. Should maintain national target ranges in different parts of the country and should in every way encourage the formation of shooting clubs throughout all parts of the land.

It is unfortunately true that the great body of our citizens shoot less and less as time goes on. To meet this challenge, we should encourage practice by every means in our power. Thus and not otherwise, may we be able to assist in preserving the peace of the world. Fit to hold our own against the strong nations of the earth. Our voice for peace will carry to the ends of the earth.

Unprepared and therefore unfit, We must sit dumb and helpless to defend ourselves, protect others or preserve peace. The first step to avert war if possible and to be fit for war if should come, is to teach our men to shoot." And I had women too, right? Now, what's Teddy saying? Piss on golf. You need to get out and hit those ranges.

We need to be a shooting nation. Not just gun-toting nation, but a practicing a nation, a shooting nation. Close down your golf courses America and open rifle ranges and pistol ranges. And get out there and practice with the great samurai trainers of our time. I ask people, "Do you ever wonder what it felt like to be the samurai?" To be entrusted with state-of-the-art tools and training and to administer life and death?

What it felt like to be one of the Knights of Old? To have high and low justice and be entrusted to carry the state-of-the art tools? This is what it feels like. In America we are the samurai. We are the Knights of Old.

We carry state-of-the-art tools. We're given the authority to decide on whether or not we can use deadly force to protect others. There is no nobility in America other than the common citizen. I am the last line of defense in America. You, the armed citizen, endowed by my creator with inalienable rights, empowered by my constitution to keep and bear arms, inspired by my forefathers to fight for this land I love.

This is the final protection of America. The reason why we're hopefully, preferably not gonna be Mexico is our armed citizens. We're not disarmed peasants. We're a nation of samurai, a nation of Knights. Endowed with the unalienable right to protect and save the lives of one another.

And so get that training. Go forth and seek that training with people like Rob Pincus and state-of-the-art resources out there. Stop hoarding that dang ammo and start using it to hit the range and train with. Teddy Roosevelt, piss on golf. Well, you know, Teddy was a wild man.

You know, he. Our founding fathers would've never said anything like that. Tommy Jefferson, in a letter to his nephew. "A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun.

While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be the constant companion of your walks." What's Tommy Jefferson's saying? Piss on golf. Carry that gun.

Do that shoot and prepare for that moment of truth. Now, this is an old, old concept. It goes way back in our history. You see our roots were deep in England. And we represent.

In revolutionary America, everything's good and true about England. The war started when they tried to come confiscate our guns in the revolutionary war. But our forefathers knew that it's not enough just to have a weapon, it's also vital to be trained in the proper use of that weapon. In 1349, King Edward III of England told the citizens of London that their skill of shooting was being neglected. And he proclaimed that, "Every one of the said city, London, strong in body, at leisure times, on holidays, use in the recreation bow and arrows or pellets or bolts and learn and exercise the art of shooting.

That they do not after any manner apply themselves to the throwing of handball, football, cam buck, or cockfighting, nor such like vain plays, which have nor profit in them." What's he saying? Piss on golf. Finally. In 1459, King James II of Scotland, banned the game of golf, from the hills in which it was created. He argued that golf was a danger to national security.

It's a distraction to soldiers from practicing their archery. His grandson James IV a keen golfer, lifted the ban in 1502. 11 years later in the Battle of Flodden and against the English, Scotland suffered its worst ever military defeat. What are they saying? ", we wish had said piss on golf." Our ancestors had our feet planted in bloody soil.

They knew something we forgot. Your hobby has to reinforce your survival skills. You gotta get out there and train and practice. Sell those golf clubs. Shut down those golf courses.

Rise up as a nation. In the same way that we have demanded concealed carry, we must demand training resources and training standards and training available. This is the missing ingredient. You and I know that just having a weapon is not the solution. You've gotta have the skill with the weapon.

And what I tell people is, "Don't be a gun snob." I have in my family gun safe, a 32 caliber pistol, that in 1929 my great-grandmother shot a guy off the back balcony of her house. It was New Orleans. It was a hot summer day. All the windows and doors were open for air conditioning. The guys climbing up on the balcony and the great granny picked up her pistol and emptied it.

And hit him at least once or twice. There was a blood trail. Granny probably never fired more than 20 shots in her life. The revolver in the bedside stand of granny is a force to be reckoned with. Don't be a gun snob in saying, "Unless granny's gonna do 5,000 hours of training, she shouldn't have that gun." But once granny does have that gun, let's take her to the range a couple of times.

Let's push the envelope. Let's seek a higher level now that we have that gun and get the training done. Piss on golf, real Americans go to the range. I'll give you one last example. Nationwide, about three years after 9/11, Congress passed the law authorizing every cop to carry concealed from sea to shining sea.

And they played all kinds of puissant games. "Oh, your badge don't work in our State. Don't want you carrying a gun in our State." Those puissant games are over. Congress says, "We're at war and we pray you will be there with the lifesaving tools your profession." And they made it legal for retired officers to carry from sea to shining sea. But they had to go back to their departments and qualify.

So I've heard versions of this story all true from across America. We had this phenomenon of all these old retired users going back to their department and qualifying. And it was the Oklahoma State Police, and the range master told me. He said, "We had the guys 50 to 60, 60 to 70, 70 to 80 and then we had the guys 80 and above." He said, "I was terrified." I had this vision of these geezers staggering around my range, they were all World War II veterans." Every one of them qualified expert. Many of them maxed the score.

They were World War II vets. They would rather die than show up to the range and not qualify expert. You can get old. If we're lucky, we'll get old. And you'll probably get a little chubby and you'll get slow, but you can still be one hell of a shot.

If you develop this skill now and practice this skill. And so the next step in the equation is for us to get out there and start using that hoarded, stockpiled ammo and start doing some training. And getting out there where we can develop those skills that will save our family and save our nation in this hour of darkness What you laid out is the solution. The solution is, if we wanna be prepared for the worst case scenario of violence. we need to be prepared to bring the greatest force equalizer we can to that fight.

And that's gonna be that concealed carry handgun. That's gonna be that firearm staged in the home to defend ourselves against lethal violence and the outside forces that may choose to do our country harm knowing that we're an army of hundreds of millions of armed and capable and trained shooters-- Who ha. Will hesitate. Yes. And maybe change their mind.

Yes, greatest achievement. Absolutely. The crime that didn't happen. Absolutely. The attack that didn't happen.

And there's more to it though than the tool. And there's more to it than the training. For someone who, maybe is just coming to the realization of what the scope of the problem is. Yeah. And now they understand that there may be an ultimate solution in arming themselves and training themselves and arming themselves with the ability and the skill sets.

There's some things they should understand about the fight in that moment of defense. And you you've written about it. You've lectured on it. You've talked about it. The importance of being one who is prepared to defend others, including yourself.

Yeah. The first person you need to defend. If you would talk about that, that Sheepdog Concept a little. I call it the Sheepdog. There are wolves who will destroy the innocent.

Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech, the World Trade Center. There are wolves in the land. And there are those who choose to be sheep. They lead quiet, gentle non-violent lives and that's their business. You know, I carry a gun so my elderly neighbor next door doesn't have to.

I carry a gun so my wife doesn't have to. And these are people who've chosen to depend on others to protect them and that's okay. But then there are the sheepdog. I'm a sheepdog. The sheepdog lives to confront the wolf and to protect the lambs.

If you have no propensity for violence, then you're a non-violent citizen. If you have a propensity for violence with an absence of empathy, violence without empathy is a pretty good thumbnail definition of a sociopath, a psychopath, a wolf. But what if you had a propensity for violence and the love for the lambs? What if you spent a lifetime nurturing the capacity for violence and a desire to use it in a righteous battle? Now what do you have?

A sheepdog. Yeah. I had a wonderful phone call and conversation and email correspondence with a lady who's a senior editor at a major national newspaper. And she said, "I read your book on Killing." I'm gonna talk about all these people buying guns are not gonna be able to use a gun at the moment of truth, because it's hard. And then if they do use it, how they'll be psychological destroyed based on your book.

I said, "Ma'am, you need to reread the book." To take a young 18 year old kid and voluntarily draft him off the streets, send him to a distant land have him kill some men that mean no harm, that's hard we can do it. But it takes training. There's mechanisms that we use to do it. And of all the kinds of violence you could do it's a little on the harder side. To use violence to protect your family, to protect your children.

That's what we're designed to do. In nature, predators almost never kill each other in their territorial and mating battles. Very few species hardly ever kill each other in their territorial and mating battles. But mama bear with her cubs, one of the most dangerous things on the planet. Of all the violence you could engage in, the one that's most natural, the one that we're wired to do, is violence to protect our family and protect our children and protect our home.

And of all the violence you could engage in, the one that you can best live with, is violence against the individual who's come to threaten your family, your children, your home. And well, I never heard back from her. She never wrote the article. But I think we've got to help people understand that. That this is what we're designed to be.

Choose to be the sheepdog, to protect your meadow, to protect your lambs, to protect your flock and raise young sheepdog pups. And you know when we talk about hobbies, I'm an enormous fan of hunting. Of all the things you could do to prepare for combat, hunting is one of the most effective. I wish I got to spend more time hunting. It's been an on again, off again thing for me in my life.

But there is value to it. What do you think is the most valuable aspect of it? All right. You know what high powered weapons do to living creatures? You know what's inside living creatures?

You've experienced that dynamic of the excitement and the emotional things that happen in overcoming that and pulling the trigger accurately. But I think the greatest value lies deeper. See, throughout the history of our species, we've been predator and prey. The British government in India from the year 1900 to 1910, recorded over a 100,000 people killed by tigers. In just that decade, a century ago over a 100,000.

Those are just the ones they know of. How much was it a century before that? Throughout history, we've been in the middle of the food chain. And we're designed to have the survival traits that are needed if you're prey. And the survival traits that are needed if you're predator.

We have the gripping fangs of a predator. And we have the neural pathway of a predator. We have the forward set eyes of a predator. But we also have the chisel teeth of a messy self run like hell rabbit. And we have the grinding molars of a mill around herd animal.

And we also have the neural pathway of prey. And throughout history, we can be one or the other. And you really kind of exercise whether you were predator or prey depending on the environment you in, and what you did and what the threat was and what you're faced. Well, neurons are like muscles. The more you use them, the stronger they get.

And what we wanna do is we wanna exercise those predator neurons, the sheepdog neurons. I really am convinced that those who are chosen to be sheep are actually invested in a neuronal brain wired way into not fighting. Running, fleeing, hiding, but not fighting. And the thing about it is we're not critters. You know, the sheep, the wolf and the sheepdog is just a metaphor.

We can be whatever we wanna be. And Americans have chosen to carry that gun and to exercise those predator neurons. you can do it with martial arts. You can do with contact sports, but really far and away, the best way is hunting. It truly exercises those predator neurons.

I never took my kids hunting. I was in the army, barely home. But I was a grandfather. I blocked out the time to take my grandkids hunting every deer season. And I think it's one of the greatest gifts we give our kids.

And my granddaughters too exercise those predator neurons. I don't want my granddaughters to grow up and be sheep, to be prey. I want them to grow up to be sheepdogs. And I think the single best thing I can do for them is to take them hunting and have them experience at a young age. Our little grandson was seven.

He went to deer camp. The first time he came home grimy and dirty and bloody and just best seven days of his life. And then his mom said, "What did you like the best?" He said, "Cutting the deer." For a seven year old boy, what's inside living creatures is the blood and the skinning. And he was fascinated by that. That's the way we ought to be.

We ought to look at those things and know this means food on the table and, and to be in tune with that. We have to make a decision at some point. Am I predator, am I prey? And then we have to exercise those predator neurons. And to me, that's what hunting does for us.

But the whole sheepdog model goes kind of a deeper level. And what I ask people is this, "Have you made the conscious decision that you are fully prepared to take a human life in defense of innocent lives? It's no big deal. Just to make the decision." "Yes, to the best of my ability, I am gonna to take a life if that's what needs to happen to protect my family." Now we're not shooting to kill, we're shooting to stop. We're gonna call the ambulance to save his life afterwards.

We're gonna give him a chance to not be dead. But we are gonna put lead on target and we are gonna do everything humanly possible to stop that threat. And as a result of that, there's a very good chance that the perpetrator will die. You will kill him. Are you prepared to kill?

Now, if you're not. And I'll tell you the deep dark secret of the field of psychology, every human being is insecure. The ones who could admit they're insecure a little more secure than the others. Within the normal bounds of human uncertainty, have you resolved in your heart that you're ready to do that?" And it's a conscious moral decision. And once you make that decision, you now become a transformed creature.

You're a predator, you're a killer. And sheep don't like killers. They don't like death penalty. They don't like guns. They don't like hunting.

They don't let the military. They want us all to hold hands and say, "Bah," and sing kumbaya. And the only possible action when the bad man comes is hide, run. But fighting is not even in their neural pathways. And they don't like predators.

The sheep don't like having predators around them. Until when? Yeah. Until the wolf shows up. Until the wolf shows up.

And so what you're gonna find is is people are offended by that. But as a nation we've made that choice. The concealed carry movement. This is a one-way ratchet. Concealed carry has never gone in and come back out again.

Never once, anywhere. Every time concealed carry goes in, "There'll be blood in the streets. There'll be chaos. They'll be bloodshed. This law we pulled out.

You'll see." Never once has that happened. Chicago is rolled over now. And on not just concealed carry, but shall-issue concealed carry which really surprised a lot of people. But what happened to Chicago was Milwaukee. Milwaukee is Chicago's third airport.

Milwaukee is just a suburb of Chicago. Milwaukee, Wisconsin, got. Shall-issue concealed carry. "Oh watch, there'll be bloodshed. There'll be horror.

There'll be crime, watch." Didn't happen. Chicago's crime rate went up. Milwaukee's went down. And all of a sudden the big lie, the big lie. "Huh, if we just pass these gun laws, the bad men will go away." Suddenly Chicago says, "Wait a minute, wait a minute." It's like, you know the truth creeping across the Berlin Wall.

It's like the truth seeping across the Berlin Wall. Nation by, you know. State by State across America, it's happening. We've become a nation of sheepdogs. We're exercising our predator neurons.

And we've got to make that decision. "Am I prey? Is my only option to run and hide? Am I some peasant? Some chaff?

Who's been denied the right to protect my loved ones? No, I'm an American citizen endowed by my creator with inalienable rights, empowered by my constitution to keep and bear arms, inspired by my forefathers to train and sacrifice and prepare and fight for this land I love." And this sacrifice is far more than just buying a gun and having ammo. It's gotta be training and mental readiness and making that decision. One last quote. The man I believe to be the last great Democrat.

And there are some good Democrats throughout history, but John F. Kennedy. In 1962, John F. Kennedy speaking to the NRA said, "Today we need a nation of Minutemen." Now in the previous paragraph he talked about my home State of Massachusetts. The farmers of Massachusetts formed the foundation.

Picking up their muskets and they became our nation. 1961, in the height of the Cold War and right during the era of the Bay of Pigs and all of that was happening. And the Cuban Missile Crisis. He's telling the NRA, "We need you, we need you." "Today we need a nation of Minutemen; citizens who are not only prepared to take up arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as a basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom." Not just buy a gun, not just buy ammo. Do work.

Training is work. Training is hard work And it's sacrifice to spend that ammo and buy more and replace it when you can. "The cause of liberty, the cause of America, cannot succeed with any less effort." It's true today as it was then. That was in the height of the Cold War with the Soviet union, the Cuban Missile Crisis. Today we face similar threats, internal and external.

And once again, our founding fathers carved it into the DNA of our nation, with The Second Amendment. And it's the primary thing that keeps us alive and safe as citizens. And we need to cherish it by exercising it and training. Colonel, you've laid out what the problem is. You've laid out what the ultimate solution and best preparation will be.

Yeah. And we've talked about the mindset. The importance of of deciding to be one of the Sheepdog. What about preparing for the ramifications of the actual moment that you use these skills and you follow through on your commitment to protect yourself and your community? It's an important aspect I think of the discussion.

Yeah. Let's talk about what it's gonna feel like to take a human life. If you could choose how you responded. There's many ways people respond to killing and they're all okay. But if you could choose how you responded, I think you'd wanna feel good about it.

You did your job, you hit the target. We all know the satisfaction of hitting the target. You saved people's lives. You stopped the threat. You saved your own life.

There's something called survivor euphoria. Not just not pleasure, but euphoria. From being alive. Some people feel bad that they don't feel bad. Some people feel bad they feel good about it.

LAPD brought me up for in-service training for their detectives. LAPD Detectives in-service training has 600 people. And a crusty old detective came up to me. She said, "Colonel, you're the first one in 20 years to tell me, 'It's okay to not feel bad about killing that guy'." So a lot of people feel bad that they feel good about it. But what we've gotta do is be prepared for that.

We've gotta be quiet. We've gotta make the basic minimal statement to police. We've gotta ask for our attorney. We've got to follow the guidelines that we've been trained to follow and rehearse it in our mind to be mentally prepared to say the right thing afterwards. "I was in fear for my life.

I used deadly force. Weapon's here the bad guy's there. And I don't wanna say anything else until my attorney's here." Now, part of that equation becomes having insurance. You're not gonna drive a car without insurance. And I don't think you should carry a gun without insurance.

There's many good programs out there. You and I both are affiliated with USCCA. I've got their insurance. I think it's one of the better ones the best one out there that I could find. But that insurance is a form of mental preparation for what's gonna happen.

To make sure that you're financially and legally and emotionally supported after the event. But then I wanna tell everybody about one of the important things to understand what can happen after a traumatic incident. When you were a kid, how many times did you have to touch a hot stove? Hot stove, how many times? Just once.

Unless you're destined to be a paratrooper or marine just once. You touch that hot stove and whoa. And your heart rate skyrockets. And you've got what I call the forebrain and the midbrain. The midbrain, the puppy brain.

The puppy, blows a hole through the screen door grabs you by the throat, pee's on your lap and say, "Don't ever touch that stove again." It's called one trial learning. Whenever there's fear and pain associated with learning, a powerful neural pathway is established. A pathway of neurons, a neural network. Well, if you think a neural pathway was established from touching a hot stove, how much greater would it be from combat? And so what happens is, you can re-experience the event afterwards and it's normal.

It is not PTSD. PTSD is when the puppy comes for a visit, and you re-experience the event and you do exactly the wrong thing. You try to not think about it. You will literally drive yourself down the path of mental illness. You will literally drive yourself crazy, trying to not think about the incident.

What you gotta do is de-link the memory from the emotions, from the very beginning. Now the breathing exercise is something we teach to control it. But I wanna give everybody a shortcut to the breathing exercise. Whenever. And use this with your kids.

Use this with everybody. Use it with yourself. Whenever somebody is upset, anxious, stop and take a drink. Now it works for two reasons. A deer is being chased by a wolf.

A deer is being chased by a wolf. Does he stop and take a drink? "No, I'm being by a wolf. I can't stop and drink." The puppy thinks he's fighting for his life. He's, he's.

And you stop and take a drink And it sends a message to the puppy and says, "Hey, we're safe. We've got time for a drink." But more importantly what it does, is it makes you breathe. It's a shortcut to make people breathe. And the breathing is powerful. There's a dozen different apps for breathing and they're all good.

They explain why it works, I covered in my books. But the breathing is the leash on that puppy. You can bring your blood pressure down. You can bring the stress diarrhea and all the distress responses down by breathing. And one shortcut to get yourself and others to breathe is to take a drink.

Study what you do when you take a drink. You breathe in you, you hold it and let it out. And you cannot take a drink without doing those three things. Breathe in, hold it, let it out. Anytime your children are upset and worked up, you're upset, worked up, others are, stop and take a drink.

So I do not do counseling. I do not do therapy. I'm a West Point psych professor, but I do. I have the honor of debriefing a lot of people about traumatic events. And the primary tool that I use is a bottle of water, a glass of water.

And as they talk about the event when they begin to lose it, they start to become emotional. They're beginning to associate the memory with the emotions. Make them stop. Take a drink, regain control and keep going. From the very beginning, we wanna de-link the memory from the emotions.

So I'll tell you a kind of a series of stories of people who were forewarned and forearmed. A young marine. I'm training, a major, major Midwestern Police Department. And a young cop comes up to me. He says, "Colonel, he says, I'm reserved marine." He said, "You trained a whole battalion before deployment." I do it.

I train many of them. Whole battalions from . He says, "These guys were forewarned and forearmed to the best of my ability." And he said, "We went to Iraq, we saw a lot of combat. We came home." He said, "Come home from Iraq." He said, "I've been home for a month. I'm in my police vehicle out by the airport and a military jet come screaming in from behind me." It happens at airports.

Boom, For just a second, my heart is pounding and I'm scrambling in the backseat for my rifle. Not the pistol on my hip, the rifle that wasn't there. Then I remembered, "We warned this might happen." I used my breathing. Got under control, no big deal." Stop, stop. We'll come back to our marine.

Very few things in this old world scare us more than to think we're losing our mind. You are not who's in your mind. All this happening, is neurons are firing and you don't want them to. You ever have neurons firing when you don't want? That's what muscle cramps is.

You're getting up, "Oh, that hurt. Oh, the other leg. Oh, I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die. No." Muscle cramps, work them out, eat banana's, get out of here.

Muscle cramps ain't no fun and nothing to panic about. Having a puppy come for a visit ain't no fun, it's nothing to panic about. You just gotta be warned that it might happen. Cramps happen in the middle of the night. We wake up in the middle of night with muscle cramps.

Ain't no fun. If you wake up in the middle of the night with your heart pounding, it's no fun. Nothing to panic about. By itself it is not PTSD, it's normal. PTSD is when that happens, it terrifies you.

You do exactly the wrong thing. You try to not think about the incident, instead of making peace with the memory. So go back to memory. A little while later, me and a bunch of marine buddies are having a beer together. Taking a drink is calming, to get drunk is counter productive.

And I told my buddies about the jet, the puppy. We all laughed, we had a beer. One of my friends said, "It happened to me." Pretty common one. He said, "I'd been home for less than a week." These guys been getting mortared and rocketed, off and on for most of the year. He said, "All dark 30 in the morning, snuggled up to my wife, dead asleep.

And they emptied the dumpster right outside my apartment." What does it sound like when they did that dumpster? I wake up out of a dead sleep, heart pounding. Roll off the bed, hit the deck. Scrambling under the bed for a rifle and helmet that's not there. Then I come up armed with my slippers.

We all laughed. We had a beer. One of my friends said it happened to me. Another real common one. He said, "I'm walking down a busy city sidewalk with my wife and kids.

Been home for a couple of weeks. There are heavy traffic in the street, cars parked by the curb. I'm by the curb, wife and kids. Something backfires loud. No warning.

Boom. Next thing I know I'm in the gutter, wondering how I got here. I look up, there's the wife and kids. It's okay, this is normal. We were warned this might happen." We all laughed, we had a beer.

He said, "One of my friends said something really important." He said, "You know, if I hadn't been warned this might happen, we wouldn't be laughing." So I think the final step, if I just had a few minutes to give people prep, is the fact that after a traumatic event the puppy can come for a visit and it's normal. Use the breathing. Use the water. De-link the memory from the emotions. If you can't leash that puppy in by yourself, there is absolutely no shame in getting help.

The docs are good, they get better ever day. I just taught you one trick that docs got in his bag of tricks. The docs got a whole bag of tricks. I want people to understand that we are darn good at treating PTSD. And the vast, vast majority there are soldiers who have PTSD.

And it's a tiny minority has PTSD. And the vast majority of them we treat and they recover fully. Anything bad about this war will be blown completely out of proportion. And the PTSD thing is so terribly important that people understand. That just having the puppy come for a visit is not PTSD.

If you do end up with full blown PTSD, we can still treat it we're good. Trust the docs. Get help if you need it and have confidence that it will make you stronger. See I think, the final thing that we need to give people, is to understand that your deadly force incident will make you stronger. You've gotta have a positive self fulfilling prophecy.

Hollywood sells us the pity party. The tormented haunted veteran comes home from the war scarred for life. There are people like that, but they're rare. The vast majority of people, you must believe, the vast majority of people are made stronger by combat. We all saw "Saving Private Ryan." We still have the World War II vets to live with.

Friends killed by the dozens and hundreds. The horror and unspeakable death. And for years on end, without end in site. And the World War II vets came home and they were the greatest generation. They were noble, empowered, enriched by the experience.

Now the new greatest generation is coming home. Nietzsche said, "What does not kill us only makes us what?" Stronger. And that's the name of a book I recommend to people's attention. "What does not kill us? The New Science of Post-Traumatic Growth." Everybody's heard about post-traumatic stress far more important is post traumatic growth.

The Bible talks about it over and over again. Romans 5: The Bible says, We glory in tribulation. For tribulation worketh patience. Patience experience, experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed. The bad things in life can make us stronger.

And you gotta believe that you will come out the other end. The world's full of people who wanna tell you you're gonna be destroyed by the event. And it's not true. We gotta create a positive self fulfilling prophecy. Not only is the act of carrying a gun, make you more likely to physically survive, but it makes you more likely to psychologically survive.

You've done everything you can do. Whatever happens your conscience is clear. The sheep lived their lives in denial and denial kills them twice. And kills them once because they're caught without the gun and they die like you know the sheep. It kills them twice because even if they physically survive, they know there's things they could and should have done that would've made a difference.

And they live the rest of their life in hell because they didn't do those things. The sheepdog preparation saves you twice. It saves you once because at the moment of truth you have the tools, you have the skills. It saves you twice because even if all else fails, you're conscience is clear. You've done everything you can do and you could live with yourself.

And in the end, that might be the warrior's greatest reward. When you go home and you eat that meal that was prepared with love, it'll have a flavor the protected will never know. Colonel, everyone knows that we can be caught off guard. And if we saw a fight coming, we'd avoid the fight. That's the whole concept of the counter ambush approach.

And everyone talks about awareness. People talk about readiness model that they follow or they advise other people to follow. But I think your perspective on readiness and awareness it goes beyond what a lot of people talk about. Could you expand on that? Well, we know the model of.

The Cooper model of condition white. condition yellow, condition red and then we had condition black. Condition black is panic. Condition black is panic. Completely overwhelmed and shattered and out of control.

Condition white is denial, unreadiness. Condition yellow is where we wanna be. Condition yellow is a state of mental readiness. Now in condition yellow, you still have fine motor control. As stress gets higher, you lose some fine motor control but you can gain some response time.

And that's called condition red. The basketball player out on the court is in condition red. He's rocking and rolling condition red. He's in the zone. He makes that snapshot in the game because he'd done a hundred thousand shots in practice.

But you give him five seconds to make a free-throw, his approach is completely different. He intuitively knows to use his breathing. He's like a sniper. He's using his breathing. He's regaining fine motor control.

He's pulled himself down to condition yellow. Now the bomb tech, the pilot, the surgeon. These are all people that live their lives in condition yellow. And leaders, military and law enforcement leaders must live their lives in condition yellow. We all understand that in the heat of battle when people are dying, the law enforcement military leader has to be the rock of call.

And I tell people that if you think being a leader means shouting and kicking things, you're wrong. Warriors do not respect leaders who blow their cool. If we're gonna carry a gun, if we're gonna walk the warrior path, we have to strive for that Zen-like calm. Every warrior society has honored those who'd maintain their calm. The Stoic Romans, the inscrutable samurai, the stiff upper lip Brits.

Those are all different ways of saying different things. Societies were are known for their ability to control their emotions. You know, as we get older we get better able to control ourselves. That's why most of us are better grandparents than we were parents. Most of us at one time or another, look at our parents with our kids and said, "Are you the same person that raised me?" No, they're not.

They're a much older, wiser, and more mature person. They've learned to control their emotions. And that's where we wanna be as soon as we can be. Living your life in condition yellow, is a daily process of learning to control your emotions. And to take that breath and regain control.

We're all human, we all blow our cool. But when it happens, we know we've made a mistake and we try to do better the next time. That's called growing, that's called maturing. And peoples are all, "Oh, it's just an act they put on to get their attention." No, no, no. We are what we practice to do.

And if you practice blowing your cool on a daily basis, when things go to hell, you're gonna have an awful hard time controlling yourself. Practice that calm and warriors respect that. And it manifests itself in a variety of different ways. Try never to be caught without the life-saving tools when it's legal and lawful to carry them. Never been caught without a blade.

Be ashamed to be caught without a blade. Keep your back to the wall. When you go into the restaurant, your position should be the one that has your back to the wall. If you don't have your back to the wall, then the person who does it has got your six. And you'd look them in the eye and say, "You got my six." And combat park your vehicle, what?

That's a military term that means back into the parking spot. Why does a military always back into the parking spot? "Oh, yeah, you might have to get out of Dodge." In the motor pool at peacetime? Well, if we practice that way in peacetime we'll do it that way in war time. Why do ambulances and firetrucks always back into the parking spot?

"On their way out, it could be an emergency." Well, same thing could be true for us. Why does FedEx, UPS, and Napa Auto Parts teach their drivers to always not just when you're delivering, always back into the parking spot. It reduces your accidents. Take a breath. Calmly, professionally, back into the parking spot.

One of the most dangerous things we do is backing into traffic, especially when in a hurry. And here's the kind of the core, the whole warrior mindset. The whole condition yellow mindset. It takes the same amount of time to back into the parking spot, back out of the parking spot. A warrior does it on the front end.

It takes no more time. It takes no more energy. It's just a way of life. Yes. I tell my cops do it with your personal vehicles.

I tell my sheepdogs out there, only twice in my life have I ever had to throw one of my kids in the car and raced to the emergency room. Both times I was very glad I backed into the parking spot. One time my son, now here's a chip off the old block. He's got a piece of plywood on his thigh and he's got a circular saw. And he's just gonna like make a little score mark down that plywood.

But as he presses in the blade sinks all the way down and he shoves it all the way through his thigh. And then he tried to take a step and it ripped open the rest of the way. One of the most horrible wounds I've ever seen. Peeled him open right to the bone like a watermelon with a quarter gouged out. That was my son.

I was very happy that I had backed into the parking spot that day. It wasn't a few seconds I saved on the way out. It wasn't the accident that didn't happen on the way out. It's the fact that I had prepared for a lifetime for that day. When that day came, I could be called for my family.

I could go through this whole process in condition yellow. And if you're calm, everybody else is calm. You reduce the trauma. You reduce the potential for PTSD by being the rock of calm at the moment of truth. One last example.

My dad was a cop. He carried a kind of badge for lifetime. Always sat with his back to the wall. Never caught without his gun. Dad always knew if there was trouble, mama grabbed him by the arm.

First thing mama would do. Grab him. For a lifetime he kept mama at the left side. Crazy glorious old coot. Never caught without a gun.

Always kept his wife on the left. And always had his back to the wall. They're both gone now. Mom and dad been gone for 15 years. I'd give anything on earth for another 20 minutes with them.

Dad bought 20 extra years one day in the supermarket. One day mom and dad in the supermarket together. And they come around the corner there's somebody my dad's privilege put away and he's not happy customer. He declares his intention to harm the two most precious people on the planet. Mom grabs dad by the arm.

She's on the left side His gun hand's free. And he always had a lightening draw. Gun comes out. Mom's training kicks in. Goes and calls 911.

Situation was satisfactory resolved. I almost lost them both that day. Their grandchildren would've never known their grandma and grandpa, except their grandpa prepared for lifetime for that one day. Can you do that? Can you walk the walk and talk the talk for a lifetime?

For that one day, it'll buy your grandchildren 20 extra years with you. You know, the cover story of the National Geographic recently it's a picture of a baby. And it said, "This baby will live to be 120 years old." No baloney, a kid born today they believe is easily gonna make it 120. If somebody murders one of my grandchildren, they have stolen over a 100 years from that baby. Can you walk the walk and talk the talk for a lifetime?

Live your life in a state of readiness in condition yellow. For that one day, it will buy that grand baby those 100 years back again. Condition white is for sheep. Condition white is a state of denial and unreadiness. And if you're caught in condition white, when the bad stuff comes down and you bought yourself a deluxe first-class, one way ticket to condition black.

Do not pass go, Do not click to . Go straight to panic-ville. The sheep have two speeds. Craze and stampede. Denial and panic.

The sheepdog, a warrior, lives in a state of calm readiness. They back into the parking spot. They have the gun. They stay alert. They have a plan.

For that one day that'll buy those decades and centuries back for their loved ones. That's what it's all about. Now that you've heard the most important core concepts of Colonel Grossman's Bulletproof Mind Concepts, I encourage you to first watch this video again. Watch it with your family, watch it with your friends and then go out and get Colonel Grossman's books. Read them thoroughly.

Understand the concepts that he's talking about and look at the research that he's done to back up all of his theories and all of his ideas. Then you're gonna wanna go to a Sheepdog Seminar if you get the chance. The Sheepdog Seminars Project is traveling the country providing live information, live lectures, and even some hands-on workshops for people who are interested in personal defense, defense of their family or defense of their home. Colonel Grossman is an incredible asset and resource to our community. Take advantage of it.

Go to the Sheepdog seminars and learn more about having your Bulletproof Mind. I'm here with Colonel Dave Grossman. And I wanna talk to you for a minute about your work and value in the printed word. That what you've brought to the community and what you've brought to our nation's warriors and to our nation's sheepdogs. The citizens were prepared to defend themselves is just an amazing body of work.

Going all the way back to the mid 90s with On Killing. Going through On Combat, which I think as a trainer, as a teacher has been one of the greatest resources for me and for my peers. And now you've got a new book, Sheepdogs which is really amazing. And I wanna talk in detail about that. But give everybody that may not be familiar with the history of of your books, just a quick overview of On Killing and On Combat.

In 1995, On Killing came out, Pulitzer Nominated. And we talked about how to get the average soldier throughout history to kill was kind of hard. And you can really track history as a series of ever better ways to empower people to kill. And how in modern years we've gotten very good with condition responses and pop-up targets. And how it feels to kill.

How people respond to killing. What we did to the Vietnam veteran. By sending them to kill and then bringing them back and condemning them. Really a national shame that we've made up for with this new generation of veterans. But in the final section, 1995, two years before Jonesboro.

Three years before Columbine. I said, "Oh, by the way the video games are doing the exact same thing to kids that the military does to adults with discipline." And when the Jonesboro massacre happened in my hometown, we thought it was my son's school when we first heard about it. I was out there and I've been with all of these ever since and it's really sunk home. But we talk about the dynamics of killing. Still Marine Corps Commandants acquired reading, FBI Academy of required reading.

But as I began to teach on this topic, there was a constant interactive feedback loop. I've been in the road for over 15 years. Almost 300 days a year. I have a deep sense of urgency. I believe whatever we're called to do, whatever we're blessed with, we must do to the utmost of our ability.

I love my bride of 38 years, my high school sweetheart. I love my grandchildren. I'm home one, maybe two nights a week. Conjugal visit, clean underwear, back on the road. I really have this deep sense of urgency to give 100%.

But during this process of presenting, it's a constant interactive feedback loop. Everyday, I talk to several people who've been in combat. Gunfights, police shootings, military situations. So finally in 2002, we took that process and came out with a book, On Combat. It's now in its Fourth Edition.

We've updated it, we've added more info to it. We're in a revised edition of On Killing now, we've updated that. And they really represent the core. And I agree with you, if somebody is gonna read one book On Combat is one I'd want them to read. Issued in the DEA Academy, Marine Corps Commandants required reading.

Others disagree. They like On Killing first and that don't hurt my feelings, but I'm with you. I think if our listeners are gonna start with on good On Killing, if you wanna them in sequence. If you're gonna start with one, just cut to the chase go to On Combat. And we've been able to touch a lot of lives with these books.

Translated in a dozen languages now. We've been able to touch a lot of lives. And of course the whole Sheepdog model, where we talked about the sheepdog in On Killing. And we did a whole chapter on the sheepdog in On Combat that has become legendary. It's just floated around the internet.

It's become a perennial. People use it to for a variety of different places. Cops use it so their spouse understand who they are and why they do it. The sheepdog piece out of On Combat has become a legendary. It's just the most, most traction I've ever gained with anything I've ever written.

And then we came up with a new book. In which we took the sheep, the wolf, the sheepdog, and we turned it into a children's book. And this is. On the surface people would say, "Well, why would you." You wrote On Killing, you wrote On Combat, and then you wrote a children's book. Yeah.

But how important is this? I think, it may be the most important book I've ever written. You know, in the back of the book, is the original Sheepdog piece. And a lot of people find it a great value, just for that alone. We pass those around, we've got it.

You can read it, you can understand it. It has become one of the most powerful concepts. But from the very beginning, even the cover. Let me show you something here. This is a photograph of a young Iraqi boy.

And you see there's been a bomb gone off on left screen. Some of you them fire into the crowd. But look the sheepdog, look at the soldier. Head erect, striding toward the sound of the guns. Look at that little boy back there.

Terror in his face, terror. Here's the exact same scene a split second later. Fast as the camera can click and shutter, here they are. The flock is in full stampede. The sheepdog is striding toward the sound of the guns.

And that little boy, he ain't no fool, he knows cover when it sees it. The sheep. The wolf lives to destroy. The Sheepdog lives to protect. The wolf says, "Might makes right." The sheepdog says, "Might alone is not strength and compassion is not weakness." People say, "Oh, you know the enemy over there, they're just like us.

They're just on the other side. One man's is freedom fighter is another man's terrorist. They're no different than us." Bull. Our enemy will use children as human shields. The American warrior is a human shield for children.

There's all the difference in the world. And so we began the sheepdog book with this cover and it personifies the whole concept. That the wolf will use the children as human shields, but the sheepdog is a human shield for the innocent. And we talk about the book and it opens with a poem of mine that became very popular. And it says, "Fear not the night, fear that which walks the night and I am that which walks the night.

But only evil need fear me and gentle souls sleep safe in their beds because I walk the night. Carpe noctem, seize the night. Any fool concedes today we seize the night." My little grandson and I we're. I'm only home one or two nights a week. My oldest grandchild is 11 now.

Ever since the little guy was three, we go for a walk in the park. We're from Arkansas, it's hot. We're usually out there late, late on Saturday night. When it finally cools off it's pitch black. But I got to get outside, after a lifetime in the woods, in the desert, in the jungle.

I miss being out. A gravel track around the lake outside of town, it's pitch-black never been a violent crime there. I take him out and put him in harm's way. But one night we're walking around this lake pitch-black, it's pitch black we're singing and talking and he says, "Grandpa, it's dark." Like he just now discovered. I told him the dark could be your friend.

Teach him being comfortable in the dark. Of course, I've got a gun. When I'm out on the road I can't always carry, when I'm with my grandchildren, I'd rather walk out that door naked and alone, be with my grand babies without the tools to protect them. Of course, I've got a gun. I got a blade.

I got a big old German shepherd, we're walking in the dark. He says, "Grandpa, there's scary things in the night." I said, "Yeah, it's us." If you asked my grandson there's scary things in the night. He says, "Yeah, it's us." And that really was the core of this poem to understand. That we are the things that the things that go bump in night fear. We are the things that, that the critter under the bed fears.

So we talk about the fact that there're sheep, and there're good kind, decent people and then there are wolves. And the wolf will feed on the sheep. And then my little granddaughter loves says, "Look back there, there's a. Look over there." And then we talk about how this is important. I can't tell you how many people told me, "All my life I thought there's something wrong with me.

All my life I thought I was a wolf, and people said there's something wrong with me. I'm not a wolf, I would never harm the lambs. I'm a sheepdog." And it's like there's epiphany for them to realize there's nothing wrong with them. And when we say, when they were young some sheepdogs thought there was something wrong with them. These young pups thought they would grow into wolves.

The difference was these pups knew in their hearts that they would never harm the lambs. It was a special day when they realized they were sheepdogs. Just like the story of the ugly duckling, who grew up to be a beautiful swan. And we talked about how they've gotta train and how they've gotta be away from home and protect the innocent. And then we talked about how the wolf will use the lambs as human shields, but the sheepdog is a human shield for the lambs.

And this is kind of deep. We talked about how the sheepdog brings a light to the dark places others fear to go. And they'll be away from home and they'll miss meals and they may have to travel to distant lands to hunt the wolf. And they they're at sea and they protect our coastlines. And the wolf says, "Might makes right." And the sheepdog says, "Might alone is not strength and compassion is not weakness.

The sheepdog lives to protect." And did you know some sheepdogs don't even wear uniforms? It could be moms and dads, teachers or regular folks at regular jobs. They're prepared to confront the wolf and protect those around them. Like 9/11. And when American sheepdogs began to wake up and said let's roll.

And we said something very important here. The sheep will die to protect the ones they love. Only the sheepdog loves enough to die for other people's loved ones. But that doesn't make them heroes. They're heroes because they walk out the door every day prepared to lay down their life.

Greater love has no one in this, than to give their life for their friends. Being a hero to sheepdog is not a flash of courage. It's a lifetime of sacrifice. Sometimes the ultimate love, is not to sacrifice your life but to live a life of sacrifice. And that's really what the book's all about.

We go on to say that in nature, they're born that way but humans can be anything they they wanna be. And have you got what it takes to be a sheepdog? But it comes down to the heart of the matter that, for most of us the ultimate love is not to sacrifice your life, but to live a life of sacrifice. To place the welfare of others, to place the welfare of others ahead of your own. To walk out the door every day of your life.

To carry the life saving tools. To live in a state of readiness, for that moment of truth when our nation and our family and our loved ones need us. With courage and honor, training, skill. So I just wanna add for myself, certainly from the training community and from the armed community in America, and probably our entire country. Thank you very much.

You're welcome. Where can people get the new book? Sheepdogbook.com. Sheep-- sheepdogbook.com. sheepdogbook.com.

That's the place for that resource. You can find these all over the internet and bookstores all around the country. Sir, thank you very much. It's been an honor.