So who carries your pistol with you? No, not now and then. I mean all the time? Every place you are legally (and maybe even when that is questionable) justified to carry? How about in your home? Do you carry a pistol on you when you are in your house or your yard? Church? Of course you do, because we all know that bad things can happen anywhere and at anytime right?

The question I am thinking of is; why not? What possible reason would motivate someone in this day and age from NOT carrying within their legal means? Think about it, we make a major investment in order to be able to carry a handgun. They cost money to buy, shoot, clean and hide on our person. We invest our time researching laws, getting training, talking to “subject matter experts”. We invest our emotions analyzing our faith, our beliefs and values and reaching the conclusion that we are in the minority who will take another persons life in defense of our own or another person. We invest in our families, teaching them gun safety, immediate action plans and where the safe room is. That all makes our pistol ever so powerful.

And yet, some days we just leave that pistol laying and go about our business. So, do you have a back-up plan if things go sour? Are you “committed to the fight” so to speak? Or did all your expectations of courage and bravery get left behind with the “gat”?

Here’s the point; in the right hands, with the correct mindset that pistol is one of the greatest tools ever created and utilized by mankind. However, it is simply that. A tool, nothing more. The real weapon is that warrior who is carrying the pistol. And if that warrior is of the correct mindset, and is who we consider the “right hands”–AND IS WITHOUT THEIR PISTOL–then they will still make the right decisions and take the correct actions. Whether that decision is to fight, or run, or observe, or help is not the issue. The issue is that our warrior will do SOMETHING for the better, something for the good of the people or the moment, something that many of us expect ourselves to do but when faced with the situation-fail to do.

Too many people in our community don’t have that warrior within them. Yeah, they carry a gun. They may even be good with it. But what happens when the fight comes to them and they don’t have the tool? Sure, their expectation is that their warrior is going to answer the call. But many times they see their pistol as the warrior and have failed to train their selves to function without it! That person is relying on what they expect to happen instead of what they have trained to happen. Remember; we don’t rise to the level of our expectations. Instead, we fall to the level of our training.

I get asked a lot at the beginning of a class. “When are we going to the range, how many rounds for today?” I’m always amused at the looks I get when I answer “in a while, we’re gonna talk about philosophy first”. But inevitably by the end of the class that same student comes up and tells me that they never realized that there is a before and an after, not just the during of the fight and that they have a lot to think about. I like to think that those simple words, “I have a lot to think about” is the birth of their warrior. That student came to class expecting to use their pistol to become a warrior, but hopefully left, preparing their self to be the warrior making the pistol just the tool it is.

So where is your warrior? At home with your pistol? Hiding under your expectations? Or is he out here, everyday? Training, planning, wondering what would happen if….and what he would do about it?

If you’re here, reading this….your warrior is alive and hunting. That’s good, that’s very good! Keep him strong!

Come shoot!!!!

– Rich