There is a difference between simple tasks and complex tasks. Simple tasks are tasks that we can perform sub-consciously. Complex tasks are tasks that require conscious thought and effort to perform to an acceptable standard.

Obviously there is also a difference between stressful and non-stressful environments/situations. Being injured, providing care for someone that is injured, experiencing sensory deprivation or sensory overload because of environmental factors (smoke, fog, bright lighs, darkness, loud alarms, etc.) can all contribute to make any situation become more stressful.

I always try to set myself up for success in any manner that I can control. I do this by trying to minimize the amount of complex tasks that I would have to perform under stressful circumstances.

For instance, let's look at a basic example. Is it more complex to drive a car forward or in reverse? Obviously, driving in reverse is a more complex task. Therefore, I prefer to back into parking spots when at all possible. Why? It's easy- when I arrive wherever I'm parking I am not in a stressful situation. However, I can't predict the future... So I don't know that when I leave that I will not be in a stressful situation at that time. Therefore I'd like to set up my route so that when I'm leaving I can drive my vehicle forward (a simpler task than reverse) so that I'm more likely to successfully perform that task if we are in a stressful situation when leaving.

Another example- I always setup and place my gear in the same manner/layout. Many times, after a day of training- I don't really feel like cleaning my equipment and putting it all back exactly the way that I usually have it. I fight that urge at all costs because at that moment I'm not in a stressful situation and therefore can go through and place the gear as needed. This means that later on, if I am in a stressful situation that I won't have to go through the complex task of locating needed gear or equipment because I will have already placed it in the proper locations.

Note that a complex task can become a simple task with enough training repetitions. For instance, reloading a handgun for a new shooter is generally a complex task. They have to think about the placement of their spare magazine, whether they use the slide release or power stroke method, etc. For a more advanced shooter, this task can be performed with virtually no conscious thought. It has become a simple task due to the number of repetitions that they have practiced on this task.

This means that a reload for a more seasoned shooter requires far less conscious thought to successfully perform than a less experienced shooter. This is the purpose of training. I want to constantly refine new skills so that I can shift them from my personal "complex" column to my "simple" column. Highly stressful environments or situations will deteriorate your skills and abilities rapidly. The more stress is added, the less proficient you will be. Therefore, always set yourself up for the greatest chance of success by training, repetition, gear selection and placement, and any other factors that you can control.

This doesn't only apply to "tactical" or "emergency" situations. During your work life, you can organize and prioritize tools and tasks in such a way that allow you to perform complex tasks while not under stress (deadlines, busy times at work, etc.) and leave the simple tasks to be done during high-stress. It's a great way to see how many of your day-to-day processes can be optimized for better efficiency. For me, this process has become addictive and I almost make it a game to see how I can apply it in various areas of life.

If it one day saves my life or the lives of others, great. If not, at least it makes my day-to-day tasks easy to perform.

Here we are again, burying our nation's children in the aftermath of another school shooting. Quite a while ago, I wrote an article about an efficient way to combat school shootings (SMART Program to Combat School Shootings). In it, we recognize that evil exists in the world and that our loved ones, especially our children, deserve the ultimate protection from that evil. Unfortunately, it's not politically expedient to admit to your sheepish constituents that it's not possible to legislate evil- so instead they focus on the tools that the evil perpetrator used (but only if they used a firearm). So we wrote an article about Political Expediency in the Aftermath of Tragedy... And now we're watching the exact same pattern of political ineptitude.

We see the heroes from the story, like pictured Coach Feis, who died while shielding students from gun fire. We see the political right immediately identifying the mass-killer as an extreme leftist (per usual for mass-killers), and we see the political left immediately blaming the gun he used instead of the criminal. It's disgusting. We see the sheep among us who say "we need to come together and pray over it" when in reality- the school children of America don't need our prayers. They need protection in the form of return-fire. 

I'm disgusted with all of it.

I'm disgusted with the political debate over the proper means of protection. IT'S NOT A TOPIC FOR POLITICIANS TO DEBATE. THEY KNOW NOTHING ABOUT THE TOPIC! Would you want open heart surgery procedures to be debated by people who know nothing about surgery? Would you want flight protocols written by people who have never flown? NO!  You would want heart-surgeons and pilots, subject matter experts, to debate the advantages and disadvantages of each procedure. Why then would you want people who don't know one damned thing about security or firearm function to debate the solution to a problem that their children will never face?

We see these mass-killings play out virtually exclusively in gun-free zones. Why do you think that is? The idea behind these attacks is to create as much carnage as possible before an armed response is present. The solution that our liberal elite want to provide: Put the armed response out of sight and somewhere far away. Think about how asinine that is... You want the people that can stop the carnage to NOT BE ON SCENE as soon as possible? It's completely idiotic, and I'm sick of it. I'm sick of listening to "gun control experts" lecture me on the tools with which I should defend myself and others. If they don't have a training resume commensurate with mine, then I'm no longer entertaining the conversation. I don't tell my pilot which altitude he should fly at, and I don't tell my surgeon which tool he should use during surgery. I certainly don't need a completely incomptent politician who has a dedicated security team to explain to me that a double barrel shotgun is sufficient to defend my family. (Looking at you, Joe Biden!) I will no longer entertain a conversation with people who tell me that "no civilian should own an AR-15" but they can't properly identify any working part of the firearm. 

Want to tell me about how I should defend my family? Produce a training resume with credentials that validate your expertise on the topic. Able to do so and still disagree with me? Let's have an intelligent debate (not an argument), and we'll likely find that we have more in common than you might think.

Not able to produce any viable training resume with reputable sources of instruction?

Then please, join the politicians who should all shut up while adults discuss a real solution.

In the aftermath of any mass shooting, there is an immediate fallout from the radical leftists in Washington to "do something about gun control." Conveniently, that narrative is strikingly absent during attacks that don't include firearms like the Lower Manhattan Truck Attack and is replaced with the narrative of "the acts of 1 Muslim don't represent all Muslims." I don't think I have to explain the reasoning behind the replacement narrative, so instead- I'll focus on the calls for gun control.

Why do politicians, who collectively know virtually nothing about the way firearms truly function, want to immediately act on gun control? Well, I suppose that each has their own warped motivations behind it, but I believe there is a collective reasoning. Anyone who randomly attacks others, albeit with a firearm or other tool(s), is evil. You can't legislate evil. If you could, we would only need one law: Don't do anything evil. Since that obviously won't work, we can't focus on the evil but rather on the tool that is used even if we only focus on the tool when it fits our corrupt narrative. It's not politically expedient to do nothing after a tragedy. Our sheepish constituents want to believe that someone more powerful than themselves is doing something, anything to help protect them. We look to our elected leaders and beg for them to do something to proctect the collective group in society.

What are the elected leaders going to do? Treat the sheep like adults and explain to them that evil is real and everyone is their own first responder?

That's not politcally expedient at all when your constituents aren't prepared to hear that whether they like it or not, evil chooses when and where the fight starts.

So instead, they treat the sheep like sheep. They tell them that they'll protect them by legislating the tools of the wolf instead of facing the reality that the wolf might have bad intentions for the sheep. They do what's politically expedient, and they tend to the flock instead of teaching the flock to fend for itself.

They take the position that they will handle the tough responsibility so that the sheep don't have to try to be responsible for themselves.

• Responsibility: the opportunity or ability to act independently and make decisions without authorization; the state or fact of being accountable or to blame for something
• Response: a reaction to something; also the root word of Responsibility
• Responder: one who creates or issues a response

In the aftermath of the mass murder in Texas, liberals are calling for "just one more law" that they hope would have prevented the tragedy. In their ever-elusive hopes of "out legislating" evil, they are calling for additional legislation. In the midst of these calls are requests for laws that specify that "criminals couldn't possess automatic weapons." (Per usual- "automatic" is a term that liberals don't understand as we have people with virtually no concept of firearm functionality attempting to write legislation.) What they fail to realize is that criminals are already prevented from owning firearms of any kind. It's the equivalent of saying that "Terrorists aren't allowed to kill people with vehicles" isn't specific enough so they want "Terrorists aren't allowed to kill people with trucks" added to the legislative books. Asenine doesn't begin to cover it. Never mind that carrying a firearm into a gun free zone (church) is a misdemeanor or that murder, attempted murder, and conspiracy to commit murder are all felonies. But please- tell me how just one more law would've been the one that he would've followed.

In this most recent event, the shooter (who will remain nameless, just as history should remember him) was convicted in Court Martial in 2012 for two counts of assault. He beat up his wife and intentionally fractured his 2 year old step-son's skull. He was sentenced to 12 months confinement, reduction in rank to E1, and a Bad Conduct Discharge from the military (specifically the Air Force). He had a history of abuse including citations for animal cruelty and was the named suspect in a rape case (though he wasn't eventually charged in that case). The conviction of assault against his wife and child qualify him as a prohibited person in regards to firearm ownership. Yet in 2016 and again in 2017, he wandered into an Academy Sports in San Antonio and bought a firearm each time. He passed the NICS background check each time. HOW? HE IS A PROHIBITED PERSON!

Simple- the Air Force never submitted his conviction to the NICS database system as required by the FBI. Through sheer government incompetence, he was able to circumvent existing gun laws prohibiting him from purchasing or possessing a firearm. As we have now learned, this self-proclaimed Atheist brought hundreds of rounds of ammunition, a rifle, body armor, and a handgun into a place of worship after a family dispute with his ex-mother-in-law. According to witnesses, he entered the small church she usually attended and announced "EVERYBODY DIES [expletive]!" and began shooting. He shot the camera/lights crew first. Then he systematically went down each row and shot people at will. He reportedly targeted people trying to use their cell phones and children. Among the victims was his ex-grandmother-in-law. At some point, he ended up outside still firing at the church. A neighbor, awoken from a nap by his daughter because of the shooting, grabbed his rifle and ran barefoot towards the church.

Stephen Willeford (pictured above with the glasses) is the name that should be remembered. The certified NRA Instructor risked his life to prevent the continued slaying of others. He saw that the shooter was wearing armor, and took cover behind a vehicle as the two exchanged gun fire. With his own AR-15, he was able to place two rounds on the killer and between the armor plates. This caused the nameless waste of life to get into a vehicle and flee. A passing truck driven by Johnnie Langendorff (pictured with the hat) was waived down by Willeford, and the two pursued the fleeing killer at speeds exceeding 90 miles per hour. Reportedly, the waste of skin fleeing the scene called his father and told him that he didn't believe he would survive because of two gunshot wounds he sustained in the previous fight (which were confirmed in the autopsy). As his car slowed to a stop, he chose to eat a bullet instead of facing off with any armed citizens who chose to act in the presence of evil. A perfect, cowardly ending to a life that should have been aborted while still in the womb.