Throwback Thursday

Meditation on Combat Mindset, part 1

Image via Cedar Sanderson

Long-time readers of my blog know that I am firmly of the opinion that any man or woman has only one weapon.

That weapon is the human mind.

And that weapon is the only weapon that you had in the past, it is that only weapon that you have now, and it is the only weapon that you will have at any time in the future.

A gun is not a weapon. A gun is a tool, and nothing more.

It is a tool designed to initiate and contain a rapid gas expansion for the purposes of driving a malleable alloy pellet along a repeatable trajectory.

And that, Gentle Readers, is the only thing a gun is designed to do.

Now -- who, what or where that trajectory intersects is completely up to the human mind holding that gun.

The gun is a tool, a tool that the human mind may choose to use to threaten, injure or kill, but simply a tool.

This is a simple concept, but it is one that I see rapidly disappearing.

We have the regrettable and distasteful habit of putting all of our faith into one thing -- and for some fundamentally inconceivable reason that thing that people put their faith in is never the human mind.

I truly don't understand that.

I see that I have already lost some of my readers. Allow me to give an example.

There are people who style themselves as warriors. And they have practiced with firearms until they are capable of doing things with their firearms that leave me in awe, so who am I to disagree with that styling?

Yet, these same people will come to me weeping, wailing and gnashing their teeth, "Ian, I have to take a plane flight, and TSA is going to disarm me at the terminal."

Goodness, I didn't realize that TSA was installing brain-suckers at every airport.

"No! I can't take a gun or knife on a plane! I'm going to be helpless!"

Codswallop.

Put a Masterlock and a thin leather dress belt in your carry-on. If a critter presents himself, thread the Masterlock onto the dress belt and break his skull with it.

If TSA takes away your Masterlock, then beat the critter to death with your walking stick.

If they confiscate your walking stick, then you take a pencil, a fountain pen or a biro, and you puncture his vital organs in alphabetical order.

If your writing utensils are banned, you garrote the bastard with your bootlaces.

If TSA forbids foot-wear, then you break a CD disk and you cut his sodding throat with the jagged edges, BUT DON'T BLOODY WELL GIVE ME THIS "HELPLESS" BULL[DELETED]!

Ian, they won't let me carry a gun -- I'm helpless. Ian, they won't let them have pocket-knives, they are helpless.

BULL. [DELETED].

Helpless, my furry arse. You are helpless because you're fixated on tools. You're helpless because you -- your mind -- is letting you think that you're helpless just because some daftie took away your pretty tools.

Stop it.

Firearms don't have a single sodding thing to do with the Combat Mindset.

Knives don't have a single flaming thing to do with the Combat Mindset.

Combat Mindset has not a bloody thing to do with tools, and everything to do with your mind -- that's why it's called "The Combat Mindset" and not "The Combat Toolset".

Period. Full stop. End of statement.

Ian