From Willingness to Effect

PART I- Permission to Act

Every defensive encounter begins with a decision most people never consciously make.

Not the draw.

Not the shot.

Not even the recognition of the threat.

The first real action happens long before any of that. It is the internal permission to act. And if that permission has not already been granted, nothing else matters.

Tom Givens says it plainly: “We carry a gun because we might have to shoot someone.” That statement resonates because it forces honesty. Carrying a firearm is not symbolic or theoretical. It is preparation for a specific, unpleasant possibility.

Jeff Cooper described this as lowering the threshold for violence. Not recklessness. Not aggression. A willingness to act decisively when action is required. That willingness is not created in the moment. It is a pre-made decision, declared long in advance.

Lance Thomas understood this. After surviving multiple violent encounters, he said, “I refuse to be a victim of violent crime.” That decision was not formed when the door opened. It existed long before the first criminal ever walked into his store.

That is mindset.

Why We Freeze

Human reactions to crisis are complex, but a pattern appears again and again. When violence forces the issue and we have no framework to work from, we freeze.

This is not weakness. It is not cowardice. It is a lack of prior structure.

When no decisions have been made in advance, the brain has nothing indexed. There are no mental files to pull from. As the late William Aprill described it, there are no “parking spaces.” Without them, the mind stalls while trying to build meaning in real time.

That stall is what we often label as freeze.

Proper mindset prevents this not by making us faster, but by eliminating the need to decide from scratch under pressure.

Mindset Is a Progression

Much of Cooper’s work has been softened over time, particularly his color codes. Treated as simple awareness levels, they lose their original purpose.

Cooper was not teaching observation. He was teaching decision-making.

What he described was a progressive narrowing toward action. We notice a potential problem. We identify it. We confirm or dismiss it. All the while, we are lowering the threshold to respond appropriately if the situation demands it.

Mindset is not a switch. It is a controlled progression toward decisive action.

Where many of us stall is not in skill, but in acceptance.

The Gap Between Training and Reality

We train hard. We measure performance. We chase improvement. That work matters.

But training without context creates a gap.

Violence is romanticized in popular culture. Misses rarely matter. Consequences are muted. Characters rise to the occasion regardless of preparation or cognitive overload. On the range, targets do not move. They do not think. They do not initiate the fight or continue to actively try to kill us.

This creates what I call, for lack of better term, the Fallacy of Time.

We unconsciously assume we will have more time than we actually will. We tolerate inefficiency at the beginning of the fight because static drills allow it. We rely on splits to make up for slow or inefficient presentations.

This type of training is necessary. But without the proper mindset framing it, it quietly reinforces false expectations.

Responsibility and Identity

At some point, responsibility becomes individual.

There is a meaningful difference between a gun owner and an armed citizen.

The distinction is not equipment, credentials, or round count. It is how we think about violence and responsibility.

Some of us accept that violence exists and may come to us. Others assume it will not.

Refusing to acknowledge risk does not make it disappear. It only removes our ability to respond when chosen.

This is not victim blaming. It is reality.

Acceptance and Cost

Acceptance is heavy. It is uncomfortable. It is not enjoyable to think about.

As humans, we often choose comfort over reality. Normalcy bias tells us that terrible things happen to other people.

At some point, we must answer an uncomfortable question honestly: Are we willing to take a life to stop a threat?

If the answer is no, that is a valid choice. But swearing off violence does not make violent crime disappear. It only limits how we can respond when confronted by it.

Acceptance carries a price. But preparedness carries a reward.

What Mindset Gives Us

When the decision is made honestly and in advance, something changes.

We gain agency.

We build a mental framework that allows us to process before the moment, not during it. Training gains intent. Preparation gains direction. We accept our role in our own safety.

That acceptance does not create paranoia. It removes it.

There is a mindset lesson Tom teaches in the Rangemaster Instructor Development program that has always stood out to me, “If that man doesn’t stop what he’s doing, I may have to hurt him.” It stands out to me because it is not fear. It is clarity.

However, intent alone is not enough.

Once the decision is made, the next question becomes unavoidable: can we execute when the moment arrives?

That bridge is gun handling.

PART II- Tuning the Instrument

There is a moment most of us have seen at live events, though we may not have paid much attention to it.

A professional musician walks onto the stage, plays a brief note or chord, and makes a small adjustment. Sometimes it is an alternate tuning. Sometimes it is simply a final check. The movement is subtle. Almost invisible.

What matters is not the act itself, but what it represents. The performer is not learning in that moment. They are confirming that the instrument will respond exactly as expected when it matters.

That idea maps cleanly to combative shooting.

Gun handling is our tuning.

It is the work that happens before performance. The work that determines whether intent can become effect.

The Triad Is a Progression

We have all seen Cooper’s Combat Triad represented as three equal sides: mindset, gun handling, and marksmanship.

That depiction misses the point.

Cooper did not describe three parallel skills. He described a sequence we move through under stress:

Mindset establishes willingness.

Gun handling enables action.

Marksmanship applies force to solve the problem.

If mindset never resolves, nothing starts.

If gun handling breaks down, nothing works.

If marksmanship fails, nothing ends.

Gun handling lives in the middle because it is the bridge between intent and outcome.

Why the Middle Gets Ignored

Gun handling is not exciting. It is repetitive. It is quiet. It does not photograph well and rarely generates praise.

We don’t post videos of dry fire draws late at night. We don’t celebrate the thousandth clean presentation from concealment or the countless grip confirmations that happen without an audience.

But this is the work that determines whether mindset ever reaches marksmanship.

When mechanics are underdeveloped, they consume attention. When mechanics are clean, they disappear.

That difference matters more than speed.

Gun Handling and Cognitive Bandwidth

When gun handling is inefficient, it taxes our cognitive bandwidth. The draw requires thought. The grip requires correction. Sight verification becomes effortful. Trigger press becomes deliberate rather than automatic.

The mind becomes occupied with operating the tool instead of solving the problem.

When gun handling is automated through deliberate practice, the equation changes. Mechanics run quietly in the background. Attention shifts outward. We can assess, decide, and respond as conditions change.

This is not about shooting faster. It is about thinking better.

The Cost of Skipping This Step

Many shooters attempt to compensate for weak gun handling with marksmanship drills or time standards. They rely on split times to make up for inefficient presentations. They assume accuracy will solve problems that actually originate earlier in the sequence.

It rarely works.

We cannot out-marksmanship broken mechanics. Accuracy cannot exceed the quality of the process that delivers the shot.

Gun handling is not separate from marksmanship. It is what makes marksmanship possible under pressure.

Training With Intent

Gun handling improves through repetition, but not mindless repetition. It requires intent.

Every draw, every grip, every presentation is an opportunity to reduce friction. To remove hesitation. To make the movement more reliable under stress.

This work is often done alone, with an empty gun and a timer. It isn’t glamorous, but it is where capability is built.

The goal is not perfection. The goal is predictability.

Why This Matters

We don’t get the opportunity to fix mechanics once the fight begins.

By the time the decision to act has been made, the work in the middle must already be done. Gun handling can’t be an afterthought. It must be reliable enough to disappear. It must be automated.

If we want a modern, high-performance civilian standard, one that respects Cooper’s original intent, we must stop treating gun handling as something we rush through on the way to “real shooting.”

The most important work happens before the first shot.

When the moment comes, there is no time left to tune.

Where the Sequence Leads

Mindset gives us permission.

Gun handling gives us capability.

Marksmanship gives us effect.

Gun handling is the bridge that ensures the first can reach the last.

And without it, the system collapses.

PART III– Marksmanship as Judgment

When most of us talk about marksmanship, we usually mean one thing: the ability to hit what we’re aiming at.

That definition isn’t wrong.

It’s incomplete.

Hitting what we aim at is a mechanical outcome. In a real fight, marksmanship is something more demanding. It is the expression of every decision that came before the trigger press.

Accuracy alone does not solve problems.

What the Simple Definition Misses

Marksmanship on a square range is linear: make the hit.

Marksmanship against a living, breathing, attacking human being is not. It carries consequence, uncertainty, and accountability. The target moves. The environment changes. The fight does not pause.

More importantly, marksmanship does not begin with the gun.

It begins with mindset. If the moral and psychological decision to act has not already been made, accuracy degrades before the pistol is even presented.

From there, it flows directly through gun handling. Efficient presentation, proper grip, sight management, trigger press, recoil control, and assessment do not occur in sequence. They occur together.

The triad functions as a system.

Marksmanship Begins with Accountability

True marksmanship begins with a mental decision: the decision to press the trigger.

That decision carries weight. It accepts responsibility for what follows. Because of that, marksmanship cannot be reduced to hoping we hit what we want to hit.

When mindset is settled and gun handling is automated, marksmanship improves, not because we are trying harder, but because we have the mental bandwidth to think.

When Mechanics Steal Time

When we are still consciously managing mechanics, delay appears between recognition and action.

That delay matters.

Automation doesn’t make us reckless. It makes us available for decision-making. We are no longer fighting our bodies to perform tasks. We are free to assess and respond.

That is where accuracy improves.

Why Marksmanship Is Often Taught Alone

Much of this comes from how firearms are taught.

Pedagogy builds shooters. It must. Sequenced learning is necessary.

But without progression to andragogical learning, those skills never integrate. Andragogy builds fighters. It is where context, judgment, and decision-making merge with mechanics.

That is where the triad fully exists.

Marksmanship as Application

At the fighter level, marksmanship becomes conditional. It is no longer a fixed output, but a response to evolving information. That is what we mean when we say, “thinking with the gun.”

Without that transition, shooters either freeze or fire without purpose, sometimes too fast, sometimes too slow. Context determines cadence.

Evaluating Marksmanship Honestly

As with most things, it depends.

Marksmanship must be evaluated by intent, context, and stage of development. There are times to isolate skills. There are times to integrate them.

The danger comes when marksmanship is treated as an endpoint.

There is no destination. Only a journey.

Technical skills are the easiest part. Mental skills require constant refinement. The destination, if it ever comes, is not proficiency. It is outcome.

Completing the Triad

Mindset answers if.

Gun handling answers whether.

Marksmanship answers how.

Not as separate skills, but as one system.

Accuracy matters. Hits matter. Precision matters.

But marksmanship is not the foundation.

It is the result.