Several years ago, a man pulled his truck into a parking lot. As he opened the door and prepared to step out, an armed carjacker came up on his blind side and put a gun on him.
The defender didn’t hesitate. Not even a beat.
He jumped out of the truck, deflected the carjacker’s gun with one hand, drew his own pistol, and fired. The attacker ran. No additional shots were fired. The good guy went home.
That entire fight lasted about two seconds. The reason it lasted two seconds and not twenty is that the man in the truck had already decided, long before he ever pulled into that lot, exactly what he would do in that moment.
That’s determination. And it’s the dimension of mindset that turns every other dimension into actual outcomes.
What Determination Actually Means
In the pillar article on the six components of a concealed carry mindset, I described determination as the unwillingness to give up. The internal commitment to do what’s necessary before and when the moment comes, and to keep doing it until the threat is resolved.
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That’s the textbook definition. The working definition is more direct.
Determination is the decision you make at home, on the couch, with a cup of coffee, about what you will do if violence ever comes for you or the people you love. It is your willingness to honor that decision under fire.
That determination mindset also means you commit to the activities that will ensure your victory when the fight comes. The boring stuff like practice, the expensive stuff like training, and the uncomfortable stuff like force-on-force or hand to hand combatives.
Hesitation, laziniess, and a lack of commitment are determination’s opposites.
The Parking Lot Decoded
The man in the truck had every reason to hesitate. He was in a compromised position. Door half open. One leg out. Hands occupied. The attacker had the drop on him, was already armed, and had the initiative.
Illustration generated via AI for educational purposes only.
What the carjacker did not have was a defender who needed to figure things out in real time.
The defender’s actions weren’t an improvisation. The deflection, the draw, the shot. Those were the execution of a plan he had already run through his head many times. He wasn’t thinking about whether to act. He wasn’t thinking about the moral weight of the situation. He wasn’t thinking about what his family would think. He had thought about all of that long before he ever pulled into that lot. When the moment arrived, the only question left was tactical, not philosophical.
That’s the entire point. A determined defender has done the hard thinking in advance, so that when the moment requires speed instead of thought, speed is what’s available.
This pattern (a sudden ambush at a vehicle door, an armed attacker, a defender in a compromised position) plays out somewhere in America almost every day. Sometimes the defender wins. Sometimes the defender hesitates and loses. The variable isn’t the attacker. The variable is whether the defender brought a decision with them when they pulled into that lot.
Beyond the decision to act, a mindset of determination also dictates the decision to not give up. To not stop. To carry the fight to a positive conclusion. To be clear, I don’t mean taking the life of a bad guy or being sure he is in custody. I mean being determined to win your objective, which of course is the objective of your own safety and survival and that of your loved ones.
The Right Moment, Not Every Moment
I want to head off a misreading here. The man in the truck acted instantly because the moment called for it. He had a small window where he could deflect the gun and create an opening for himself, and that window was about to close. If he had paused to think, he would have lost it.
That doesn’t mean determination always means acting in the first second. Sometimes the most determined thing you can do is wait.
Most armed confrontations aren’t even fights when they start. They’re holdups. They’re carjackings. They’re situations where the attacker has the gun out, has the initiative, and you don’t yet have a viable opening. Reaching for your firearm in the wrong moment, before the attacker is distracted, before the muzzle drops, before you have any kind of opportunity to act with effect, is not bravery. It’s how good guys end up shot.
A determined defender is patient when patience serves the objective, and explosive when explosiveness does. They’re looking for their moment. The moment the attacker glances at the wallet. The moment the muzzle drops. The moment the attacker turns to deal with a second target. The moment that opens the door.
This is what counter-ambush actually means. You don’t beat an ambush by being faster than the ambusher. You beat it by waiting until your moment has come, and then by flipping the warrior switch inside yourself and going one hundred percent until the fight is over.
That switch is the heart of the determined mindset. Nothing held back. No second-guessing in the middle. You do whatever needs to be done to make the threat stop being a threat, and you keep doing it until it has stopped. The objective is survival. You don’t negotiate with the objective once the fight is on.
What Most People Get Wrong
A lot of people carry a gun without ever having truly decided they would use it. They carry because they bought the permit. Because their neighbor said they should. Because it makes them feel safer. None of that is the same as having made a clear, internal, settled decision: if X happens, I will do Y.
If you haven’t made that decision, you don’t have a defensive tool. You have a paperweight that’s going to feel very heavy in your pocket on the worst day of your life.
Determination is not bloodlust. It’s not the desire for a fight. It’s not eagerness to use the firearm. A determined defensive mindset is, if anything, the opposite. The determined person isn’t looking for trouble. They’ve simply decided that if trouble finds them, they will not fail to respond.
The Akron driver in our defensive-only piece, the woman in the gas station in our avoidance piece, and now the man in the truck. None of them were looking for a fight. All of them were ready for one.
Behaviors of a Determined Mindset
What does it actually look like to live this out? A few behaviors I’d point to:
- Takes part in force-on-force training. This is where you stop training in isolation against paper targets and start seeing how defensive skills actually apply when a thinking, moving, resisting opponent is in the picture. There’s no substitute. None.
- Participates in competitive shooting and other competitive endeavors. Competition isn’t a perfect simulation of a gunfight. It does, however, do something almost nothing else can do outside of force-on-force: it tests your ability to execute precise skills under a timer with people watching. That stress inoculation, and the performance automaticity it builds, transfers.
- Studies real-life news stories, videos, and after-action accounts of defensive incidents. The way attacks actually unfold (the speed, the ugliness, the chaos) is harder, faster, and more disorienting than most concealed carriers imagine. You cannot prepare for a thing you have never honestly visualized.
- Cultivates a “won’t quit” attitude in other areas of life. The mental habit of pressing forward when things get hard. Finishing the workout. Doing the boring repetitions on the range. Not bailing on the difficult conversation. These habits compound. The person who quits at the first friction in everyday life is the person who will quit when it matters most.
- Makes the decision in advance. Sits with the question, “if a violent attacker tries to harm me or someone I love, what will I do?” and arrives at a clear, settled answer before ever leaving the house carrying.
- Picks the moment. Knows that determination isn’t always speed. Sometimes the most determined thing you can do is stay patient under pressure until a real opening appears, then commit one hundred percent the instant it does.
How to Build It
A few specific things that work:
- Get to a force-on-force class. If you’ve never done it, you don’t yet know what you don’t know. The first time you have to make a decision under pressure against a thinking opponent is information you cannot get any other way short of an actual fight.
- Sign up for a competition. A local USPSA, IDPA, or steel match isn’t going to make you a gunfighter. It will expose you to performing skills under a timer with people watching, which is the closest most of us will get to real stress on demand. Do it consistently.
- Build a DGU review habit. Once a week, watch or read one real-world defensive incident. Pay attention to how the fight starts, what the defender did right, what they did wrong, and where the decision points were. Over months and years this builds a library in your head that you can reference under pressure. The ASP channel on YouTube is a great source.
- Write down your decision. Literally. Get a notebook. Sit down. Write out, in your own words, what you have decided you will do if you or a loved one is the subject of a violent attack. Write what you will do if a child is involved. Write what you will do if you’re outnumbered. Do not make any of these decisions for the first time in real time.
- Audit your “quit threshold.” Pay attention this week to where in your normal life you give up early. The hard conversation you walked away from. The set you racked instead of finishing. The argument you dropped because it got uncomfortable. Determination is a posture you train everywhere, not a switch you flip in a gunfight.
The Takeaway
The man in the truck didn’t win because he was a better shooter (though he probably was). He didn’t win because he was bigger or stronger. He didn’t win because the carjacker was incompetent.
He won because by the time the carjacker came up on his blind side, the strategic question was settled. The decision to fight, and to fight with everything, had been made on a quiet afternoon long before. When the moment came, all that was left was timing and execution.
That’s the gift you give yourself when you build a determined mindset. You hand yourself a fight that’s already half won before it begins. The other guy thinks he has the initiative because he picked the time and the place. He doesn’t. You took the initiative away from him a long time ago, when you decided exactly what you would do if a man like him ever came for you.
This is the fourth piece in a six-part series walking through each component of a strong concealed carry mindset, drawn from the original pillar article on developing a defensive mindset. Previously: The Defensive-Only Mindset, The Avoidance Mindset, and The Awareness Mindset. Next up: Discipline. The daily practice that makes the other five components possible.
