There’s a cost to any business. For professional law enforcement officers, military personnel, or Federal agents the cost is wear on tear their body from the years of cumulative stress. There is a relatively recent hypothesis that asserts that there is physiological risk associated with exposure to psychosocial stressors over time. In lay speak, folks in high stress jobs will suffer physical ailments because of the pressures of the job.

The term for the chronic exposure to stress and its effect on the body is referred to as the allostatic load. This term was coined by McEwan and Stellar in their 1993 text entitled “Health Psychology” published by McGraw-Hill. Allostasis could be literally defined as “maintaining stability through change.” From an NIA Exploratory Workshop on Allostatic Load in 2007:

“Allostatic load refers to the cumulative biological wear and tear that can result from excessive cycles of response (i.e. too frequent and/or of inappropriate duration or scope) in these systems as they seek to maintain allostasis in the face of environmental challenge [someone assaulting you].  According to the theory, as these systems become taxed and dysregulated, they begin to exhibit imbalances in the primary neural mediators of the stress response…”

Stressful situations can limit brain functions to basic levels, the much discussed “fight or flight” response.  Allostatic load is impacted by repeated cycles of this response.  Over time the allostatic load can cause changes in the physiological response to stressors.  The police officer who once responded within a moral and ethical framework may begin responding with inappropriately high levels of anxiety and aggression.

Obviously, the implications for the theory is that there are long-term health consequences to having a job with an unusually high allostatic load. The stress of the job can kill you. It’s worth understanding the threat and how to mitigate it for the same reasons you practice with firearms. From a 2005 UCLA study:

“The body’s perception of stress leads to a significant load upon physiological regulation including circadian regulation, sleep and psycho neuroendocrine-immune [link between psychological factors and the nervous and immune systems] interaction.”

Besides a physical toll, there is a psychological toll to this phenomenon as well.  It is well documented phenomenon that acute stressors can cause PTSD in soldiers, law enforcement, or other victims of traumatic events.  The frontal executive areas of the brain are responsible for planning, decision making, and judgement.  This area is affected by the experiences that pass through it.  The frontal areas of the brain are constantly “tuned” by experience.  When two cells fire together, they are wired together.

In a recent FBI study entitled Brain Functioning as the Ground for Spiritual Experiences and Ethical Behavior a veteran law enforcement officer commented “Peace officers are exposed to the worst that life has to offer.  They see the denizens of society at their very worst – when they have just been victimized or when they have just victimized someone else.  Peace officers see the perpetrators of evil and the results of their evil deeds.  The constant contact with evil is corrosive, and those effects are cumulative.”

The author (Dr. Fred Travis) further writes that “Experiences change the brain.  This is inevitable.  The violence law enforcement officers see becomes part of the functioning or their brains and bodies.  Neural imaging assessed activation of the areas of the brain that stop wrong behavior, called orbitofrontal cortex, after individuals…” witness or experience violent, traumatic events.

Allostatic load can reduce connections with frontal executive areas of the brain and amplify stimulus-response circuits.  These changes, or structural remodeling, can impact memory and emotions and may increase anxiety and aggression.  Victims of these changes may become distant from spouses, children, or other friends because they are emotionally incapable of interacting or feel a sense of detachment.  Neural imaging of patients who experience high allostatic load reveal lesions on the frontal executive areas.  The brain is intact, but the brain matter is no longer involved in planning and decision making.

The impact on job performance can be devastating.  Extreme errors in judgement, non-ethical or immoral decision making, and dereliction of responsibilities can all result from years of high stress and allostatic overload.

How then, do we combat allostatic load?   There are, of course, many prescription drugs available that can help mitigate the effects of allostatic load.  Somewhat surprising, at least to me, is another non-pharmaceutical option.  The solution may well be spirituality.  Spirituality, loosely defined as a sense of wholeness, has been shown to engage the entire frontal executive area of the brain.

Spirituality can obviously be religious.  The research conducted by Dr. Travis, however, is more general.  Any experiences that are universal in nature, or ones that transcend our own sense of time, space, or individual body can be spiritual.  The effects of spirituality on the brain are widespread activation and higher brainwave coherence.  The measure of this phenomenon is known as Brain Integration Scale (BIS).

People who regularly practice spirituality have a correspondingly higher BIS.  They become more self-reliant, self-sufficient, independent, and take responsibility for their lives and performance.  BIS studies have shown a positive correlation between spirituality and emotional stability and moral reasoning, while showing a negative correlation with anxiety.  BIS is increased with regular spiritual experiences.

For professional soldiers and police, the conclusions are fairly straightforward.  Each of you will react differently to the stress of your jobs.  Over time, the cumulative stress may negatively impact your physical and/or psychological health.  An otherwise good, moral officer will make immoral choices and could become extremely anxious or aggressive.

For me, there is a certain elegance to the allostatic load theory.  Becoming involved in your local church and establishing a healthy relationship with God will help you reach your potential as a husband, a father, and law enforcement professional.  This foundational relationship will help you manage allostatic load and facilitate success both at home and at work.  It provides balance to your life and will allow you to formulate the best decisions, even when under extreme stress.

Jedburgh Corp has developed the most comprehensive firearms training available anywhere.  It was built on the vast personal combat experience of some of the most elite special operators in the country.  Contact us at info@Jedburgh-USA.com to provide feedback on the blog, or discuss your training needs.  Also, feel free to post your comments.

Anytime you’re in a fight, particularly a gunfight, halting your adversary is the goal.  When you’re in a fight, you just want out of the fight.  You can disengage, run, or neutralize your attacker.   Or you can be killed.

Once your attacker has commenced his assault, stopping him becomes your life’s work.   The firearm most likely available to you will be your handgun.  If you are aware of the impending attack, you’ll most certainly arm yourself with a long gun.  Since most attackers won’t afford you that opportunity, proficiency with your pistol remains paramount to your survival.  Because of the array of pistol manufacturers, models, and calibers available, there is inevitably a debate about which combination is “best.”  I am frequently asked to give my opinion on caliber selection.  Even more than training, or tactics, or weapons selection.  Everyone loves talking about ballistics.  The problem is that most of us are knuckle-draggers and we only know two things about ballistics…jack and shit.

We get on the internet and google and read and talk to our buddies who seem to know a lot about guns.  I’m no different.  I’ve been amassing articles and studies about ballistics for as long as I can remember.  This is my attempt to solve the “caliber riddle.”

First off, lets talk about knock-down power.  Simply put, it doesn’t exist.  The force a bullet will impact your adversary is equal to (or less than) the recoil you felt when you fired the round.  It’s physics.  It isn’t debatable.  If you fired a bullet capable of knocking someone to the ground, you would likewise be knocked to the ground when you triggered it.  Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.  Sound familiar?  It’s Newton’s Law of Motion.  I may be dumb but that guy was smart so you should pay attention.

Whats confuses the issue is that many people tend to fall down when they’ve been shot.  It isn’t caused by the projectile, they do it for all sorts of other reasons.  The belief that they are more seriously injured than they are, the “training” received by years of movies and television, or simply a desire to quit fighting all contribute.  Some people fall down when shot, some people don’t.  Since you can’t control it, you can’t count on it to happen during a fight.

Ok, so knock-down power can’t be achieved.  How do I stop my adversary?

The impact of bullets on the human body has four factors which contribute to how quickly an attacker is stopped.  The first factor is Penetration and is measured by the distance the projectile travels into the target.  The damage caused by penetration is directly related to the tissue disrupted or destroyed by the bullet passage.  The second factor is the Permanent Cavity and is measured by the volume of space once occupied by tissue that is now destroyed by the passage of the projectile.  This is the hole left in the guy after you shoot him.  The next factor is the Temporary Cavity and is measured by the amount of expansion or stretching of tissue due to the transfer of kinetic energy from the projectile.  The final wound factor is Fragmentation which are pieces of the projectile which separate and are propelled through the body.  Fragmentation may not occur in every bullet wound, and should be considered a secondary effect.  In fact, fragmentation in pistol rounds is extremely limited (typically less than one centimeter) and should not be heavily considered during bullet selection.

In order to quickly halt an adversary, the central nervous system must be severely damaged or destroyed.  For the anatomically challenged, check out the picture.

Notice the heart isn’t shown.  Shooting someone in the heart causes blood loss, perhaps major blood loss.  This will leave your attacker with approximately 15 seconds of full voluntary function before being incapacitated.  Fifteen seconds is a long time to have someone shooting at you.

In order to achieve fight stopping results, the brain or upper spinal cord must be severely damaged or destroyed.  This type of accuracy is clearly a function of training more than bullet selection.  The shot placement discussion occurs frequently, but it can’t be overstated how important marksmanship is to surviving a gunfight.

Bullet selection is critically important also.  Even assuming the accuracy is there, the bullet must penetrate enough into the target to pass through the central nervous system in order to achieve fight stopping results.  Because of this specific requirement, penetration is the most important factor in bullet selection.

Over-penetration gets talked about frequently in the law enforcement and self defense communities.  It’s true that a round can pass through the intended target and hurt a bystander.  It’s also true, and more likely, that a round will completely miss the intended target and hurt a bystander.  Misses are extremely common during violent assaults.  The risk of over-penetration should be carefully weighed against survival.  Over penetration might occur and a bystander could be injured, but a weak round will never quickly incapacitate an attacker.  When selecting a round for defensive purposes, a minimum of 12 inches of penetration is desired.  Anything less would be considered a poor choice.  More than 18 inches of penetration is probably unnecessary, but your situation should be carefully considered.  The round I select for my situation may be different than what is needed to meet your specific requirements.

Permanent cavity is the next most critical consideration when selecting a pistol caliber, or specific bullet.  The permanent cavity is the volume of destruction as the bullet passes through the target.  In this case, bigger is better.  Assuming an equal amount of penetration, a larger round will create a larger permanent cavity and will cause more damage.  Exactly how much “better” a larger projectile performs is extremely difficult to determine, and I won’t attempt to quantify it.

Temporary cavity is a much-hyped and misunderstood factor of projectile wounds.  Pistol rounds are underpowered by nature and relatively slow moving.  The latest research  on temporary cavity is that the tissue damage could be as small as one tenth of the speed of the projectile.  For the purposes of pistol gunfighting, it simply isn’t a factor.  If someone is trying to tell you how superior a particular round performs because of its “kinetic energy transfer” or temporary wound channel, you’re being sold a line of crap.

Fragmentation simply isn’t a factor for handgun rounds.  Pistol rounds move too slowly to achieve consistent fragmentation.  Again, since you can’t control it,  don’t count on it.  Fragmentation in a pistol fight is a non-issue.

The final characteristic I want to discuss is the idea of expansion.  Most of us have some experience with hollow-point ammunition.  The round is specifically designed to expand on impact to inflict greater damage to the target.  Assuming that 12 inches of penetration is achieved, an expanding bullet has lots of merit.  The problem is that hollow point ammunition has inconsistent performance.  When hollow point rounds impact bone, glass, or even thick clothing (it’s winter time), the round will expand very little, if at all.  Many times, forensics experts are unable to determine if a pistol gunshot wound was inflicted by a hollow-point round or a ball round.  Hollow point ammunition is certainly a good choice for a defensive round, but the performance in terms of penetration and permanent cavity should be used to assess performance.  Any expansion achieved will be gravy.

During the assault, you are in charge of very little.  Your attacker likely chose  the place and time.  He’ll control his actions, how many rounds he fires, and the tactics he employs.  You can control where your rounds impact his body and the type of weapon and ammunition you employ.

In order take control during an assault you must be trained.  If your training program doesn’t stress shooting on the move, shooting at moving targets, no-light engagements, and low percentage shots (partial targets), then you’re not preparing yourself to survive a violent assault.  It’s important to remember that you have to perform better than your assailant is lucky.

Jedburgh Corp has developed the most comprehensive firearms training available anywhere.  It was built on the vast personal combat experience of some of the most elite special operators in the country.  Contact us at info@Jedburgh-USA.com to provide feedback on the blog, or discuss your training needs.  Also, feel free to post your comments.

Are rookies in greater danger than experienced LEOs?  Absolutely not.  LEOs with less than 1 year of experience make up a measly 3.5% in 2007 and less than 3% over the last ten years.  During two years (2002 & 2006) there were zero LEOs with less than a year of experience feloniously killed.  Stick with me and we’ll try to make sense of this together.

Who’s in the greatest risk?  LEOs with 1-5 years of experience were assaulted and killed more than any other category, followed closely by LEOs with 6-10 years experience (and they were tied in 2007).  Officers with 1-5 years of experience account for 30% of all LEOs killed in 2007 and 34% during the last ten years.  Officers with 6-10 years of experience also account for 30% in 2007 and 25% over the last ten years.  In fact during the last ten years, the average experience level of ALL 549 LEOs killed was 10 years of LEO experience.

For the sake of completeness, here is the breakdown of all the data:

• Less than 1 year of experience – 3.5% (2007)
• 1-5 years of experience – 30%
• 6-10 years of experience – 30%
• 11-15 years of experience – 12%
• 16-20 years of experience – 11%
• 21-25 years of experience – 9%
• 26-30 years of experience – 5%

Conclusions?  Well, one possible scenario is that most officers employed by LEO departments nationwide have an average of ten years experience, which explains why the average LEO feloniously killed also has ten years experience.

But lets not stop our analysis there.  Common sense (and most veteran LEOs) would submit that a rookie is in greater danger than more experienced LEOs.  Why don’t they account for a higher percentage of fatalities?  Try this on.  Rookies are straight out of the academy and have their training fresh in their minds.  They haven’t learned any bad habits from laziness or complacency.  They’re younger and in better shape than other LEOs.

Now before anyone gets all butt-hurt because you think I’m calling you out of shape, let me give you another statistic.  The average LEO killed in 2007 was 5’11″ tall and weighed 197 pounds.  That’s a Body Mass Index (BMI) of over 27.  Anything over 25 is considered overweight.  It may hurt some feelings, but there is volumes of research that prove that subjects with good fitness levels outperform over-weight/out of shape subjects in stressful situations.

Besides the over-weight factor, the data seems to indicate some reason for officers with years of LEO experience being assaulted and killed more than twice as often as others.  The root cause may be hard to accept, but it’s still the truth.

Lack of training, lack of focus (warrior mindset), and complacency.  LEOs with a few years on the job have gained enough “experience” to make them believe that they have a firm understanding of their duties, and then they get bored, get distracted, get lazy.  They stop respecting the inherent danger of their job, and this lack of respect causes them to cut corners both in training and on the street.

To prevent skills atrophy, LEOs in the 1-5 and 6-10 year categories should be prioritized for refresher skills training with a focus on fundamental skills.  Sexy doesn’t win gunfights.  Your LEOs should be the absolute best at doing the little things right.  Weapons handling, marksmanship, use of force, and mindset will keep you alive.  And a solid PT program keeps sand outta your gears.

Departments should weigh the benefit of spending money for new widgets for their carbines, or spending money on training and having an LEO who is an expert with the weapons they currently employ.  As we continue to analyze LEO deaths in 2007, none of the deaths would have been avoided with cooler gear, but almost all of them could have been prevented with solid fundamental skills training.

Please contact info@jedburgh-usa.com to give feedback on the blog or to discuss training needs.  Also feel free to post your comments.