Interviewer: Hey Jared, thanks for coming today, man. It’s been fun shooting content, talking about gear and your experiences. For those people who are into guns—well, I shouldn’t say guns; everybody’s into guns—but if they’re into using and employing firearms in a certain realm for specific applications, they should know who you are. If they don’t, they can just Google your name. Tell everybody how you got to the seat you’re sitting in right now.

 
Jared Reston: So, again, I’m Jared Reston. I did 20 years of law enforcement with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. I spent 17 of those years on the SWAT team. We were a full-time team, a well-funded team, and a very busy team. I got into a lot of bad stuff—I was kind of a [__] magnet. Things just seemed to happen to me.

The main incident that started all this was back in 2008. I was working an off-duty job at Regency Square Mall in Jacksonville, off the Arlington Expressway. My partner and I ended up chasing a shoplifter. We got separated, and I caught up with the shoplifter. Shortly into our physical confrontation, he produced a Glock 21 .45 caliber and shot me seven times.

The first round hit me dead center in my jaw and exited my neck. Then I took three rounds to my body armor, one through my left thigh, one in my right buttock, and a graze to my right elbow. I was able to return fire and kill him.

That’s the short version—there are more details, of course—but that’s essentially what set me on the path I’m on now. After that incident, people started asking me to speak about mindset, to share my story. I’d been living in my own bubble on the SWAT team, assuming every team and department trained like we did, but I found out that wasn’t true.

I started Reston Group Training to get out there and pass on my experiences—what I’ve been through and the training I received from being on a well-funded, full-time team. I wanted to create a great training program for domestic law enforcement and for everyday citizens focused on stateside shootings and similar scenarios. That’s how I ended up where I am now.

 
Interviewer: That’s incredible. For those who don’t know, we go back a ways. I remember meeting you around 2010 on a range with the SWAT team in St. Augustine during a Pat class. I heard the story about your incident. The biggest takeaway that’s always mentioned is you didn’t just survive—you won.

I remember the instructor telling us, “He didn’t ‘survive’ anything. Surviving is just the byproduct of winning.” That mindset stuck with me, and it’s still the best example of that concept.

 
Jared: Yeah, I hate the term “surviving,” because surviving is what you do if you crash a car in the woods and have to drink your pee and eat berries. A gunfight is a high-stakes game, and games have winners. Hopefully, that winner is you.

I try to instill in people the importance of being as trained and as deadly as possible. That doesn’t guarantee you’ll win, but it raises your chances. Anyone can get lucky in a fight, but if you invest in yourself—if you try to become the best at this particular skill—then even if you lose, your friends and family will know you did everything possible to come home. If you lose then, it’s because the other guy got lucky, not because you were unprepared.

 
Interviewer: Absolutely. My career was different, but it sounds like our experiences with this topic are the same. One of my best friends and mentors, who was a peer group ahead of me, also went down. Everyone at his funeral said, “If he could have picked a way to go, this would have been it. He showed everyone exactly what it’s supposed to look like.”

That perspective changes everything afterward. Sometimes there’s nothing you could have done differently—luck is always a factor, and not every outcome is someone’s “fault.”

 
Jared: Exactly. I tell people all the time, my jaw shot missed my jugular by millimeters. It could have gone straight out the back of my neck. Luck definitely played a part, but mindset helps you capitalize on that luck. Once I realized I was still in the fight, I needed the skill set to finish it. Mindset alone isn’t enough; you need the skill to pull it off. Otherwise, you’re just making noise and hoping for the best.

I’ve heard a lot of debriefs where people say, “I won.” But sometimes they won by luck or because the bad guy gave up. They’re making poor hits, missing, and they just happened to come out on top. In my case, I’m blessed to have a story that’s helped a lot of people. I’m glad it happened to me rather than someone else.

 
Interviewer: Absolutely. Shot placement is always a debate online. I use your training targets in the shoot house here. It’s fantastic because it teaches that humans, especially someone like you, are really hard to kill. You either hit the vital area or you don’t. A shot to the chin might not do it. I point to the scar on your neck as proof.

 
Jared: Exactly. I tell people, “You might think you got a good hit on that target. I’ve taken a bullet in the chin. I felt it, but it didn’t stop me.” That’s why I stress how important accurate shot placement is. The human body is a big target, but the actual kill zone is much smaller than people realize. People are surprisingly unimpressed by bullets until you put them in the right place.

I always say the fastest way to stop a threat is to kill them. You need good hits to do that. It doesn’t matter what drugs they’re on or their mindset—everybody needs a heart to pump blood and a brain that works. If I take those out, I remove all contingencies. A mentor once told me, “Bad guys will keep doing what they were doing before you shot them until either they decide to quit or you shut their lights out.” There’s no pain compliance—just a choice on their part or a physiological stop.

 
Interviewer: I agree completely. A lot of folks say the same thing in different ways, but it boils down to the same concept: The only physiologically guaranteed way to stop someone is to kill them. And to guarantee killing them, you have to destroy something critical, like their heart or brain.

It’s an interesting discussion. We have solid data on that point, but people still believe a shot to the chin is a guaranteed show-stopper. We have to train for what’s truly guaranteed.

 
Jared: Exactly. One of my close friends was also shot in the chin, and he still won his fight. Another friend was shot in the chin and ended up killing the guy who shot him. It happens more often than people think. That’s another reason I say don’t aim for the head unless you absolutely need to.

 
Interviewer: Right. There’s nothing new under the sun, and I think Jeff Cooper said it well when he said if you want to win a gunfight, the first step is mindset. You need that ready to go. The second step is proper manipulations: If you can’t draw the gun, orient it, load it, and fix malfunctions, you’ll never get to use it. After that, it’s marksmanship: putting the shots where they need to go.

Those three things—mindset, manipulations, marksmanship—are the fundamentals. Your training group helps people work on exactly that, right?

 
Jared: Absolutely. We give you the hard skills so you can free up bandwidth during a fight. Shooting people is just a problem-solving event. You shouldn’t be worrying about your draw, running the gun, or your trigger press. That should be second nature. I want you to worry about the problem in front of you while your gun-handling runs in the background.

 
Interviewer: That’s awesome. Do you have a website where people can check out your open-enrollment classes?

 
Jared: Yes, I do. Almost all of my firearms classes are open-enrollment, unless I’m contracted privately. We also do some CQB, even CQB for civilians. You can find all of that at restongrouptraining.com.

We’re also on social media—Instagram as RestonGroup or Reston Group. I’ve been shadow-banned a bit, so you might have to really search for me, but I’m there.

 
Interviewer: Well, we appreciate you coming in, brother. Thanks for doing what you do and for what you did. I’m excited to see more of your work. I know you’re also doing stuff with Ridgeline, right?

 
Jared: Yeah, I work with Ridgeline Defense. We run great training up there. Honestly, it’s some of the best training you’ll get. Come up to Dalton, where the facility is primo—like the Disney World of shooting. We’re also on the manufacturing side, coming out with precision guns and blasters.

 
Interviewer: Awesome. Alex has been on me for two years to get up there; it’s definitely on my list. I know Ridgeline started off sniper-focused, but now it’s full-spectrum.

 
Jared: Exactly. We have breaching, CQB, sniper stuff—whatever you need. It’s all there, and we all offer it.

 
Interviewer: Fantastic. Thanks for coming by today. This was fun. I’ll see you at all the usual events, shows, and training things. I appreciate it, brother. Thank you very much.

End of Interview