Living in a world where extreme physical violence can erupt at a moment’s notice, it’s important to be armed with more than only one weapon. Make no mistake, the most effective way to stop a bad guy shooting at you, is a good guy, you, with a gun plus the skills to stop that threat. However, to rely solely on your carry pistol as your only response tool and with no other support, puts you at a tactical disadvantage.
In addition to a readily accessible concealment handgun, you are also armed with a weapon that requires no bullets, no batteries and no carry permit. Your most powerful weapon, your mind, is with you every moment of every day and can be used to effectively avoid or even mitigate an active threat.
If you’re able to hear it, see it smell it coming, then you can step off those railroad tracks long before that freight train becomes a personal threat. You can accomplish this beneficial task by using your situational awareness.
We’ve all heard the term and are somewhat familiar with the concept of situational awareness, but exactly what is it, and how can it be used to avoid or mitigate a threat? Very simply put situational awareness, or S/A, is an awareness of your immediate environment. Should one of your five senses pick up a threat indicator, such as seeing a bad guy across the street moving toward you with a knife, hearing gunfire, smelling smoke, etc., you are forewarned of a potential physical threat. The extra few seconds or even minutes in come cases, affords you the opportunity to not be there should the threat continue to evolve. If you don’t show up for a mugging, you can’t get mugged!
Lampposts are being covered in airbags to stop so-called ‘smartphone zombies’ bumping into them as they walk around staring at their screens in an Austrian city[1]. Salzburg authorities say tourists are increasingly hurting themselves by not looking where they are going while checking their devices. You see examples of this every day right here at home with people texting while driving or walking. All of their awareness is focused around a 6” radius of their device-holding hand. If your awareness is focused on anything other than your surroundings, then how would you ever know if something threatening was unfolding in your immediate environment? Bottom line is, look up occasionally, to ensure you’re not walking into a lamppost or, an active threat.
How does applying your situational awareness gain you a tactical advantage? If you happen to hear gunfire or observe an active shooter, before they observe you, those precious seconds are valuable chunks of time that you may need to make a judgement call, or to take flight or fight. If you choose to take flight, which is the safest of the two options, then that borrowed time can help get you out of effective threat range, and/ or possibly behind cover.
Should your decision be to fight, then those very valuable quarter seconds just bought you immediate response opportunity. More time, equals more opportunity for you to solve the tactical problem.
Sufficient time is required to defeat your cover garment, clear your concealed pistol from its holster (defeating any of its retention devices), and to determine if you have a viable backstop. All of this takes some amount of time before you can point your muzzle toward the bad guy(s) and initiate your trigger press. Buying yourself this required time, places you in a dominant posture, where you aware of the threat, have confirmed your decision to shoot and that you have a sound backstop. None of this would have been afforded you, had you not applied your S/A, and were caught behind the action/ reaction power curve of an active threat.
Being situationally aware is one of the most powerful tools you can have in your tactical solutions tool kit in addition to your concealed carry. Used together, the two can decrease your vulnerability, and gain you the tactical advantage of being forewarned and forearmed.
[1] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5035191/Airbags-lampposts-protect-Salzburg-phone-users.html
