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This Is How You Would Lose a Gunfight

Situational awareness is generally taught in good self defense training. It is often misunderstood as paranoia, but people raised in large urban centers are often raised this way without your parents referring to it as situational awareness. You are simply taught to be aware of your physical environment, the people in the area, and paying attention to both. I have been fortunate to have been raised in a huge city, have taken self defense training over decades, and raised my kids to think this way, even though I moved them away from large urban environments. What is the 1st thing victims say when faced with dangerous people and situations; I never thought it could happen here!
While most humans are not dangerous, never lose sight the the most dangerous, violent animal on earth, is humans. Stay calm, be aware and move forward!
 
The biggest thing I have observed from teaching, both at the agency and civilian levels. Most folks have a one dimensional scenario in their head and they are always the victor.

That is especially so with civilians they only have the firearm scenerio Anne lethal force decision and justification is much more complex than people realize and they have no plan B,C or F
 
I've said this before but I have a really hard time with this topic because I don't believe that you can learn how to practice situational awareness in a classroom or from reading an article.

I believe the most effective way to learn how to practice situational awareness is to be in a place where you're required to practice situational awareness to "survive".

In the book Band of Brothers Steven Ambrose talks about how the veterans of Easy company didn't even bother to get to know their Replacement's names until they've been with the company at least two weeks. Because if a replacement survived two weeks they had a better chance of surviving longer.

They all had the same infantry training. They all knew they were going to a combat zone. They all knew they needed to be on high alert but the recruits didn't have the experience to recognize danger as quickly as the veterans did.

When I was working as a security guard downtown I got "interviewed" frequently. I'm not saying that that makes me Joe badass but I've seen it enough times that I know what I'm seeing when I see it.

I know what it looks like when that crackhead has decided that he's going to put the bum on me instead of the guy at the next gas pump. And when you're the one that's targeted the only difference between being targeted for a panhandler or a mugging is the level of intensity there's still targeting you and if you know what you're looking for you can see it coming.

So that's my opinion. I believe that the concepts of situational awareness can be taught in a classroom but to practice of situational awareness can only be learned by experience.

I also don't believe that there are different levels of situational awareness. You either know what's going on around you or you don't.
 
Thanks for the link, Mike.

A few days ago, a man was leaving a church service in Memphis, not far from us. As he walked towards his car in the parking lot, he saw several people breaking into cars parked there. I guess he was situationally aware, but when he yelled at the, the guy in the getaway car shot him. I think the other perps started shooting at him too. He wound up at the hospital with two gunshot wounds but survived. This on one of the busiest streets in town.
 
Early in the article, the author mentions mental conditioning. I would submit that as part of mental conditioning, one should practice what a wise man once said, “The body cannot go where the mind has not been.” Thinking through scenarios in advance, I believe, allows the neural pathways and muscle memory to kick in giving one an advantage when things go south rapidly. No time to think; just react. Much more successful if the mind has already gone there.
 
Most people are raised to have a reluctance to cause severe or fatal injury to others. I spent years as a first responder and interacted with many people that just froze and allowed something to happen to them as they couldn't overcome that reluctance. I tell those that ask me about obtaining a gun to ask themselves if they can accept, deep in their "hearts", that their lives and the lives of their families are more important than that of the person threating them? If they can't accept they might need to exert lethal force with virtually no time to think about it, then a firearm might not be the best choice for them. To me this is one of the most important parts of mental conditioning, the will to actually pull the trigger if necessary.
 
Just came from the library where I was reading the local newspaper. Homeless guy, muttering incoherently, started to approach. I went to condition orange, moved up in my seat, assessed his physical accruements, and readied to make a defensive response to him. He suddenly made a decision not to mess with me and changed course away from me. Day to day awareness is ok and appropriate responses will a lot of time avoid a situation.
 
somorris said:
Thanks for the link, Mike.

A few days ago, a man was leaving a church service in Memphis, not far from us. As he walked towards his car in the parking lot, he saw several people breaking into cars parked there. I guess he was situationally aware, but when he yelled at the, the guy in the getaway car shot him. I think the other perps started shooting at him too. He wound up at the hospital with two gunshot wounds but survived. This on one of the busiest streets in town.
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In my training with Karl Rehn and his instructors, it was stressed that sometimes the best thing you can do is (if not faced with an immediate threat to your person), nothing. As a civilian handgun carrier it isn't you job to catch bad guys or intervene in situations not involving you, but to protect yourself and your family. Sounds like it would have helped the man whose story you describe.
 
The Night Rider said:
I've said this before but I have a really hard time with this topic because I don't believe that you can learn how to practice situational awareness in a classroom or from reading an article.

I believe the most effective way to learn how to practice situational awareness is to be in a place where you're required to practice situational awareness to "survive".

In the book Band of Brothers Steven Ambrose talks about how the veterans of Easy company didn't even bother to get to know their Replacement's names until they've been with the company at least two weeks. Because if a replacement survived two weeks they had a better chance of surviving longer.

They all had the same infantry training. They all knew they were going to a combat zone. They all knew they needed to be on high alert but the recruits didn't have the experience to recognize danger as quickly as the veterans did.

When I was working as a security guard downtown I got "interviewed" frequently. I'm not saying that that makes me Joe badass but I've seen it enough times that I know what I'm seeing when I see it.

I know what it looks like when that crackhead has decided that he's going to put the bum on me instead of the guy at the next gas pump. And when you're the one that's targeted the only difference between being targeted for a panhandler or a mugging is the level of intensity there's still targeting you and if you know what you're looking for you can see it coming.

So that's my opinion. I believe that the concepts of situational awareness can be taught in a classroom but to practice of situational awareness can only be learned by experience.

I also don't believe that there are different levels of situational awareness. You either know what's going on around you or you don't.
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Yes, agree you can only learn so much from books and the TV. Articles can open up your mind to new ideas and practices, but then they have to be practiced to become your normal M.O. for everyday life.

A few years ago in Vegas, I was filling up my rental car at a gas station. Out of nowhere a homeless guy hits me up for $. I thought to myself, where in hell did this guy come from? Now, I wasn't looking around, aka situationally aware. I was just pumping gas and daydreaming. But I could have easily been killed, if that was what the attacker wanted to do.

As America goes further to hell, I am becoming leerier every time I go out and I try to look around more and more. Still, I can improve on many areas that were mentioned in the article. That person standing near the edge of the subway was me. I would stand on the edge and strain my neck looking if the next train was coming. I could have been pushed on the tracks very easily. Plus, in NYC, could not carry a gun.
 
The Night Rider said:
I also don't believe that there are different levels of situational awareness. You either know what's going on around you or you don't.
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I have ran into a couple that did. A do worker that thought he was into guns was all fascinated by LE especially State Troopers. He was also a talker and every time we were driving to or from a Fi show mid sentence he would call out patroller” much like the old slug Ig game. It was a souse of rubbing.
At the same time he can’t find a clue I front of him. I got him interested in a ISPSA match local and we are shooting with this guy on our squad the whole day and my friend starts talking to him the last stage. The other guy has a drawl and a tee shirt with the outline of the state of Virgina with USPSA clubs and a Virgina Texh hat and the guy mentioned our club is nice and reminds him of his back home. Like a record scratch my friend goes “you’re not from here?” I’m like that’s probably indicative of the hat, vA Tee shirt and drawl buddy

So some folks don’t pick up the obvious!
 
The Night Rider said:
I've said this before but I have a really hard time with this topic because I don't believe that you can learn how to practice situational awareness in a classroom or from reading an article.

I believe the most effective way to learn how to practice situational awareness is to be in a place where you're required to practice situational awareness to "survive".

In the book Band of Brothers Steven Ambrose talks about how the veterans of Easy company didn't even bother to get to know their Replacement's names until they've been with the company at least two weeks. Because if a replacement survived two weeks they had a better chance of surviving longer.

They all had the same infantry training. They all knew they were going to a combat zone. They all knew they needed to be on high alert but the recruits didn't have the experience to recognize danger as quickly as the veterans did.

When I was working as a security guard downtown I got "interviewed" frequently. I'm not saying that that makes me Joe badass but I've seen it enough times that I know what I'm seeing when I see it.

I know what it looks like when that crackhead has decided that he's going to put the bum on me instead of the guy at the next gas pump. And when you're the one that's targeted the only difference between being targeted for a panhandler or a mugging is the level of intensity there's still targeting you and if you know what you're looking for you can see it coming.

So that's my opinion. I believe that the concepts of situational awareness can be taught in a classroom but to practice of situational awareness can only be learned by experience.

I also don't believe that there are different levels of situational awareness. You either know what's going on around you or you don't.
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Facts on facts.

This line gave me pause, “Do you run away, move your dominant hand to your holstered pistol, or discreetly access a less-lethal weapon?”

Less-lethal? This brought up a couple of thoughts:

1) There are schools of thought that says carry my knife on my non-dominant side. This means that I have to train to use my left hand to handle a knife.

2) Less-lethal, is a stab wound to the jugular or femoral artery any less lethal?
 
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XD94045 said:
Facts on facts.

This line gave me pause, “Do you run away, move your dominant hand to your holstered pistol, or discreetly access a less-lethal weapon?”

Less-lethal? This brought up a couple of thoughts:

1) There are schools of thought that says carry my knife on my non-dominant side. This means that I have to train to use my left hand to handle a knife.

2) Less-lethal, is a stab wound to the jugular or femoral artery any less lethal?
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I think the meant OC.

If you pull out of life that's lethal Force
 
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