There’s an old rule for walking through any big city: act like you know where you’re going and what you’re doing. Predators pick prey, and prey looks like the person staring at the ground with their hands in their pockets, wandering aimlessly. Put it this way: if a criminal is sizing up two people on the street and one of them carries himself like he’d be a problem, the criminal picks the other guy. Every time. The military calls it command presence. For the rest of us, it’s just presence, and paired with basic situational awareness it’s the cheapest security measure you’ll ever own.
Situational awareness isn’t enough anymore
People love to talk about situational awareness, and it matters. But knowing what’s happening around you is only half the job. What I tell customers at the shop is to think in a full circle, 360 degrees, and that includes what you’re carrying and what you know.
Run through the checklist honestly. Do you have a flashlight on you? A knife that could cut a seatbelt or clothing? If you’re licensed and able, are you carrying a gun? Is your phone charged? If something happened right now, where would you go? Where’s the nearest medical care? Is there anything already working against you today, like severe weather, a huge event downtown, or a road closure that kills your normal way home? And if you do carry, a good holster matters as much as the gun itself.
Know your limitations
The other half of the circle is you. Can you run a quarter mile if you have to? Do you know how to fight, even a little? Do you know the difference between cover and concealment? Cover stops bullets. Concealment just hides you. A car engine block is cover. A drywall partition or a hedge is concealment, and confusing the two gets people hurt.
None of this requires paranoia. It requires a few honest answers about what you can actually do, so your plan matches reality instead of the movie in your head.
Game out the what-ifs
Mentally rehearsing scenarios sounds morbid until you need it. If shots rang out in the mall you visit every week, what would you do? Which exits do you actually know about, other than the one you came in through? Where would you put your family while you figure out what’s happening? People who’ve thought it through even once move with purpose. People who haven’t, freeze.
Dirty Harry had it right: a man’s got to know his limitations. Take stock of your surroundings, your gear, and your abilities, and you’ve cut your risk more than any single purchase ever will.
Where to go from here
If this way of thinking clicks with you, I’ve gone deeper on the home side of it in Surviving and Preventing Home Invasion and the broader Practical Preparedness guide. And because situational awareness includes the aftermath, it’s worth reading what to do (and not do) immediately following a self-defense shooting before you ever need it.
Lance Rankin is the owner and Chief Gunsmith of Western Sport, a family-run Type 07 FFL and Class 3/SOT dealer in Roanoke, Texas, serving shooters since 2007. Born and raised in Texas with over 50 years of experience handling firearms, Lance purchased Western Sport in 2017 and turned his lifelong passion into his profession. He specializes in AR-15 and AR-10 platform rifles, manufactures Western Sport’s own AR-15 line under the Rankin Industries brand, and runs the shop’s in-house Cerakote coating operation. When he’s not behind the counter or the workbench, you’ll find him on his ranch deep into the night, hunting coyotes with an AR-15 and thermal optics. Lance holds an MBA and personally shoots and tests the products Western Sport sells.
As a FF I never sit with my back to a path of egress and am always looking for a safe way to get myself and others out of a public place when I am not on duty. This has ended up being a constant thing I do on or off duty for my safety, I always carry an extrication/tactical knife and a tactical light of some kind and my fully charged phone.
As FF’s we get to carry some knifes that civilians can’t legally, not telling anyone to stop carrying your favorite blade but some places…i.e arena’s, sporting events check you close for those. I’m always ready for any EMS that might pop up too so my knife will remove any clothing covering a wound I need to evaluate, my light helps my see and treat it and I can call dispatch with my phone. Plus if I can’t carry my gun I always have my knife for protection, and after all the shootings I’ve ran I’d rather get shoot at than cut up.