SIXuational Awareness Saves Badguys Too

I haven’t written in a long time, but something happened this week that requires me to write a change in my philosophy. I was out walking in my neighborhood on July 18th, 2023, and as I was crossing the street at a crosswalk, a car driver swerved towards me and accelerated, causing me to run into the far lane. As he passed me, I yelled, “What the hell, man?” at the driver. He flipped me off, slowed down, turned around and came back to the crosswalk. By this point I was already across the street and continuing on the walking trail, walking away from this very angry man. He jumped back into his car and drove to where the walking trail intersects the street again in the neighborhood park. When I walked around the corner into the park, he was there waiting for me about twenty yards away. When he saw me turn the corner into the park, he started advancing towards me. I saw a large metallic object in his right hand, either a steel pipe or a big wrench, somewhere around 15 to 18 inches in length. He started yelling obscenities at me again and challenging me to some sort of violence as he continued towards me. When I saw the weapon in his hand, at about ten yards distance between us, I stopped and drew my concealed carry pistol and ordered him to stop. He didn’t see my weapon at first at took two more steps, but then saw it when he was about eight yards away from me, and he stopped. I told him to get back in his truck and leave. He realized his impact weapon at eight yards was not going to win against a firearm, and he left, cursing me, threatening retribution and that he would remember me. I was prepared to shoot him if he came within 5 yards of me with that impact weapon.

This is the third time I’ve prepared to shoot somebody since becoming a civilian, but this was the first time I’ve had to actually draw down on somebody, the other two times were attempted car-jackings and both times police vehicles turned onto the streets I was on, and the bad guys ran away before they got to my vehicle. This was different, because I was out in the open and actually went from holster to ready to shoot as a threat advanced towards me on foot. This has made me re-examine a couple tenants of my training. The first is that I didn’t have to shoot this guy. In fact this gun probably saved his life as well as mine, and hopefully he went home and re-evaluated his life choices regarding road rage or trying to be funny—I’m not sure which it was--by swerving towards and accelerating at a pedestrian in an automobile (an action that itself could have warranted me legally defending myself with a firearm). It saved his life and my bodily injury by keeping him at a distance beyond which he could effectively swing his impact weapon at me, and beyond which I could shove my push dagger into his throat had he swung at me, which was my back-up plan. Fortunately, I saw his weapon at a far enough distance (meaning a long enough time) for me to draw and stop his attack. That’s the second re-examined and re-emphasized tenant of my training: SIXuational Awareness is the most important of the WIDTH6 principles of self-defense! As John Correia of Active Self Protection says, “Situational Awareness buys you time, and time buys you options.” If I had not been paying attention to his whole body, including his hands, and assessing the whole threat, I would not have seen the impact weapon in his hand. So, big lesson there is don’t lock eyes with an opponent, scan the entire situation.

I have been preaching “never clear leather unless you’re going to shoot” for the last twelve years as a concealed carry instructor. I was wrong. With enough SIXuational Awareness, drawing the weapon and not shooting ended the incident without anybody getting hurt, shot or killed. The NRA estimates somewhere between 300,000 and 500,000 incidents of violence are stopped every year by armed citizens who do not have to pull the trigger. I’m now a part of that statistic, and it has changed my perspective. A week ago, I would have said I would never draw my gun unless I was going to shoot a person in self-defense. And make no mistake, I was certainly prepared to do that if he got within striking distance of me with that impact weapon, but because I had deployed a superior weapon—thanks to awareness--and he realized that fact, violence became unnecessary. That’s a significant change to my self-defense philosophy I have been teaching for over a decade, and I wanted to write a blog to amend my previous statements, written and during classes, which this new incident contradicts. Sometimes clearing leather is enough, but you nonetheless need to be ready to pull that trigger if a threat does become violent.

Last note I will make. Practice is everything. Live fire is important, and it’s why I teach the way I do. But, dry fire is also very useful, and a lot cheaper. Having said that, the absolute most important thing for a concealed carrier to practice is neither of those, it is this: drawing the gun! Getting the gun out of the holster and into the fight is the most critical skill for a gunfight; that was true in 1881 and it’s still true today. And you can do that in your home a million times for free, without ever firing a shot. I say this because I have no recollection of drawing my handgun during this incident. It was a completely subconscious process because I have practiced it thousands of times. I knew exactly where the gun was in a good, solid leather holster made for that gun—not some nylon universal piece of garbage—attached to a good, solid gun belt—made for carrying holstered pistols, not some flimsy cloth piece of garbage either. I knew how to get the cover garment out of the way, and get the gun deployed without ever taking my eyes off the weapon in the hand of the attacker. The gun materialized in my hand, the sights in front of my eyes. That happened automatically and without conscious decision-making on my part, because of the practice. So, if you can’t afford to go the range every week, or every month, or even every other month, you can still get great at gunfighting by practicing this most important skill. I am not joking when I say thousands of times, either. I’m into the tens of thousands of times at this point, maybe a hundred thousand. Everyday before you leave your house with your concealed carry handgun, you should practice your draw—with an unloaded gun—five or six times. And recognize you might have to draw it into a compromised shooting stance, because during this incident I had my back-up weapon(s)—crkt “master key” and key-chain pepper spray—in my non-shooting hand, so this was going to be a one-handed shoot if I had to pull the trigger. This is why grip is so critical, and building your grip in your holster is absolutely essential, and why you can’t have floppy piece of garbage holsters and/or belts. If I had to shoot one-handed, I knew I had a good enough grip on the Springfield Hellcat to effectively take multiple shots in under two seconds into his ribcage. All of this comes from practicing your draw over and over and over again!