As gun owners, we all share a very common skill, whether it be learned or inherent, and that skill is Situational Awareness. We practice to heighten that skill so that we can do whatever we need to avoid conflict without actually having to draw down on someone, and use our guns as our last defense. It's something that I know I practice regularly, and have had several incidents over the years that I know if I hadn't been aware of what was going on around me, things could have turned out very differently.

I do remember the first time I learned about it, believe it or not, it was around 7th grade and I was reading the book Shane. What stuck in my head was the scene where Shane first enters the farmer's home for dinner and promptly sits in the father's seat with his back to the wall. A tactically smart position to take as he could watch who entered the room and no one could sneak up on him from behind. Something I've always thought about as the "gunfighter" position. Since then, when I'm in a restaurant or other unfamiliar places I always try to take such a position. A place where entrances can be watched and it would be difficult for someone to be behind me. Of course, this isn't always possible, but when I can't do that, I try to be more aware of what's around me.

I'm going to write out several of my incidents and I welcome everyone to write out theirs, so that maybe we call all learn from each other. After all, we can do all the training in the comfort of our ranges that we want, but the best training is of course real world. Many times if you write something out, you'll realize where you did things wrong, and what you could do to improve.

I'd figure I'd start this thread since it does seem as a group we've had lots of experiences in our past we could possibly share.