Situational Awareness Discussion

[Dannytheman]

This is the time of year to really thing SA!!
I know I never let my wife go to the mall un armed. She also has now been trained to not be oblivious to her surroundings.
One year we were coming out of a toy store with a cart loaded to the gills with toys for our 4 kids. There was a guy standing outside the exit door the whole time we were checking out, I could see him staring into and at each cart as it went by him and into the lot. My spider sensse started tingling. As I exited the store, I also noticed a second man in a mini van alone with vehicle running. Same complexion as man now standing 25 feet in front of me. I told the wife to push the cart and walk behind me. She did the perfect wife thing, said WHY?! Arrghhhh.... I told her stay tight on my butt and go straight to my truck. Once we past the guy who was staring at our collection of toys, I slowed and walked around behind my wife.
We walked to the car and I never lost site of the 2 men, while I loaded the truck. OK, nothing happened, but it wasn't going to either. BTW, I never had to touch or reach for my pistol. Happy ending.

Merry Christmas and alway be aware! Gut feelings are learned events from your life, trust them.

[streaker69]

I always go out and do the grocery shopping, and I normally have at least one kid with me when I do, so I'm always wary of what's going on around me. What really shocks me is the number of women that shop with their purse sitting in the seat of the cart hanging open and their wallet right on the top. I'm also amazed that people allow their children out of their sight in large stores. I've seen several instances where a young child was in the cart and no adult was nearby, they parked the cart and went into another aisle.

I refuse to be an obliviot.

[Devrbd]

A couple weeks ago I found myself driving lost in Camden, at night and unarmed. I'm fairly used to sketchy neighborhoods and don't get rattled too easy, but this was the most uncomfortable I've been in a long time.

Some friends/family invited us to dinner in NJ. Normally, coming from where I live, I would have no problem going over the Ben Franklin, avoiding Camden and into NJ. However, this time we were coming from the south and I put my faith in the GPS. Since I don't yet have a GPS that discriminates between bad neighborhoods and good, this one felt the quickest route was straight through the heart of the 2nd most dangerous city in the country.

Coming north on 676 the GPS directs me to get off at Exit 4. I do so and the very moment I fully commit to the exit, with no way out, I realized it was a mistake. At the end of the ramp I see only darkness and your typical confusing Jersey traffic pattern. Nothing else. No life, no street signs and of course no police presence. I hit the power locks twice, said to my girlfriend "this is fucked up" and then made a wrong turn. Now dependent on the GPS, it begins rerouting me through a series of alleys, choke points and the worst possible roads in Camden.

Thankfully I made it out of there without incident. What was probably only a few minutes, felt 10 times longer. My SA was at it's highest level. If something moved, in front, behind or to the side of the car, I saw it. Stop signs turned to yield signs and traffic lights turned to stop signs. If i got pulled over, fine, but I was getting the hell out of there.

[Devrbd]

She did the perfect wife thing, said WHY?! Arrghhhh....

My girlfriend, with absolutely no situational awareness, always does that. Makes you wonder how they survived without you sometimes.

[streaker69]

A couple weeks ago I found myself driving lost in Camden, at night and unarmed. I'm fairly used to sketchy neighborhoods and don't get rattled too easy, but this was the most uncomfortable I've been in a long time.

Some friends/family invited us to dinner in NJ. Normally, coming from where I live, I would have no problem going over the Ben Franklin, avoiding Camden and into NJ. However, this time we were coming from the south and I put my faith in the GPS. Since I don't yet have a GPS that discriminates between bad neighborhoods and good, this one felt the quickest route was straight through the heart of the 2nd most dangerous city in the country.

Coming north on 676 the GPS directs me to get off at Exit 4. I do so and the very moment I fully commit to the exit, with no way out, I realized it was a mistake. At the end of the ramp I see only darkness and your typical confusing Jersey traffic pattern. Nothing else. No life, no street signs and of course no police presence. I hit the power locks twice, said to my girlfriend "this is fucked up" and then made a wrong turn. Now dependent on the GPS, it begins rerouting me through a series of alleys, choke points and the worst possible roads in Camden.

Thankfully I made it out of there without incident. What was probably only a few minutes, felt 10 times longer. My SA was at it's highest level. If something moved, in front, behind or to the side of the car, I saw it. Stop signs turned to yield signs and traffic lights turned to stop signs. If i got pulled over, fine, but I was getting the hell out of there.

I did something very similar one time in Pittsburgh. Ended up in Homewood on a side street. Cars on blocks, trash cans on fire. If K9cop comes in here, I'm sure he can gives us some insight into the Homewood section of the city.

[ViperGTS19801]

I've been making a specific point of being a "sentry" of sorts whenever I go out lately. I've found that, having been stripped of my 2nd Amendment rights by the Philadelphia Police Department, I've been much more keen on knowing where everything is and what's moving. I may look a little goofy, constantly scanning left to right every ten seconds or so, but I feel better knowing where everything is.

Although, it also points out something to me - I now feel like, when I was carrying, I wasn't as aware as I should have been. I'll make sure to keep it keen after the PPD gets their heads out of their asses.

[streaker69]

The wife and I decided to spend a day in DC, although at the time we were just dating, but for the sake of clarity, I'll say wife. We spent most of the touring the Smithsonian and when we finished that for some reason decided to go to Union Station. Dunno remember why, it's a train station. We parked on one of the streets that fan out in front of the station and headed in, rather uneventful, wandered around, I think we got something to eat there.

Heading out on the other hand was another matter. We had to cross several intersecting streets in front of the station to get to our car. The first street we were crossing, there was a guy standing across from us, waiting for the light to change. When it changed, we started to cross, but he stood still and kept watching us until we got there. As we started to cross the next street, he fell in step behind us, and now I'm starting to think we have another "Ain't nobody fuckin' nobody" incident. He continues to follow us across a couple more streets and we start to turn down the street towards our car. I'm thinking I really don't want to go straight to my car with this guy still behind. Start assessing what I have on me, car keys and a pocket knife.

We slowed down a bit, and the guy slowed as well, about 50' from our car, which was also across the road from the sidewalk we were on, I squeezed the wife's hand, and just that quick, she dropped down to pretend to tie her shoe. Gave me a chance to take up a bit of a defensive position, and turn to the side so I could see where the guy was. He looked a little surprised, stuttered step for a bit and then walked between the parked cars and out into the middle of the street. I watched him go down the entire street and get into a white pickup truck that was backed in, on a street that the parking spaces were aligned for front end parking only. The truck was running with someone already inside. They pulled out and we quickly got into our car and watched a bit more. They drove past us looking at us the entire time and then pulled out onto the main road.

What did we learn from this? Don't go to DC. This was actually a good thing, because the wife and I were able to communicate a good bit of information without speaking. Much of it was done with looks and hand squeezes, I don't think the guy realized we were keeping track of him. I don't know if we were in any danger from it or not, but the entire experience seemed strange that he was standing facing us when we crossed initially, and then followed us to an already waiting truck.

[Metz]

What really shocks me is the number of women that shop with their purse sitting in the seat of the cart hanging open and their wallet right on the top.

What really shocks me is the number of dudes, peeing in the public bathrooms with their wallets sticking out of their back pockets. C'mon! perp doesn't even need to run after picking one. The pee-pee dude, who's in the middle of process won't be able to do anything anyway.

[Dannytheman]

What really shocks me is the number of dudes, peeing in the public bathrooms with their wallets sticking out of their back pockets. C'mon! perp doesn't even need to run after picking one. The pee-pee dude, who's in the middle of process won't be able to do anything anyway.

Is exactly why I wear a wallet that is chained to my belt.
It isn't for the "You want to look like a biker" comments I often get!!

[MuzzleFlash]

I became aware of SA from the restaurant scene in "Spy Game" when Redford was teaching Pitt how to be alert. I didn't think much of it since I was still in the sheeple mindset that safe zones exist and you can just avoid the bad places, only CIA spy wannabes would waste their time worrying about everyone around them all the time, we live in a civil society with police and don't have to worry about that stuff.

When I Started to CC a full sized XD-45 I was looking around and making eye contact out of paranoia and fear that someone might see the gun's distortion in my clothing and hassle me about it. It was then that I became aware of how unobservant people were and most will avoid looking directly at anyone else let alone make eye contact.

A few years ago I was at CiCi's pizza in Cranberry with my mother and my brother's kids. In those cases I don't sit facing the door, though I was parallel to it so I could catch it in my peripheral. I sit facing the buffet and bathrooms because that's where the kids will be aimlessly wandering and their safety takes priority. To my left next to the door I caught a guy in dark clothes sitting at the edge of the booth facing out into the isle, elbows on his knees and mouth behind his hands. I figured it was a guy on break but it put me on alert because of his position by the door watching over everyone else and lack of movement . After about 10 minutes he hadn't moved, my mother leaned over and whispered "Are you packin'?" I replied "Yea, why?" she said "There's a guy back to your left that's just sitting there, I wanted to make sure in case he did something." I didn't look, I just nodded and said "Yea, I've been keeping an eye on 'em." Eventually he got up and left, never having eaten and no one came to his table. Maybe he just had to find the nearest place to sit down and pray?

A few things bothered me about that. My niece was sitting on the outside of the booth, I was inside. I know it's a tactically bad spot but kids have to get up to use the bathroom, play games, etc and when I go out to eat I'm planted until we leave. What bothered me is that my brother's family favors the happy "nothing bad will happen" mindset over being prepared and they fear guns, so if something did go down not only would I have had to defend them, but I'd have to be giving clear commands and pushing them out of the way at the same time because they wouldn't have any clue what to do.

In another incident over this past summer I was working under the hood of my car in my driveway with the driver door open. The rear of the car was facing the street so my view was blocked. I heard a loud truck drive by and stop. It was very loud so I figured it was a company truck parked down the street. I walked out from the hood to get some tools and looked towards the street out of curiosity and as it turns out it was a red pickup truck parked right next to the driveway and a guy was walking close towards my door. I stopped and said "Hey," as in "Hi, can I help you?" not "Get away from there!" He started saying he was looking for the "Brown's" house. The closest Brown in this town for the past 30+ years is about a mile away. I asked "Do you have a house number your looking for?" He said, "No, I was just looking. All these houses look the same." ... Yea, on each street you've got gray panel, yellow brick, red stone, blue wood, 2 story, 3 story, 1 story. They're practically clones.
The guy just wasn't making sense. He quickly got back to his truck and left. It wasn't until a few moments after the incident that I realized he was likely there to steal any contents from the car, at high noon, in my own driveway, in a 'safe town.' If there was any belief left about safe zones, times, places, and people, that removed them. I am now fully aware that anything can happen anywhere at any time and carry even to do yard work.