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STREET TACTICS
Stay back about six
feet from the cover to
prevent ricochets from
hitting you.
[ B Y G A B E S U A R E Z ]
Concealed carry trainees
are often admonished by
their instructors to use
cover in a gunfight.
Use of cover is a good idea that has
saved many good guys, but its
tactical use must be understood
and put in the correct context in order
to be effective.
The difference lies in the issue of who
has initiative in the fight. In other words,
who is being proactive and who is being
reactive. Here are a couple of examples:
An armed good guy sees a criminal
with a knife attacking a woman and realizes
that although he is not involved in
the fight directly, he must get involved
to save the woman’s life. So, he purposely
and proactively draws his pistol and
shoots the bad guy. There was no need
for cover, but there was a need to take
the initiative.
A similar situation may be where the
armed good guy happens to be at the
scene of a robbery at a business. Seeing
the bad guys draw their guns and approach
the cashier, he may elect to take
a covered position behind a stone pillar.
At this point he may engage or not,
depending on what he sees, but he had
the ability to take a safer position than
simply standing out in the open like the
proverbial deer in the head lights.
Both of these events developed such
that the good guy had ample time to
realize something was happening and
make a decision to act. In the first one,
cover would have been unnecessary,
while in the second event, it may have
been essential.
There is also the second type of
event—the pure surprise attack. As unpopular
as it is in the gun culture to admit
that these occur, not everyone can
be alert in condition yellow all of the
time. In these reactive events, the bad
guy has the initiative, and to survive, the
good guy must be able to react. In these
cases, counter-attacking the assailant is
probably a far better option than trying
to look for cover.
An example may be an armed good
guy who is walking into a business. The
next thing he sees is a bad guy pointing
or firing a pistol at him from across the
room. There is no time to do anything
but move off the line of fire, draw, and
shoot back. To think of cover at this
point might cause a delayed response
with terminal results for the good guy.
Please don’t think I am eschewing
USCONCEALEDCARRY.COM n CONCEALED CARRY MAGAZINE n JULY 2008