The pre-Thanksgiving terror attack in Washington D.C. by an Islamic jihadist hopefully will be the last terror incident we see in America this holiday season. However, just like denial, hope has no survival value.



Translation, for those in Rio Linda: carry your gun everywhere you can do so legally. And for non-permissive environments, concealed means concealed. After all, the only thing that stops a bad person with evil in their hearts is a good guy or gal with a gun.

Situational awareness improves your chances to avoid criminal (or terror) attacks. If you pick up on potential pre-violence indicators, you can make yourself scarce. Reminder: the best way to win a gunfight is to not be there. Same goes for not becoming a victim of crime

And even if you miss some of the early indicators of attacks that bad guys leak without even realizing it, if you pick up on them before the attack commences, you have time to put distance between yourself and the bad actors. Distance gives you time, time gives you options and options lead to safety.

Threats spike around the holidays because everyone, including bad guys, know they’re coming. They know the stores will be packed on Black Friday. Criminals like this for potential victims from which to “liberate” property and terrorists like this for body counts using vehicles, guns or fire as their weapons. And bug-eyed lunatics with their tongues hanging out prefer tightly packed crowds where they can pull a knife and go stabby and slicey and have no shortage of people to victimize. When was the last time you saw Larry the Lunatic launching a stabbing attack in the desert?

What do you look for in terms of “suspicious” behaviors? Well, if you want the college-level course in identifying bad people with evil in their hearts, I’d strongly recommend Left of Bang. But the quick-and-dirty method is to watch for behaviors outside of the baseline of normalcy.

“What the heck is that, John?” you ask. Let’s start simple. If some guy walks into the shopping mall sans clothes while carrying a knife (or nothing at all), that’s something that merits attention as a potential threat. Or if a guy walks into the mall wearing a trench coat in July. They call that a “clue” at the FBI Academy.

Under the “still obvious” category: someone who is inappropriately loud and disruptive in an otherwise relatively quiet and orderly environment (think library or nice restaurant). Reflexively, someone who seems quite withdrawn and silent when everyone else shows boisterous behavior.

Again, it’s all about whatever the baseline of normalcy is for a given environment.

More subtle signs might involve someone who’s ignoring what everyone else is watching and instead looking at other people or perhaps checking out security personnel. Or someone someone who looks angry at the world when everyone nearby is excited and happy…say at a concert or a political rally.

The same applies to someone walking, milling about or flat-out loitering without a sense of purpose. In plenty of cases, they may be waiting for a potential victim to appear on their radar.

Or, as happened to me 14 years ago, I saw a guy lingering outside a gas station without apparent purpose — not smoking a cigarette or doing anything else — as I looked for an open pump. He saw me in a brand-new SUV with out-0f-state plates and a big GPS unit in the window.

He made a straight-line approach toward me without saying a word or acknowledging my challenges. He kept walking until I moved behind a barrier, cleared my shirt and put my hand on my gun. I told him to “GET THE F*** BACK!” He slowed, then stopped about 15 feet away. He pulled his hands out from his waistband and raised them into the surrender position and eventually backed away saying, “You don’t have to shoot me, bro.”

This past Monday, in front of an ALDI store in Normal, Illinois, a sketchy-looking dood stood just outside the entrance door with a small backpack at his feet. He clearly wasn’t waiting for a bus, but he was standing there with his hands in his coat pockets. I grabbed my cart from the opposite side of the entrance, and started to walk into the store while watching the man’s hands.

Sure enough, Mr. Dood started into an aggressive panhandle speech, taking a step towards me. “I can’t help you. Please go away,” I told him. He took another step closer and I told him to “Get out of here,” while moving to put the cart between me and him.

I then notified the first employee I could find and they sent the manager (the only male working at the time) out to shoo the man away.

Bottom line: I saw the man while driving through the parking lot, identified him as a potential threat because of his lingering and his body language as I parked and proactively had a plan to use the cart as an obstacle between me and him if he got too aggressive.

In short, trust your instincts. If your intuition tells you something doesn’t feel right, listen to it. Don’t be the University of Illinois Chicago co-ed named Ruth George who stepped off a mass transit bus to see a thug leering at her in the early evening. She was headed to the parking garage to go home for the Thanksgiving weekend in 2019. The man spoke to her, then fell in behind her.

The 19-year-old sophomore honor student had to have known something wasn’t right. Instead of listening to her intuition and ducking into a neighborhood bar and asking for help, or maybe calling police or university security, she ran into the poorly-lit, nearly empty parking garage thinking (hoping?) she could get to her car before the bad man could get to her.

Again, hope has no survival value.

Her family used the location tool on her phone and found her on the day after in the back seat of her car with her pants around her ankles. She had been raped both pre-mortem and post-mortem.

So, go forth and live life. But watch for people acting outside of the baseline of normalcy while keeping your situational awareness on alert. And keep your Roscoe of choice on your hip or otherwise on or about your person.

The life you save might be your own. Or it might be mine.