I just recently received a phone call and follow-up email from an individual who wanted to know if he could attend a CCW class here at ACT Personal Defense. I asked him to describe his shooting experience and why he wanted to take the class. His response to me was right on target.
He stated, that he felt the need to begin to conceal carry for personal protection and for his need to protect his family. His shooting experience was extensive and he had been to several well-known instructors (he named them). He felt the right thing to do was get further training”.
Wow, I liked this guy immediately! I told him he could most definitely attend a class.
His call was a timely occurrence. We had just finished a class with several very good shooters but there was one thing I noticed, almost without exception none of them had learned the valuable art of the 360-degree check! I realized there was a dire need for an article on doing an effective 360-degree check. This is an important fundamental for anyone who conceal carries a firearm for self-defense. Let me explain what this is and why you need to practice it.
A 360-degree check is a complete and rapid scan of your environment in all directions. ACT teaches all of our students to do this check at the end of every firearm repetition. In fact, the 360-degree check is a portion of the Shooting Fundamentals we teach students as they start training with ACT.
The goal of the 360-degree check is to: identify more threats, discover avenues of escape, and/or find someone that can help you. Let’s go through each of these pieces.
IDENTIFY THREATS
At ACT we often talk about the “Plus 1 Rule.” What this means is there is always one more gunman, one more threat, etc. By scanning your environment for more threats, you give yourself the opportunity to identify them as early as possible and begin taking appropriate action.
IDENTIFY AVENUES OF ESCAPE
When you have just avoided a critical incident, you definitely don’t want to stay where you are. Your avenue of escape is a means to escape your current situation and move to a “Safe Environment”. However if you have been forced to defend yourself, you want to get to an area of tactical superiority. That’s where you control as much of the scene as possible and where you can protect your back from further threats of attack.
FIND HELP
Help refers to someone who has both the capability and obligation to provide you aid. Generally, this is someone who is a uniformed law enforcement officer or security person in places of business. It could also include capable family and friends. There could be other “good guys” nearby but there is a possible “downside” with this kind of help, and we’ll get to that in a moment.
The second underlying reason why you want to develop your 360-degree check is to counter your physiological response to stress. When you experience a traumatic event, one of your body’s natural responses is neurological, adrenalin is released into your system providing your body with an instant source of energy and strength. However, this same adrenalin chemically blocks the “Thinking part of the brain”, which reduces your ability to reason or rationalize your situation. Furthermore, adrenalin overstimulates the small muscles in your eyes causing your vision to become hyper-focused on the attacker. You’ve heard the term “Tunnel Vision”. That’s what I’m referring to.
So how do you fix tunnel vision? It sounds silly, but the answer is to simply look around. If you can get your body to start turning your head, your vision will open up, eliminating your tunnel vision. Neuroscience has shown that whatever we condition our bodies to do, will do it, even under extreme stress. Therefore, if we condition the body to scan for more threats, avenues of escape, and help after a critical defense encounter, your body will automatically do this scan because that’s what our mind (Neural Pathway Development) has been programmed to do.
So when we teach our students to conduct a 360-degree check after every firearm deployment, whether they take a shot or not, the student will automatically do it when it counts. They have programed their brain to automatically run the scan without concisely thinking about it. They gather input from the scan, break tunnel vision, and rapidly regain the rational thinking part of the brain.
Now that we understand what the 360-degree check is, here’s how to correctly perform a 360-degree check. The check is part of the last “Shooting Fundamentals” process, which we call the “Follow Through”. The short version of the “Shooting Fundamentals” (Aiming, Breath Control, Hold Control, Trigger Control and Follow-Through). The “Follow Through” actually starts with resetting the trigger of the firearm after each and every shot you fire. There are other important parts of the “Follow Through” but I want to concentrate on just this one aspect, the discipline of releasing just enough pressure on the trigger so that you reset the firing mechanism of your firearm. This slight release of pressure on the trigger also helps you recondition your mind and trigger finger. Bad trigger finger mechanics will cause flinching, slapping or jerking the trigger. I see this as a constant struggle with shooters resulting in potentially good shooters being frustrated because they can’t consistently place effective hits on target, thus, transforming them into mediocre, or even worse, poor shooters.
The next step is called “Assessment”. You have engaged a threat or defended yourself with your firearm. The threat has now been neutralized or is no longer engaging in their attack. At this time you begin your “Assessment” of the situation. First, lower your firearm slightly, just enough so you can clearly see if the threat has run away or is no long aggressively engaging in the fight. If further engagement is required, it is a quick motion to raise the firearm back to sight alignment and continue shooting.
After the threat has been successfully neutralized. you should engage in a 360-degree check by pulling the firearm back tight against your body. This withdrawal of the firearm makes it much easier to defend the firearm from being grabbed or taken away from you. Earnestly look at the threat, evaluate his threat level and if there is still no sign of a possible threat, maintain good muzzle orientation and start your scan. This scan technique should be a thorough scan over one shoulder to a point behind you – back to your threat – then scan over the opposite shoulder to the same point you previously scanned, thus, completing a perfect 360-degree scan of your environment. As you are scanning to each side, your eyes move up and down, approximately 45 degrees above and below your sightline. Now turn your attention back to the threat. If there are still no further hostilities, look for a “Safe Environment” as we discussed earlier. Remember, don’t immediately holster your firearm. There still could be other threats lurking.
With each person you look at during your scan, consider the “Plus 1 Rule” and rapidly assess their face and hands. If you asses someone as a threat, begin taking action, either deterring or defending. If there is an avenue of escape or a position of tactical superiority, head in that direction as quickly and safely as possible. If you assess a person as “help”, you can summon them, but caution is advised.
There is always a possible downside of “help.” Considering that a defensive encounter is incredibly chaotic, and the ability to truly establish who is the “good guy” vs. the “bad guy” in a split second is really, really hard. You have to make that decision without the benefit of any formal training. Unfortunately, in several cases throughout the years the “good guys” have been shot by other “good guys“ nearby. I share this bit of information to make you aware of the potential danger from enthusiastic untrained “good guys”. Such was the confusion that I often faced as a police officer arriving on the scene, who is the “good guy”? There are things you can do to lessen the likelihood of being shot by another “good guy” but I’ll save that for another article.
If you want to learn more about conducting an effective 360-degree scan enroll in our next CCW class. We’ll help you learn and apply this valuable technique.
Until next time, stay safe and train hard.
Wayne