Cover and concealment are your friends when you enter a threat situation. If someone can’t find you they most likely can’t hurt you. If they know where you are but can’t get at you, once again mostly likely they can’t hurt you. The thing you don’t want to do is confuse the two.

We found a great video from Ruger that explains the two and how to use them in a gun fight.

First of all, before you even get close to a threat situation hopefully you have the situational awareness to see it coming and avoid it. If you can’t avoid it, your situational awareness should provide you with ways to escape it (in other words, run away.) There is no glory going into a gun fight if you can avoid in any means possible.

Concealment

Concealment is something that hides you from observation.  It does not stop bullets. Now both concealment and cover are relative terms. It depends on the attackers ability to see you and what kind of firepower they have. A home invader with no flashlight and a knife will not be able to see you if you hide behind a ceiling to floor length drape. The drape will not stop a knife, but a hollow core closet door will stop it. On the other hand, if the attacker had a .45 pistol, the hollow core door provides absolutely no cover.

Cover

Cover is something that keeps you from getting shot.  As I mentioned before, it all depends on the attacker’s weapons. A sofa might be good cover against a hollow point, but not against an AR-15. Check out the video for some great tips on how to use cover during a gunfight.

One exercise I have for you is to look around as you go through your day and identify what you could use for cover and concealment if something happened at that very moment. It will train you to look for these things.