You may have more schooling and diplomas on your wall, but criminals are smarter than you are in some surprising and important ways. Take social conditioning, for example.

Late last year there was a death in Atlanta, the result of a Craigslist sale gone bad. One Daniel Zeitz had gone to an apartment building parking lot to sell his Playstation 4. There he met the alleged buyers, a Mr. Nathaniel Vivian and his 16-year-old girlfriend (whose name was not disclosed.)

It ...

A big part of “situational awareness” is managing distractions. Here’s what happens when you don’t.

Rancho Cucamonga is an upper-middle-class city in California, known for it’s nouveau riche attitudes and lifestyles. It’s home to people who’ve made a decent amount of money (by California standards; anywhere else they’d be seen as quite wealthy) and like to show it off. You’ll see lots of expensive automobiles and nice homes, and the city’s overwhelmingly ...

The recent attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo has brought organized terrorism back into our consciousness. What can we, as legally armed citizens, learn from this tragedy?

Of all the things I’ve learned in the training world, the value of team tactics ranks up there with the scariest. Not in terms of being scared while attempting a room or house clearing (though those things are unnerving), but rather the realization of ...