This will be a bit stream of consciousness, and for that I apologize, but there are a lot of moving parts to this concept in my mind. The first that I want to discuss is quite practical and terrain based, but the concept applies to tactics, techniques, protocols, and above all else, dogma. We'll take a look at the other items later.
I wanted to talk about proximity and how it relates to using terrain and structures. You can use these things to your advantage, or your disadvantage. One of the simplest concepts when it comes to situational awareness is to go around corners in wide fashion. This opens up your vision and allows you more time and distance with which to make decisions. If you crowd a corner and walk around it blindly, anything around that corner is a surprise. That surprise is probably not going to be somebody from Publisher's Clearing House wanting to give you a check for a million dollars. It may be a benign individual or individuals but you may carelessly run into them, or it may be somebody or somebodies that would like to take your wallet, your phone, or much more.
When it comes to using cover to stop ballistic threats, it is almost always advisable to be at least an arm's length from that cover, if not more. Obviously terrain and structures may not afford you the ability to offset that cover as much as you'd like, but taking more of it gives many advantages. The further back you are from your point of cover, the more you'll be able to see, both beyond and around your cover. If you have somebody shooting at you, you'll want to be able to track them, because there is no rule stating that they have to stand still. Our natural inclination when somebody may shoot at us, or is shooting at us, is to hug that cover for dear life. I have no idea why this inclination exists, but I've observed it in countless videos of gunfights, and I've heard officers talk about it in their debriefing after a critical incident.
Another potential advantage of being back from your cover is that if any bullets strike the edge of that cover they will likely change direction slightly, and that distance you've taken may cause the bullet to go past you, rather than to find you. This isn't something you can count on, but if it works I will take it. This is especially true when it comes to using an automobile for cover. I've personally skipped bullets off a hood and into a target that was directly behind a car. I am not saying that an assailant will do this on purpose, but an inadvertent application of this principle will still injure or kill you. If that target were several feet further removed from the vehicle but still behind it, my bullet would've gone harmlessly over the target without hitting it at all.
Angles can either help you or hurt you. Things that won't stop a bullet may very well disrupt its flight enough to deflect it, and given enough distance, can cause a severe deviation in the bullet's ultimate destination. I've also seen a hollow core interior door skip .45 ACP slugs enough to completely miss a target because the bullets grazed the door.
Back to the original point of this posting though, is that the distance you take from your cover can give you much more vision than being directly up against it. Without visual cues to guide you, you won't be able to pick a good choice. You must be able to see in order to effectively fight, advance, or withdraw, and to do that, you must stay back from your cover.
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