The Holocaust Museum shooting reminds us that such things do happen. And the Department of Homeland Security advises us what to do if it does.
Their brochure sure looks professional. Full color, great graphics.
And it sure looks official. There on the front are not one, but two DHS logos. And the National Tactical Officers Association logo. And a patch from the Fairfax County, Virginia Police. Followed by logos for the National Retail Federation and the Retail Industry Leaders Association.
Yes, the DHS "flip book" titled "Active Shooter-How to Respond" certainly looks authoritative, although I don't quite get what the shuffling silhouette zombies on the front are supposed to represent. Why don't we flip through it and see?
We start out with a page of references. I guess to bolster the credibility of all those logos. And for some reason, girls with purses are going to lunch. Or something.
Then we get to "MANAGING THE CONSEQUENCES OF AN ACTIVE SHOOTER SITUATION." Great, the meat of the matter:
After the active shooter has been incapacitated and is no longer a threat...
Wait a minute. How did that happen...? Shouldn't this be near the end of the booklet? And what's with the Emergency Numbers? If you hear shots, are you going to be pulling out your DHS flip book? You wouldn't just dial "911" on your cellphone as you get yourself out of there?
Next we have "Indicators of Potential Violence by an Employee."
Employees typically do not just “snap,” but display indicators of potentially violent behavior over time.
Fair enough. And I guess it would be unfair to dismiss all indicators, but honestly, some of these are a bit subjective. Having written command media for a variety of industries over the years, I can tell you first hand that I'd be concerned with anyone who didn't show "resistance...to company policies and procedures," particularly most of the nonsense that comes out of HR. And having been subjected to my share of hoplophobia over gun rights, I'm wondering if a casual "Hey Bill, we're going to the gun show this weekend to see if we can get an ammo deal" in the break room might be perceived by some as an "increase in unsolicited comments about firearms."
Come we now to the middle of the booklet. As good a place as any to put the Table of Contents, I suppose. Along with the topic "RECOGNIZING POTENTIAL WORKPLACE VIOLENCE":
An active shooter in your workplace may be a current or former employee, or an acquaintance of a current or former employee. Intuitive managers and coworkers may notice characteristics of potentially violent behavior in an employee.
Seems to me, if he's an active shooter, it ain't "potential" any more. And "intuitive managers and coworkers," along with anyone who isn't deaf or blind, will certainly notice the telltale characteristics of close-range gunfire.
Next we have "Reactions of Managers During an Active Shooter Situation," assuming they go beyond taking care of Number One and getting the hell out of harm's way:
Employees and customers are likely to follow the lead of managers during an emergency situation.
That's apparently because we know he will calmly take immediate action and make sure the building is ADA-compliant. Really. Although I'm surprised it hasn't occurred to anyone that managers might be, you know, targets, and following them may not be such a hot idea.
Ah, here we go: "PREPARING FOR AND MANAGING AN ACTIVE SHOOTER SITUATION."
Glad to see HR and Facilities Management on the job. One can process medical and death benefits, and the other can replace broken windows, patch drywall and bring in the mops and carpet steamers, I suppose.
And that's some helpful "PROFILE OF AN ACTIVE SHOOTER." How would we ever figure out the guy actively shooting is an active shooter without being told? As for "no pattern or method to their selection of victims," tell that to this guy, who "killed his ex supervisor" (what did I just say about managers?), or this guy, who went after his estranged wife, or...
But who am I to argue with the experts? After all, they are telling us the truth in most situations when they say "Typically, the immediate deployment of law enforcement is required to stop the shooting and mitigate harm to victims."
Or the lunatic offs himself.
What's also left unsaid is that at Columbine...well... you look at the timeline. And ditto for Virginia Tech.
So we're cautioned:
Because active shooter situations are often over within 10 to 15 minutes, before law enforcement arrives on the scene, individuals must be prepared both mentally and physically to deal with an active shooter situation.
How are we supposed to be so prepared? What are we supposed to do when all other options to escape have failed us, and it's time to do or die?
As a last resort, attempt to take the active shooter down. When the shooter is at close range and you cannot flee, your chance of survival is much greater if you try to incapacitate him/her.
And how, exactly, are we supposed to do that? Is there a bullet list call out? An HR checklist?
The next page assumes we can evacuate or hide. After telling us to incapacitate the guy. Oh, and we should "Foster a respectful workplace."
No time for that. The monster is shooting people down. Your escape route is cut off. Your makeshift barricade won't last. He'll be on you in seconds. The staff training and exercises conducted by --what's the training guy's tactical credentials again?--haven't prepared you for what to do next. Ah! Here we are! Finally!
3. Take action against the active shooter
As a last resort, and only when your life is in imminent danger, attempt to disrupt and/or incapacitate the active shooter by:
- Acting as aggressively as possible against him/her
- Throwing items and improvising weapons
- Yelling
- Committing to your actions
That's it? We can't think of anything else? We got nothin'?
At least the last page of the flip book contains some practical information: How to improve your chances of surviving the rescue.
For a look at an alternative form of "Homeland Security" you may wish to consider, click here.
UPDATE (From commentator "Jon"):
I see what happened -- there's two page numbers at the bottom of each panel. it's one of those things you print off then fold in the middle.
OK, I see it now. So a big "duh" on not getting how the information flowed. That's still nowhere near as boneheaded as the complete avoidance of discussing the best way to stop or repel someone attacking you.
- Holocaust Museum: Shooting in DC 'gun free zone'
- Holocaust Museum shooting must not be exploited to erode liberty
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Party in the park
Ohioans for Concealed Carry has sent out an invitation:
Join us for the Sixth Annual OFCC Party In The Park family picnic as we celebrate our ten year anniversary!
------------
No spitting allowed
And Buckeye Firearms Association isn't going to let the City of Cleveland get away with it. So they've "filed a motion in opposition to the city's request for a stay because Ohio's gun owners cannot afford another three, four, or five years of Cleveland's rogue behavior."
Check out other Gun Rights Examiners:
- Atlanta: Armed customer stops robbery
- Austin: Does Concealed Carry Support Law Enforcement?
- Boston: Derrick Z. Jackson’s hot air, will Obama listen?
- Charlotte: The gun debate (explained for liberals)
- Cleveland:
Another home rule loss bolsters defense of gun law preemption challenge
- DC: How would Churchill vote in Virginia's Democratic primary for Governor on Tuesday?
- Denver: Holocaust Museum shooting short-circuited by a gun
- Los Angeles: Pocket knife ban models the gun control formula.
- Minneapolis: Dirty Deeds in Virginia
- Seattle: Political hypocrisy and social bigotry swirling around edges of PrideFest
- St. Louis: When gun bans are not enough--the war on . . . pocket knives?
- Wisconsin: Gun rights advocates make progress
Comments
Do ya suppose it would terribly offend HR if I "fire to stop the threat" and aim for center of mass? Yeah, I thought so. Heck with 'em, odds are good I'll survive and they won't.
What concerns me a lot more than the vanishingly rare chance of an "active shooter" in the workplace is the all-too-common policies of many workplaces forbidding licensed concealed carry. I've had a rather direct encounter with that problem myself, and it is a problem we're going to have to tackle at some point.
We need to educate the lawyers and HR flacks that properly trained CCW can be a massive assett for a company, not a liability. Very long term battle, there, alas.
The workplace can have policies to forbid concealed carry, but if you're within the law, what your employer doesn't know can't hurt him.
As long as armed self defense is a government granted privilege (CC "license"), it will remain rare as hen's teeth. Promoting more of the same isn't going to solve the problem.
Lurker - here's the problem. You can be perfectly legal, and perfectly compliant with the workplace policy - and STILL be fired because somebody THINKS you MIGHT be a danger. So now whaddya do? Believe me, even though you can in the end beat them and get your job back, you don't wanna go there.
And MamaLiberty - you know I agree with you. We don't NEED anybody's permission to defend ourselves, it is a natural part of our existence. HOWEVER, that does not keep those who disagree with us from persecuting and prosecuting us if we step outta line with their laws and rules, unconstitutional as they may be.
In my own situation, the fact that I was able to establish both in a court of law and in binding arbitration that I *had* complied with both the CCW laws and the company regulations was a key factor in resolving things in my favor.
Philosophically, we doan need no steenkin' licenses. Practically speaking - get as many as you can afford.
The point is - PICK YOUR BATTLES. CCW license battles have proved to be winnable. And I'll observe that in every state I've studied intensively (admittedly not that many), once a shall-issue system is on the books, it gets LESS restrictive over time.
I contend that Alaska shows us the end game. We would probably have Alaska carry by now in New Hampshire if not for the Democrat groundswell in this last election... well, that and a last-minute backstab by the NH Chiefs of Police Association, but that's another story. Anyway, so long as we purists keep plugging away at the issue, a good solid shall issue CCW system is a hell of a lot better than, say, that of Massachusetts. We didn't get here overnight, and we won't get back to where we should be quickly, either. Show me a practical way of sweeping away all gun laws tomorrow, and I'm there with ya. In the meantime, I'm going to keep plugging away.
After one of the mass shootings, I had to attend a seminar on "Identifying the Potentially Violent Employee" The parameters for the most likely candidates were (I'll never forget) "A white male, 18-55, who expresses scorn or frustration with the management" I told the person giving the seminar that he basically included every man that worked in our department. He just looked at me with typical bovine stupidity and explained that "he didn't write the manual" utter nonsense.
i see what happened -- there's two page numbers at the bottom of each panel. it's one of those things you print off then fold in the middle.
"I don't quite get what the shuffling silhouette zombies on the front are supposed to represent"
I'm guessing they represent the brain dead "intuitive managers and coworkers" who wouldn't notice gunfire without this oh so helpful guide.
"there is no pattern or method to their selection of victims."
implicit in this statement is that individuals are entirely incapable of making their own subjective valuations of the world. this is how government always ends up portraying its "charges."
if you accept this one statement as truth, under any circumstances whatsoever with which you wish to tease it out, you have already forfeited your liberty.
Suzanna Gratia Hupp seems to recall her father acting aggressively in Luby's, but it didn't help him.
This is BS.
Unlike you, sir, I have had the privilege of talking directly to Suzanna Gratia-Hupp about that awful day she lost her parents. Both times I have seen her speak on the subject, she cried when she described her father's heroism - and the instant physician's assessment that flashed through her mind when she saw him hit that he was dead.
So don't you DARE suggest that his actions were pointless. If nothing else, he bought time for Suzanna herself to escape to become one of the great leaders and inspirations of the pro-rights battles. And, like Sandy Javalle who died in Wakefield, Massachusetts trying to stop ANOTHER madman with his bare hands, HE WAS ONLY DISARMED BECAUSE HE OBEYED THE STUPID, UNCONSTITUTIONAL LAWS.
Do YOU have that kind of courage, sir? To obey a law that you know is WRONG, simply because it IS the law, and then unflinchingly advance into the face of a homicidal madman's fire to try to protect others?
Endorsed by the Fairfax County police? Fairfax County is to Virginia what Massachusetts is to America -- a f*g embarrassment.
This pamphlet is nothing but the powerlessness of "Duck and Cover" applied to a situation where the powerlessness of the individual is engendered by artificial government edict, not the realities of basic physics.
Hunter, I think you misread what parrothead was saying.....
If there's an alternate reading, he's free to correct the record and I'll freely apologize for the implicit criticism. It appeared to me as a criticism of a man who gave his life to give his wife and daughter a chance, but would not be the first time I was wrong, nor very likely the last. Sadly, Suzanna Gratia-Hupp's mother made her own choice, to die with the man she loved. Hearing her tell the whole story is heart-wrenching. How she's found the strength to tell it so many times over the years is a marvel of itself.
I'd made up my mind on the subject of self defense long before I met her and heard what she had to say. Still, that was one of the things which quite hardened my attitude on the whole subject. Great crimes have been perpetrated on America by the hoplophobes, and they are going to pay for it with my scorn at the very least.
The booklet was satire. Wasn't it? Well, it should've been. What a bunch of idiots.
Thank you David for outlining this potentially life saving booklet. I feel fine as frog hair about facing the next shooter in the workplace. I am totally prepared, now where did I put that hair brush? No, maybe this pencil will incapacitate him. . .
Hey, all ya gotta do is whip out a nude photo of Nancy Pelosi. That will incapacitate anybody
Sounds like typical liberal crap to me.
No mention of using a firearm I guess were supposed to grin-em down like Davy Crocket could a bear.
I would also like to make a reply to this article at KABA but I don’t want my email listed because of spammers.
Why did KABA stop allowing posting on their site without registration don’t they realize they stopped people from networking and sharing information?
There was a lot of good info being shared on that site before the ban.
We need to make sure we can at least protect ourselves. Check out ParentalRights.org. They have an article (under 'What's New' on the main) page about how a UN treaty could hurt 2nd amendment rights. It's really scary what international law could do to gun rights.
I suppose it would be inappropriate to SHOOT BACK?!!? Thats pretty much what I am going to do. Screw that stupid advice like "Acting as aggressively as possible against him/her
Throwing items and improvising weapons
Yelling
Committing to your actions"
Pretty pointless when he/she has a gun. Your best bet is to be exercising your 2nd amendment rights and have one yourself.
Yes, yell at an active shooter and throw staplers at "him/her". That's rich.
Under no circumstances attempt to defend yourself with deadly force. That's only for the state, who will enforce it's monopoly on the use of force by locking you up for carrying a gun, often times even in an open-carry state.
Anything compiled by bureaucrats is carefully laid out using electronic publishing software, with thoughtful use of colors. And a box is then checked, meaning "did it, on time, and within budget." Then s/he moves on to the next assignment. Content is not important if it looks good.
We the people have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. My Glock 30 chamering a 185gr Hydrshok round and the 9 backups in the magazine, say none of the aforementioned rights will be taken by some c--- sucker who has gone mad when I got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
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