Article: Civilian Response to Active Shooter Situations

[Excaliber]

Maybe it has to do with Mike1911's statement

Kind of blows his credibility right there, doesn't it?

I dunno. If we jump on one thing someone says, (even if it's clearly not the smartest thing you've heard in a while), and use that as a reason to blow off everything else he has to say, I think we'll likely end up missing a lot of valuable discussion.

I expected comments on the CCW badge recommendation. I didn't expect the deafening silence on everything else.

[WildBill]

Don't take it personally. Some of my best posts have fallen on deaf ears.

[boomerang]

Maybe if the article said something new that we haven't read dozens of times before on the TexasCHLforum...

[Liko81]

Best part of the article:

First and foremost, it is absolutely unacceptable to get caught in public in need of a gun without one when you are legally empowered to carry one. SO... if you have a carry permnit, CARRY. Of course, by encouraging any CCW permit holders to carry I'm assuming that they are competent. More on that below, but for the purposes of this article, understand I'm assuming that all CCW permit holders USE IT.

OK, let's discuss this. In the general case, yes, CHLs should carry at all times. However, where have the most recent high-profile shootings been? Colleges (VT, NIU), malls (Omaha, SLC), churches (one in a parking lot, one inside), grade schools (Columbine, amish elementary school), etc. With the exception of malls which must be posted 30.06, all of these locations are restricted by Texas law. It would have been ILLEGAL to protect yourself; you would probably beat the deadly conduct and murder charges on self-defense (it was necessary for you to fire a gun and to kill your assailant) but you are guilty of UCW no matter how you slice it (your only defense is necessity, and you could not have known the attack was imminent and thus could not have knowingly broken the law for that reason). Your only outs on something like that revolve around winning over public opinion; if you're viewed as a hero, the DA will think twice about going after you on a technicality, and the jury will be hard-pressed to ignore the fact that even though what you did was illegal it ended up saving many lives.

[Excaliber]

where have the most recent high-profile shootings been? Colleges (VT, NIU), malls (Omaha, SLC), churches (one in a parking lot, one inside), grade schools (Columbine, amish elementary school), etc. With the exception of malls which must be posted 30.06, all of these locations are restricted by Texas law. It would have been ILLEGAL to protect yourself

Very astute observation.

Common sense dictates that someone planning to carry out an active shooting incident would select a venue where his victims are required to be unarmed so he will be unopposed and thus successful in causing large numbers of casualties. This is, of course, what they do, and it works - except where they are met by an LEO or armed citizen, which happens all to rarely.

Common sense also dictates that folks who don't want this to happen should prevent incidents by not creating unarmed victim zones where killing people is easy. Making the bad guys worry about immediately effective countermeasures is the most effective way to minimize violence.

There are three reasonable inferences one could draw here:

1) Active shooters have a lot more common sense than a large number of lawmakers and the folks in charge of securing the places where people study, worship, and shop.

2) A large number of lawmakers and the folks in charge of these venues don't really want these incidents to stop, and thus continue to employ proven failed protection methods while making a show that they do so because they are really concerned about safety.

3) A large number of lawmakers and the folks in charge of these venues are afflicted by a form of group mental illness that compels them to keep doing the same things over and over while fervently expecting different results from event sequences that happen almost exactly the same way every time.

Take your pick.

[jpierce30]

I thought this was a good article. I do not agree with the badge thing at all. I want to be concealed and do not want a badge. If I am in the middle of a fight, I will take my chances that it will be finished long before the police arrive. I believe the situation would be rare that I would have to engage an active shooter and that the shooting would be still going on when the police arrive. Remember they are a reaction to a situation usually after the whole thing is over. If they do arrive, I would be screaming that I was the good guy and would try to be in cover so no one could shoot at me very well.
Another issue is the "gun free kill zones" that we have allowed our governement to implement. I believe that the best thing we can do is VOTE and to communicate with our elected officals that we do not want the gun free zones.

My 2 cents.

[KBCraig]

I dunno. If we jump on one thing someone says, (even if it's clearly not the smartest thing you've heard in a while), and use that as a reason to blow off everything else he has to say, I think we'll likely end up missing a lot of valuable discussion.

"It is the thirteenth chime of the clock which makes the first twelve suspect."

I forget to whom the quote is properly attributed, and there are so many variations of it now that an internet search is useless. It's still a valid point: you can agree 100% with everything someone says, right up until he makes some crazy statement that makes you question his overall judgement. In politics, for me at least, that point comes when someone blames it all on "the Jews"/"the Catholics"/"the Freemasons"/"the Mexicans"/"the Muslims"/"the Rothschilds" (subset of "the Jews")/"the liberals", etc., etc., etc.

I expected comments on the CCW badge recommendation. I didn't expect the deafening silence on everything else.

Either they read it and didn't have any point of disagreement, or they read it and found it too silly to comment upon, or (like me) they rolled their eyes and said, "Oh, great, another Internet gun expert, one who advocates 'CCW badges' at that!"

So, no insult intended, but I didn't bother with it. I just don't have time to read yet another treatise that sounds like hundreds that have come before.