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Bulldog1911 wrote:

baldeagle wrote: The average citizen doesn't carry a gun. Citizens that do carry guns have an obligation to prepare and to be aware. Otherwise they willlikely make it worse.

Yes, but they didn't take an oath of office along with the CHL class. Preparation is key in anything, and that's why I think the situation could be handled better by SWAT instead of a "one man army" approach.

It's like when you fly and the stewardess tells you that if the cabin fills with smoke and the O2 mask's drop. Put one on yourself first, and then help others put them on. If I know that I can get to a safe zone and call the cops, then maybe I could save more lives than rushing in and getting myself killed. Just a thought.

baldeagle wrote:Cops' families depend on them as well. So do firefighters. So do military men and women. If everyone applied your standard (and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with yours), we would have no one to stand in the gap.

I don't have a duty to mow my neighbor's lawn. His landscape service does.

This is what I've been instructed to teach:

1. Evacuate - have escape routes in mind.
2. Hide - block entry to where you're hiding and silence phone/pagers/lights
3. Take Action - only during imminent danger, attempt to incapacitate and show extreme aggression
4. Call 911 when safe - provide location, number of aggressors, physical description, number and type of weapons, number of potential victims

Bulldog1911 wrote:

baldeagle wrote: The average citizen doesn't carry a gun. Citizens that do carry guns have an obligation to prepare and to be aware. Otherwise they willlikely make it worse.

Yes, but they didn't take an oath of office along with the CHL class. Preparation is key in anything, and that's why I think the situation could be handled better by SWAT instead of a "one man army" approach.

{{sigh}} Waiting for swat has proven ineffective, which even the government has discovered by doing an intensive study of active shooter situations. By the time the cops arrive at the scene the devastation is well under way if not already concluded. Again, we are talking about surviving an active shooter situation, not coming to the rescue of people in distress. If you are in an active shooter situation, not nearby, not hearing it on the radio, not getting tweets from people that are involved.

Assume, for the moment, that we're talking about Luby's in Killeen. You're sitting at a table eating dinner with your family when George Hennard drives his truck through the wall, jumps out and starts firing. What do you do? Run? Or take the shot? You can't wait for SWAT. Your family may die. You could try to escape, which is certainly what an unarmed person should try to do, if they can do it safely. But you're armed. Do you take the shot? If not, why not? What's your plan of action to survive?

Active shooter situations can occur anywhere; restaurants, office buildings, banks, schools, libraries, you name it. They are completely unpredictable. The vast majority of us will never experience one. But the OP started this discussion to ask, how do you survive? One plan of survival would include taking the shooter out. Another would be to escape, if that's possible. What is your preference and why? Mine is to take the shooter out. I can't run faster than bullets, and any movement could attract the attention of the shooter. So, if he sees me moving, what I want him to see is my gun pointing at his COM, right before the flash.

I think most CHL holders, and people in general will act if pushed into a corner and armed with nearly anything. Whether or not a person, regardless of profession or attire, will run towards the sound of screams and gunshots is an individual decision that is up to them. I wouldn't dare push my convictions on anyone in this arena...

Even in our line of work, our initial response is to form up in AT LEAST a team of 2, if not 3 or 4 for an entry team. If other people are minutes out, and shots are ringing out from a school, I've decided that FOR ME, I should go in. Again, even from our side of the active shooter equation, that is an individual situation. Action is faster than reaction, and if you find yourself in an active shooter situation, you are at an extreme tactical disadvantage. If you are not responding LE, than you don't have a vest, a radio, a flashlight (most likely), cuffs, and you are most likely equipped with a CCW friendly weapon. When I go in, I'm bringing a rifle, 4 mags, and a AS bag (w/ prepacked trauma bags consisting of quikclot, Kerlix, Coban, and gloves).

Also - if the gunfire stops, you have to be able to change up your response, even if you're in the middle of the hallway - you change your pace from moving as fast as you can accurately shoot, to a more methodical, and tactically superior building search. If shooting resumes, you make concessions on tactics and safety to try and save that next victim.

If I get caught up in one OFF DUTY, depending on my "load" that day, I'll most likely take a more defensive posture.

baldeagle wrote:Assume, for the moment, that we're talking about Luby's in Killeen. You're sitting at a table eating dinner with your family when George Hennard drives his truck through the wall, jumps out and starts firing. What do you do? Run? Or take the shot?

I didn't have a Texas CHL back then. Nobody did. Given that scenario, running seems preferable to taking a bullet.

Great thread!!

I have a 20-month-old. I've spent only a few hours in her entire life separated from her; she's with me all the time. Any pointers on surviving a shooting with a small neanderthal in tow?

Venus Pax wrote:Great thread!!

I have a 20-month-old. I've spent only a few hours in her entire life separated from her; she's with me all the time. Any pointers on surviving a shooting with a small neanderthal in tow?

Time, distance, cover, and speed. You're not fighting to save others at that point. Having a gun makes windows easier to exit.

Surviving an Active Shooter

right,click, SAVE on what gigag04 said!

gigag04 wrote:I think most CHL holders, and people in general will act if pushed into a corner and armed with nearly anything. Whether or not a person, regardless of profession or attire, will run towards the sound of screams and gunshots is an individual decision that is up to them. I wouldn't dare push my convictions on anyone in this arena...

Even in our line of work, our initial response is to form up in AT LEAST a team of 2, if not 3 or 4 for an entry team. If other people are minutes out, and shots are ringing out from a school, I've decided that FOR ME, I should go in. Again, even from our side of the active shooter equation, that is an individual situation. Action is faster than reaction, and if you find yourself in an active shooter situation, you are at an extreme tactical disadvantage. If you are not responding LE, than you don't have a vest, a radio, a flashlight (most likely), cuffs, and you are most likely equipped with a CCW friendly weapon. When I go in, I'm bringing a rifle, 4 mags, and a AS bag (w/ prepacked trauma bags consisting of quikclot, Kerlix, Coban, and gloves).

Also - if the gunfire stops, you have to be able to change up your response, even if you're in the middle of the hallway - you change your pace from moving as fast as you can accurately shoot, to a more methodical, and tactically superior building search. If shooting resumes, you make concessions on tactics and safety to try and save that next victim.

If I get caught up in one OFF DUTY, depending on my "load" that day, I'll most likely take a more defensive posture.

From a historical perspective, entry teams do not successfully resolve active shooter incidents because there aren't enough officers on scene in time to form and use them.

The national record for most officers in a team entry is 3 officers in the Luby's cafeteria shooting in Killeen. They were not 3 on duty officers called to the scene - they were 3 officers attending a training session in a neighboring hotel who formed an impromptu entry team.

A prominent active shooter researcher (Ron Borsch, Southeast Area Law Enforcement Academy, Ohio) has put out an international call for any incident where an organized tactical team using a multi officer formation successfully intervened to end an active shooting in progress. As of the last time I checked (a few months ago) none had been identified. It is something of a mystery to me why a large number of law enforcement agencies still have policies and procedures that require a response that has never worked.

Most of the very few active shooter incidents ended by direct police action were by single officers who were either already on site for a different reason, or who happened to be close enough to respond within the 8 minute time window of the average post Columbine AS incident. Gigag's individual officer planning is on solid ground here and is historically the most successful police response pattern. Ron Borsch's research has found a further refinement - if two officers are available, the best option is to enter and search different areas simultaneously (if there are no immediate indicators of the shooter's location) or approach the same area (if there are indicators - e.g., gunshots, fresh witness statements, etc.) from different directions while maintaining communication with each other. This doubles the speed of the search and drives a shooter attempting to avoid one officer into the other officer's field of fire.

As of today, most AS incidents that are ended through other than the shooter's decisions are ended by citizens (e.g. the case in Littleton, CO where a teacher tackled a rifle armed shooter outside a school, or the New Life Church incident in Colorado Springs where a citizen successfully engaged a rifle armed shooter with her handgun). The reason is that these folks are present when the incident starts and before police are notified, and immediate action is their only option for emerging alive.

Gigag's concise list of time, distance, cover, and speed is excellent advice for anyone who has at least 15 feet of initial distance from the shooter and a clear exit path. If you find yourself without that favorable circumstance (e.g.,6 feet away from the shooter, or in classroom or office with the shooter between you and the exit door), I would add a ferocious, fully committed counterattack with whatever you have available as the best remaining viable option.

If you're armed with a capable CCW that you are quick and effective with, you're not invincible but you've got a good chance of coming out on top with good tactics. If you've gone the mousegun route for your CCW, good luck deploying your Ruger LCP against a Glock 9mm.

Counterattack is by no means a guarantee you will emerge unscathed. You very likely will not. However, at that point I believe it's more survivable than cowering in a corner or under a desk waiting to be shot. The other remaining options are to fall to the floor in a group of people who have actually been shot and hope your uninjured status won't be noticed, or if you are out of the shooter's view and can conceal yourself in a place he's unlikely to look (e.g. atop the middle of boxes on the highest shelf of a warehouse storage rack or above a hung ceiling in a rest room). This has worked for a very small handful of folks in that situation, but I wouldn't count on it as my plan A in most situations either.

I just started a thread for a similar situation, but different enough to warrant its own conversation. It asks what to do when there are two or more assailants with guns flanking you, but not necessarily actively shooting.

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RE: Excalibur

We train patrol and PD wide in the active shooter response methods. We do from 1-5 man teams. I actually have a video I'd lime to find of a bank that had an AS in it (shooting wild - took his own life). The 2nd wave of officers formed up into a formation and went in as the recovery/rescue element. In our city, it frequently happens that a bunch of us land at a hot call at once so I see some benefit from both group and singular tactics.

gigag04 wrote:RE: Excalibur

We train patrol and PD wide in the active shooter response methods. We do from 1-5 man teams. I actually have a video I'd lime to find of a bank that had an AS in it (shooting wild - took his own life). The 2nd wave of officers formed up into a formation and went in as the recovery/rescue element. In our city, it frequently happens that a bunch of us land at a hot call at once so I see some benefit from both group and singular tactics.

I'm not opposed to group tactics - I've just never seen a plan that would work under the conditions that exist during the critical first few minutes of an AS incident. They require that a group be available and the tactics be executed without a lot of time outside getting a plan together. Those two conditions have not historically occurred in the same place and time during actual AS events, and I don't see anything to make me expect a significant change in the near future. That's not to say that training in team tactics for execution by varying combinations of officers in varying numerical configurations is a bad thing - I'm sure it would improve the likelihood of success if multiple officers get to a scene while the incident is still in progress and they arrive at virtually the same time. Unfortunately, that rarely happens. The reality is that when team tactics are the department's standard, the first officer who could save lives with immediate aggressive action ends up standing outside waiting for the rest of the team while people are being slaughtered inside.

I've observed attempts to make team tactics work under ideal conditions, and the results I've seen have not been pretty. Group tactics tend to be executed slowly and clumsily by officers who do not frequently train together to operate in that manner. The team entry is usually made after an incident is actually over with either the shooter's suicide or his decision to stand down and wait to be taken into custody. The suited up team moving in formation looks impressive for the arriving news cameras, but a great deal of time is wasted maneuvering when what's most immediately needed at that point is the establishment of a secure perimeter and entry / exit route to the area with the most casualties so lifesaving rescue measures can begin immediately on those who would otherwise die with even a short additional delay.

The challenge that must be kept in mind is that every minute of delay means an average of 3 - 4 more casualties, with more becoming the rule. Active shooters seem to be adjusting their plans for very high casualties in the first couple of minutes during a time frame too short for even police notification to be accomplished, let alone response and execution of effective action. As a recent example, the Tucson incident was over in less than a minute, start to finish.

Police agencies count response times from the time the call comes in - not from the actual start of the incident, and even a terrific 4 minute response time is way too slow. It's extremely difficult for an agency to put even a single officer on scene within 8 minutes after the first shot is fired due to the time needed for an observer to realize what's happening, get to a position where he can make a call, communicate the situation to a dispatcher, get the call dispatched and travel to the scene. One study of historical incidents I saw pegged the average time to get the first call in to the police at 6 minutes - just 2 minutes shy of the end of the average incident. That leaves not nearly enough travel and intervention time to get to the scene and make any difference in the casualty count, let alone time enough to configure and use even a hasty tactical formation consisting of more than 2 officers. Getting even one officer on scene before the incident actually ends is a major challenge.

I am a strong supporter of having the first arriving officer make a quick assessment and immediate entry, moving immediately to the shooter's location when information is available to indicate where that is (gunshots, fresh witness statements, etc.) and stopping the killing when that individual officer believes he has the training, equipment, and courage to successfully do so and he opts to take that risk. That's an assessment I believe only he or she can make at that moment, and should not be required by policy or procedure.

I also advocate prohibiting one officer entry and waiting for additional manpower under circumstances where it's been reported that there is more than one shooter, or where there are indications that fully automatic weapons are being used. Those situations are very rare but they stack the deck against the officer to the point that it becomes more likely than not that he or she would also become a casualty, which would benefit no one.

Interesting thread and very thought-provoking.

How does the AS scenario change when you throw one or more armed citizens into the equation?

Usually these seem to begin as a lone gunman leisurely strolling along, picking out his victims and executing them. But what happens when people start shooting at him (her?)?

I would think that driving the AS to cover is almost as good as taking him out. He can't be sure who is out there shooting at him. Are there documented cases where the AS simply continues his stroll even with incoming fire?

If he goes to ground, that gives people time to escape and the police to arrive. I would guess even a .22 is might be effective enough.

It's not necessarily about killing (or incapacitating), is it? Just changing the equation in favor of the good guys.

cobber wrote:I would think that driving the AS to cover is almost as good as taking him out. He can't be sure who is out there shooting at him. Are there documented cases where the AS simply continues his stroll even with incoming fire?

Hollywood.

I'm not talking about the movies, although it happens there too. I'm talking about the Hollywood bank robbery.