How to Survive A School Shooting

Following the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on February 14, 2018 the gun-control group "Everytown for Gun Safety" reported that there had been eighteen (18) school shootings in the United States since the beginning of the year.

This fake statistic was quickly debunked by web-sites like Snopes, and USA Today published an article No, there have not been 18 school shootings already this year on February 16, 2018 in which they stated "Fake stats like that make finding a solution to the real problem of gun violence, which has actually struck American schools at least six times this year, that much harder. Amping up fears, and muddying the search for fixes that can cut back the senseless violence, only undermines efforts to reconcile the real concerns of parents and the legitimate desire of civil rights advocates to protect the Bill of Rights. Everytown for Gun Safety, the gun-control advocacy group responsible for spreading this bogus statistic, should be ashamed of its blatant dishonesty."

As USA Today reported, the truth is that since the beginning of 2018, there have been six (6) school shootings in the United States. Now, I do not say just six school shootings, or only six school shootings, because even one school shooting is one too many, but it is important to have the facts as we search for solutions to violence in our schools, and on our streets.

Gun-control groups claim that the answer school violence (and other mass-shootings) is to somehow ban, or at least severely restrict, all firearms ownership. At the other end of the spectrum, we see memes suggesting that local governments should hire three or four armed veterans to protect every school. Military service, while certainly honorable, does not necessarily make one skilled with firearms (although all veterans have basic firearms familiarization). Nor does military service make one particularly qualified to assess this type of threat. Whether the fake reports are from Everytown for Gun Safety, or anyone else with a political or personal agenda, such reporting undermines the credibility of the organization, and impedes the search for solutions to actual threats of violence in our communities.

 

How to Survive A School (or Workplace) Shooting

According to Police Magazine "Department of Homeland Security research reveals that the average duration of an active shooter incident at a school is 12.5 minutes. In contrast, the average response time for law enforcement is 18 minutes." This means that on average the shooter will have fled the scene or committed suicide on scene before the arrival of law enforcement.

If we accept the Department of Homeland Security statistics as accurate, police are not going to be able to respond quickly enough to save you (your children) from an active shooter in a school.

To survive a school shooting you will need to escape the area without crossing the path of the shooter thus becoming a target, hide and avoid detection by the shooter for an average of 18 minutes until arrival of police, or if confronted and attacked by the shooter fight back – which means having the tools and skills to do so.

The Department of Homeland Security has published a guide on how to respond to an active shooter. In November 2017, I provided links to Active Shooter awareness resources, saying: “Active shooter situations are unpredictable and evolve quickly. 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.”

wikiHow has a useful guide on How to Survive a School or Workplace Shooting, and I found the February 18, 2018, TownHall article 7 Simple Steps to Eliminate School Shootings Overnight to provide useful recommendations and observations.

Surviving An Active Shooter - LA County Sheriff (YouTube Video)

San Antonio Police Department-Civilian Response to Active Shooter (YouTube Video)

Some students are even beginning to carry backpacks with a bullet-resistant insert to help protect themselves in case of a school shooting. While I question the effectiveness of these backpacks - the ballistic panel will certainly stop some bullets, but when fleeing an active shooter students will be required to leave their personal items (i.e. the backpack) behind - you may find that this type of item fits into your personal threat model.

School shootings are different than mass-shootings in other places, because children may lack the maturity and understanding to quickly recognize and respond to a threat (this could be said of some adults as well). Sill, as children get older and become more mature it is important to talk with them about the possibility of an active shooter in their school and how to respond to that threat.

Do you know what the active shooter plan is at your children's school? Does the school even have a plan? Does the school conduct active shooter awareness training or drills?

There is no simple answer to school shootings. Recognizing that this threat is a possibility (no matter how small that possibility may actually be), and having a plan to respond is essential. Those plans must be made based on clearly defined facts, avoiding fake statistics and firearms hysteria intended to advance political and personal agendas.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, a Pulitzer Prize nominated author, West Point psychology professor, and one of the world’s foremost experts on human aggression and violence made the following recommendations to prevent and respond to school shootings, in Police One, back in May 2010:

1. Denial - Denial is the enemy and it has no survival value, said Grossman.

2. Deter - Put police officers in schools, because with just one officer assigned to a school, the probability of a mass murder in that school drops to almost zero.

3. Detect - We’re talking about plain old fashioned police work here. The ultimate achievement for law enforcement is the crime that didn’t happen, so giving teachers and administrators regular access to cops is paramount.

4. Delay - Various simple mechanisms can be used by teachers and cops to put time and distance between the killers and the kids.

     a. Ensure that the school/classroom have just a single point of entry. Simply locking the back door helps create a hard target.

     b. Conduct your active shooter drills within (and in partnership with) the schools in your city so teachers know how to respond, and know what it looks like when you do your response.

5. Destroy - Police officers and agencies should consider the following:

     a. Carry off duty. No one would tell a firefighter who has a fire extinguisher in his trunk that he’s crazy or paranoid.

     b. Equip every cop in America with a patrol rifle. One chief of police, upon getting rifles for all his officers once said, "If an active killer strikes in my town, the response time will be measured in feet per second."

     c. Put smoke grenades in the trunk of every cop car in America. Any infantryman who needs to attack across open terrain or perform a rescue under fire deploys a smoke grenade. A fire extinguisher will do a decent job in some cases, but a smoke grenade is designed to perform the function.

     d. Have a "go-to-war bag" filled with lots of loaded magazines and supplies for tactical combat casualty care.

     e. Use helicopters. Somewhere in your county you probably have one or more of the following: medevac, media, private, national guard, coast guard rotors.

     f. Employ the crew-served, continuous-feed, weapon you already have available to you (a fire hose) by integrating the fire service into your active shooter training. It is virtually impossible for a killer to put well-placed shots on target while also being blasted with water at 300 pounds per square inch.

     g. Armed citizens can help.  Think United 93. Whatever your personal take on gun control, it is all but certain that a killer set on killing is more likely to attack a target where the citizens are unarmed, rather than one where they are likely to encounter an armed citizen response.