In an effort to reduce the casualty count in mass murders, both the corporate world and the groves of academe have adopted the strategy called “Run-Hide-Fight”
Run: Get the heck outa Dodge as soon as possible. Unfortunately, this doesn’t stop an active killer from murdering those who can’t run from him, and if you’re in his line of sight, you can’t outrun a bullet.
Hide: A locked, blacked out classroom may not offer a target, but the killer may be able to shoot his way through a locked door, as the monster did at Sandy Hook. And it does nothing to stop the murderer from harming others.
Fight: This is usually presented as “throw books at the gunman or try to hit him with a stapler or something.” It’s a bit like Polish horse cavalry charging German machine gun emplacements: a noble way to die in righteous cause, but shall we say, not the optimum strategy.
Kudos to Liberty University for taking a better approach. Please take time to watch it to the end, and if you don’t have a whole eight minutes, start about four minutes into the training video:
Or Click Here for video.
The young man who sent me this is a student at both that school and mine. I don’t want to expose him to the vitriol of anti-gun “progressives,” so I won’t mention his name here, but he certainly has my thanks. And so does Liberty University!
*Run, Hide, Fight is a registered Trademark cf the City of Houston, TX
Well, that was refreshing. An institution that really “Get’s it”, in respect to your right to protect yourself and those around you.
Some of the central Ohio LEO’s are teaching “Avoid – Deny – Defend” (ADD). The main difference is “Deny” means to prevent or slow down access to you or others to buy time for avoidance (run) or prepare to defend (fight with a vengeance – this is for keeps). Hiding and waiting to die or negotiating with an active killer is not an option.
Awesome video, if I were to choose a university it would be a liberty. And I’m looking forward to getting my CHL.
> Run
And hope the local “law enforcement” haven’t adopted some demented “lockdown” policy that would make them try to pen you up in a building with an active shooter.
My default response to a shooter situation is “leave”.
Anyone who tries to stop me is as much an enemy as the shooter.
Sadly many if not most Universities and even public space are gun-free zones. Were I to use a firearm, even if somehow retrieved from my vehicle and not on my person at work, I would be terminated. Granted, I would be probably still be alive but it’s a balancing act I must do here.
As with home, however, my emergency plans for the workplace involve locating many makeshift and defensible “hardpoints” about the building. Again, not as handy as a firearm but even hand tools are no joke in the hands of several dozen determined (and desperate) guys at once.
What I like most about the video above was the “commit to your actions” advice. We have gone beyond the “take this plane to Cuba” paradigm and any encounter with an armed aggressor must now be considered do or die. There is no room for “maybe we can reason with him” or “give him what he wants” because said aggressor no matter why he decided on ill intent now intends to kill, sometimes as many people as possible.
As usual, spot on observation by Mas. Hats off to LU for taking the logical approach!
TRX,
Re: “‘local law enforcement’ …..demented lock down policy……pen you up in a building with an active shooter”
Where has this happened? The phrase “lock down”, heard when media reports these incidents, apply to nearby buildings that DO NOT have an active shooter on site. Local law enforcement doesn’t order lock downs, they notify businesses/facilities in the immediate area of the situation, who may implement their own pre-plan for such situations, much the same as NOAA broedcast approaching, possible damaging weather. The response is left up to the one who is warned.
This fall I’ve been reading about more schools allowing concealed carry on campus and high schools with armed staff. A move in the right direction. Some schools even have signs warning of armed personal.
That was a real good video about a really tough problem. Thanks to you and your student for sharing.
Mas, is it alright if I post your article on the Kahr forum? I don’t want to violate any
of your agreements with backwoods.
What an “valuable” article. I have sent it to every teacher I know.
Thank you Massad for all you work. And huge congrats to Liberty for a job well done! They obviously take those responsibility for protecting others seriously!
Good film. It correctly teaches that you should do what’s needed for your own safety and don’t wait on a consensus from fellow targets.
Just a trivial observation. I noticed the active shooter in every scene (but one)had his trigger finger properly indexed and off the trigger. I doubt a real active shooter would exercise such safe gun handling. Deduct 10 points from the film director for lack of realism.
The motto here in CT seems to be Disarmed, Demoralized and Dead
I hear much of this talk here in 2nd Amendment hostile NYC, and in a hospital in which I was completing my rotations the director of security told all personnel not to hide in a common area, as the active shooter is most likely to be an employee and would therefore know where to engage.
Massad, I am 22 years old and soon to graduate pharmacy school, and am currently reading your published work as well as this blog. The wealth of information that you provide is impressive by any standard, especially regarding the area of use of deadly force (a topic which I would rather not be educated about via some stranger at the range). My generation has been too strongly influenced by various media and political outlets and lacks almost entirely any knowledge about firearms and self-defense. Luckily my journey began at age 12 with a single-shot .22LR Marlin, and I continue to seek training and devour quality information regarding these topics. Young people need to break free of the toxic conditioning, they must regain their humanity and survival instinct. Options exist beyond having to run and hide (although running is an excellent choice in some scenarios, it shouldn’t be the only option when a madman has turned a corner with 12 gauge).
Thank You.
Of course, Mary Beth.
I have my own three-step policy in the gun-free zone where I work. First, ignore the stupid gun-free zone rule. It is just BS, anyway. Second, shoot before you or any other innocent person gets shot. What the H— are people waiting for, anyway? Third, keep shooting until the threat is clearly neutralized. That pretty much means until your weapon is empty, or nearly so.
Thanks, Mas.
A locked, blacked out classroom may not offer a target…
I think I’ve seen the turn-the-lights-out advice in every R-H-F video. It seems to me that turning the lights out in occupied rooms, while they remain on in all the other rooms, does make those blacked-out rooms into targets. Covering the door windows with paper has the same effect.
Tactical information like that makes it difficult to take the videos seriously.
At the best they didn’t tell you to warn the AS that you are armed and will defend yourself if you have to. That means no liberals make policy there.
Thanks Mas. Maybe there is hope
Yale has produced a similar video, of course lacking the armed *citizen* aspect. It can be found here: http://emergency.yale.edu/be-prepared/active-shooterweapon
@ Dennis: A lockdown/shelter-in-place order was issued in 2013 on the Yale campus for an active shooter situation. That decision was made jointly by the Yale and New Haven PDs. It turned out to be a hoax call (no shooter, but some jackoff who thought it would be a fun prank) but for 7 hours the entire campus was locked down.
@Gerard: I presume you’re speaking for others and not yourself or me, yes? Some of us (and I presume you are one as well) don’t buy into the victim mentality foisted on us by our “leaders” in this bastion of PC BS. Unless and until some reality enters the heads of our politicians, guys like us must remain stuck behind enemy lines…
It’s great to see that finally, SOME States and Universities are starting to make sensible decisions regarding how to prevent mass shootings or at least limit the carnage.
I’m going to “out” myself here (just a bit, since I’m not using my real name this time). I am an adult college student with a concealed carry permit and I made the decision long ago to stop obeying a bad law (to paraphrase Dr. Suzanna Hupp). Despite living in an area where concealed carry on campus is a major offense, I will not subjugate my safety or the safety of my fellow students and teachers to chance. I hope I am not alone. I don’t think I am.
LarryArnold: At my school, rooms not being used are locked with the lights out. I think that’s the case now with most schools, both for environmental reasons and reasons of security (locked doors prevent theft, and also, having all the unused rooms locked and dark makes it viable to turn off the lights, lock the door and hide in a room that really is occupied).
I have attached a link to a program sponsored by the Buckeye Firearms Foundation in Ohio. It is supported by private donations and is completely free to school administrators, staff, and teachers who have Ohio CHL’s. They even get requests from school districts outside of Ohio. The program has more applicants than it can train.
http://fastersaveslives.org/
Excellent video and kudos to LU for their pro-concealed carry policy. I am a retired small town PD Detective. I now run security for a large church with a religious ed program (1-8th grade). I just started an active shooter protocol this year. The RE program is staffed mostly by female volunteers. I told them I didn’t like the “hide” portion of RHF but understand they have a whole lot of kids to take care of at one time so they should think outside the box. I’d rather they put a chair through a window (the school is one floor) and get the kids out of the building that way than turning off the lights and hiding. I’ll take my chances with the kids loose in a parking lot than being sitting ducks.
Well, I might deduct ten points for the inaccuracy (and I agree, a homicidal maniac on a shooting spree probably would not keep his finger off the trigger, or follow any kind of safety rules). But then, I would give the director and actors ten points for observing the rules of proper gun handling, thus avoiding a tragic accident while filming. So I guess it kind of evens out.
I rather dislike the term “active shooter.” The police officer (or armed civilian) who ends the rampage by justifiably shooting the killer is an active shooter. The term for the bad guy should be “psycho killer,” “crazed gunman,” “would-be mass murderer,” or, if his motivation was political, “terrorist.”
I tend to agree with tc – the term “active shooter” applies to anyone who fires whether for the good or bad.
Mas — thank you for making us aware that there are institutions with the will to make decisions and policies that provide information and planning to keep the general population more secure.
My college student daughter (and CCW permit holder) asked me about my feelings vis-a-vis the prohibitions against campus carry. She has her own Sig Sauer .380. I told her to put in in her purse and to NEVER tell ANYONE it is there and to never let her purse out of her sight. As the old saw goes, “You never need a gun until you need it, then you needed it 30 seconds ago.”
I once heard an interview with former chief of the LA police dept. Daryl Gates in which he advised someone who asked him about carrying in gun hostile LA, “I’d carry it anyway.”
I had a conversation with sheriff’s deputy that gave me my CCW permit. I told her, a sergeant, that the permit, wouldn’t do me any good where I most needed it, places like Chicago, LA, NYC etc. Places where I routinely found myself.
She said, “You know what? I’d carry it anyway. But you didn’t hear me say that.”
Thanks for sharing. What a wonderful, concise presentation.
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