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  • Possibly The Most Important Blog You Will Read.

    • 07/01/2016
    • ADB
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    This may be the most important blog you will read all year, especially if you are about to go anywhere or do anything in a crowd related entity this holiday or anytime this summer.

    This weekend you may be at a popular bar, trendy restaurant or big food and beer event. Be it a movie, ballpark, amusement park or any other crowded place, you know there is the possibility of an attack.

    Homeland Security reports active shooter situations typically last 10-15 minutes.

    So if you or family members are ever involved in one… you must know how to act fast! As these types of shooting become more common, your odds go up every day. So how do you deal with an active shooter situation? The typical “common sense” advice tells you to 1.) Run and 2.) Hide.

    We would like to offer some Uncommon Sense, relating the training they offer in Israel for such active shooter situations. They have lots more such situations unfolding, but typically, they take care of it very efficiently. Just about everyone knows the secret there. And it’s worked time and time again. We want to relate it to you here so you can consider it should you find yourself in a dangerous, unfolding event.

    It’s called “swarming.”

    First, let’s remove reason and morality from the equation. Imagine YOU are the active shooter.

    What do you want? An open field of fire with unlimited targets. You want to be the only one dictating the tempo so you “Kill at Will” for as long as it takes for the people with weapons to take you out.

    Like running through a resting flock of birds in the park, you want everyone to panic and flee in every direction out in the open, responding to what you do in such a way as to reinforce your easy quest to kill. In other words, you want the crowd to surge away from you.

    When they run they provide a target better than the broad side of a barn… the backside of a crowd. They bunch up at exits. They cower behind tables. Best yet, they clear out space in front of you so you are free to fire at will. And best of all, they leave you alone to do what you came here for, and in spades. Thank goodness for “common sense” and the instructions to run and to hide in place. Great Stuff, that.

    Now, this understanding from the shooter perspective—as reprehensible as it is to dwell on it—is valuable because it tells us what we really need to do in these situations: we must, as a group, swarm the shooter.

    This is what they teach in Israel. Run AT the shooter. Tackle him, weigh him down with numbers, immobilize him with sheer mass. This is the only way to limit his access to victims, interrupt his ability to operate and strip him of control over the engagement—essentially reversing the roles and forcing him to worry about defending himself from a panicked mob.

    If you’re the shooter, you want distance, not people closing, close or right next to you, spoiling your aim, restricting your field of fire, imposing a time-limit on how long you’re operational. If you’re the shooter, you want time and space within which to work.

    If you’re in the crowd, you want to restrict, constrict, and eliminate that time and space.

    While it looks great on paper, it should be understood that the swarm tactic won’t reduce casualties to zero. But if it’s the difference between three or 13 dead then the cold equations say it’s better that we lose a few instead of many. It certainly can’t be any worse than what we currently have (and experienced once again in Colorado)… the herd-tactic of hoping he has so many targets you’ll be the lucky one who’s overlooked.

    Swarming an active shooter isn’t an easy thing, compounded by the fear that you’ll be the only one who goes for it. It’s only going to work if you know at least some of the people around you are going to pile in with you, that it’s not just you vs. the shooter, but the entire crowd.

       We need to decide, as a society, that we are done allowing the insane to exercise their madness on us freely and without immediate consequence; that we will not be picked off as terrified individuals but will rise as one and end any threat before it can gain traction.

    Sounds great, right? So why won’t we? Liability. It’s probably cheaper to tell you to run and hide as an individual than it is to tell you to swarm the shooter as a group. If you run, hide and get shot to death alone, well, it’s the shooter’s fault. If you take direct action and get shot to death, every lawyer in a three-state radius pricks up their ears. Sadly, doing something courageous and possibly life-saving, while sacrificing yourself for others gets you in legal trouble. That’s part of the American way, but you could save lives.

    The one other thing that stops you is simple fear. Completely natural and understandable. No one wants to get shot to death. There’s a million years of evolutionary pressure that has to be overcome in order to act instead of react. But this is where training comes in—you replace fear with knowledge and practice. Resolve yourself to a course of action, get physical training, and then practice for the results you want.

    The 9/11 plane that crashed in an open field in Pennsylvania was going to target the White House or U.S. Capitol. By bravely swarming the terrorists, they saved many more lives. What would you do? More importantly, what WILL you do?

    In a perfect world we would decide, as a society, that we’ve had enough and tell everyone to swarm an active shooter, then practice doing so at home, at school, at the workplace until everyone knew that the only person who would be alone in that situation would be the shooter himself.

    Sadly, society is not brave. It is up to you and those around you to take active steps to protect yourselves and others. So, talk with others in your group about this. Be prepared…just in case.

    Thanks for reading. And be Safe out there.

     
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Possibly The Most Important Blog You Will Read.

This may be the most important blog you will read all year, especially if you are about to go anywhere or do anything in a crowd related entity this holiday or anytime this summer.

This weekend you may be at a popular bar, trendy restaurant or big food and beer event. Be it a movie, ballpark, amusement park or any other crowded place, you know there is the possibility of an attack.

Homeland Security reports active shooter situations typically last 10-15 minutes.

So if you or family members are ever involved in one… you must know how to act fast! As these types of shooting become more common, your odds go up every day. So how do you deal with an active shooter situation? The typical “common sense” advice tells you to 1.) Run and 2.) Hide.

We would like to offer some Uncommon Sense, relating the training they offer in Israel for such active shooter situations. They have lots more such situations unfolding, but typically, they take care of it very efficiently. Just about everyone knows the secret there. And it’s worked time and time again. We want to relate it to you here so you can consider it should you find yourself in a dangerous, unfolding event.

It’s called “swarming.”

First, let’s remove reason and morality from the equation. Imagine YOU are the active shooter.

What do you want? An open field of fire with unlimited targets. You want to be the only one dictating the tempo so you “Kill at Will” for as long as it takes for the people with weapons to take you out.

Like running through a resting flock of birds in the park, you want everyone to panic and flee in every direction out in the open, responding to what you do in such a way as to reinforce your easy quest to kill. In other words, you want the crowd to surge away from you.

When they run they provide a target better than the broad side of a barn… the backside of a crowd. They bunch up at exits. They cower behind tables. Best yet, they clear out space in front of you so you are free to fire at will. And best of all, they leave you alone to do what you came here for, and in spades. Thank goodness for “common sense” and the instructions to run and to hide in place. Great Stuff, that.

Now, this understanding from the shooter perspective—as reprehensible as it is to dwell on it—is valuable because it tells us what we really need to do in these situations: we must, as a group, swarm the shooter.

This is what they teach in Israel. Run AT the shooter. Tackle him, weigh him down with numbers, immobilize him with sheer mass. This is the only way to limit his access to victims, interrupt his ability to operate and strip him of control over the engagement—essentially reversing the roles and forcing him to worry about defending himself from a panicked mob.

If you’re the shooter, you want distance, not people closing, close or right next to you, spoiling your aim, restricting your field of fire, imposing a time-limit on how long you’re operational. If you’re the shooter, you want time and space within which to work.

If you’re in the crowd, you want to restrict, constrict, and eliminate that time and space.

While it looks great on paper, it should be understood that the swarm tactic won’t reduce casualties to zero. But if it’s the difference between three or 13 dead then the cold equations say it’s better that we lose a few instead of many. It certainly can’t be any worse than what we currently have (and experienced once again in Colorado)… the herd-tactic of hoping he has so many targets you’ll be the lucky one who’s overlooked.

Swarming an active shooter isn’t an easy thing, compounded by the fear that you’ll be the only one who goes for it. It’s only going to work if you know at least some of the people around you are going to pile in with you, that it’s not just you vs. the shooter, but the entire crowd.

   We need to decide, as a society, that we are done allowing the insane to exercise their madness on us freely and without immediate consequence; that we will not be picked off as terrified individuals but will rise as one and end any threat before it can gain traction.

Sounds great, right? So why won’t we? Liability. It’s probably cheaper to tell you to run and hide as an individual than it is to tell you to swarm the shooter as a group. If you run, hide and get shot to death alone, well, it’s the shooter’s fault. If you take direct action and get shot to death, every lawyer in a three-state radius pricks up their ears. Sadly, doing something courageous and possibly life-saving, while sacrificing yourself for others gets you in legal trouble. That’s part of the American way, but you could save lives.

The one other thing that stops you is simple fear. Completely natural and understandable. No one wants to get shot to death. There’s a million years of evolutionary pressure that has to be overcome in order to act instead of react. But this is where training comes in—you replace fear with knowledge and practice. Resolve yourself to a course of action, get physical training, and then practice for the results you want.

The 9/11 plane that crashed in an open field in Pennsylvania was going to target the White House or U.S. Capitol. By bravely swarming the terrorists, they saved many more lives. What would you do? More importantly, what WILL you do?

In a perfect world we would decide, as a society, that we’ve had enough and tell everyone to swarm an active shooter, then practice doing so at home, at school, at the workplace until everyone knew that the only person who would be alone in that situation would be the shooter himself.

Sadly, society is not brave. It is up to you and those around you to take active steps to protect yourselves and others. So, talk with others in your group about this. Be prepared…just in case.

Thanks for reading. And be Safe out there.

 
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