Active Shooter Protocol

The technique for dealing with mass shootings is called the "active shooter Protocol". This means that the first responder goes towards the sound of the shooting,ignores the dead and wounded, identifies the threat, and neutralises the threat. No verbal commands, no chance for the shooter to surrender. The threat is active and in progress.

Anyone with a firearm who is not reconisable as security service will be considered a target.

The tactic is to move fast and use your firepower. It is the tactic used for dealing with an ambush in combat. Agress the ambushers and use your firepower. That's your best chance to survive.

The problem is that most people confuse plinking and target practise at the range for defensive training. They are not one in the same. Lots of people who know their weapons well don't know shit about defensive shooting tactics, active shooter tactics, or have any real combat shooting experience.

Add in that it takes just minutes for a shooting spree to end

At Virginia Tech, the diminutive, South Korean gunman brandishing a 9mm Glock 19 and a Walther P22 took out his first two victims in the early morning hours. He returned two hours later, chained shut the three main entrances to an educational building and opened fire into second-story classrooms. Thirty others were slain before the gunman turned a weapon on himself.

"The [second] shooting spree took him 9 minutes — 9 minutes to shoot 170 rounds and kill 30 people (ed., I've seen other estimates of 10-12 minutes)," says Tom Turner, director of campus safety at Roanoke College in Salem, Virginia. "The best thing a department can do is send in first responders to try to minimize death and injury, and neutralize the threat."

Likewise, the Fort Hood shootings were over quickly.

The minimum number of officers necessary to effectively utilize the active shooter protocol is three, though Gnagey recommends delaying entry until four officers arrive. A team of four in a diamond-shaped movement pattern — with one point officer, two flankers and a rear guard — permits officers to perform a 360-degree search and protect themselves from all sides. "We expect officers to use their head and evaluate the situation. They can go in by themselves if they have to," DeAndrea adds. "That's not the best way to operate. But if it's taking place in front of you, you don't wait. You go in and save lives."

The contact team treks toward the gunshots if they know where they're coming from. This team must disregard victims; it's only priority is to stop the threat, says DeAndrea. Traditional tactics go by the wayside in that officers move directly toward the threat. "They are marching to the sound of the gun," he says. "When they hear shots fired, that's where they respond to." On their heels, at least in the Arvada PD, is a rescue team, tagged with the responsibility of evacuating survivors and wounded individuals.

The response remains fluid and officers must adapt accordingly, Gnagey emphasizes. If officers arrive on-scene and notice large-caliber bullet holes in cars, buildings or houses, they know the shooter isn't firing a handgun and the superior firepower of a rifle is needed. Likewise, if gunshots cease and the shooter's location remains unknown, then officers slow their advance and begin opening doors and exploring empty rooms. If the gunman begins firing again, the team accelerates and foregoes searching until it reaches the subject.

Their ability to adapt cannot end once the shooter is found, adds Gnagey. For example, if officers discover the suspect in a room full of kids, they must transition to the response tactics prescribed for a hostage-barricade situation and summon SWAT. As the situation shifts to a tactical operation, responding officers must lockdown the room and maintain the perimeter until SWAT gets there. But if the gunman begins firing at hostages, and SWAT has yet to arrive, responding officers need to storm in.

Active Shooter Protocol
Active shooter events are unpredictable, dynamic, rapidly evolving, multi-variable situations requiring rapid response by law enforcement. If this facility experiences an active shooter situation, you should take the following actions:
5. Points to remember:
* There may be more than one (1) shooter
* Do not touch anything in the area, as it is a crime scene
* Prepare a plan of action in advance - predetermine possible escape routes for
yourself, and always know where exits are located
* DO NOT go to a Shelter-in-Place site
* When fleeing, get as far away from the shooting scene as quickly and safely
possible - do not take/carry anything with you
6. Police response and you:
* Police will quickly respond to the area in which shots were last heard and attempt
to immediately engage/contain the active shooter
* First arriving officers will not stop to assist the injured, or evacuate personnel
* Remain calm
* Do exactly as police tell you
* Keep your hands empty and visible at all times
* If you know where the shooter is, quickly tell the officers
* DO NOT get in the way of officers

Got that, Junior Rambos?

Or do you want to get your sorry arses shot? That isn't a bad thing though to have your idiotic arses shot for just being stupid.

Gun accessories don't kill people....

Yeah, Eric Thompson's company, TGSCOM Inc., sold a 30 round high-capacity ammunition magazine to George Sodini, the bloke who killed 3 women and wounded 9 others before killing himself at the LA Fitness gym outside of Pittsburgh on the fourth of August. Eric also sold accessories to the Virginia Tech shooter, Seung-Hui Cho, who killed 32 students and professors on April 16th, 2007 , and the Northern Illinois University shooter, Steven Kazmierczak, who killed 6 students before turning a gun on himself on Feb. 14th, 2008.

Yeah, gun accessories really don't kill people, but....

Now, I said in a previous post that he should look into selling something non-violent, but Eric still keeps with the mantra that guns are necessary.

In my checkered past, I worked on projects that involved WMD, in particular nerve gasses of various forms and atomic weapons. While I never actually saw the stuff, it was around our facility. I remember walking into one building and seeing a sign that said there were nerve agents present if the red lamp was on.

And hurried out of the building.

I never actually used any of these devices or materials, and they have never been used, but...

There is still a lot of bad karma in having those things out there. I've been trying to be good for 25 years now just for my small part in the possibility of mass murder.

If Eric wants the bad karma on his head, that's his business. But, he might want to take stock on how much karmic garbage he's racking up there.

Before he shows up in the news again.

Another mass shooting!

I want to get away from the Second Amendment and gun control rubbish, but yet another shooting happened at a West Palm Beach, Florida Wendy's where two people are dead and five are injured.

Florida is a shall issue state, which according to John Lott means that stuff like this shouldn't happen, as it shouldn't have happened at Virginia Tech.

Of course, the "RKBA" crowd will start screaming for yet more guns when more guns is the problem.

The RKBA crowd wants to drown out songs like Cheryl Wheeler's "If it were Up to me" that has the line "If it were up to me, I'd take away the guns." They don't want people to realise that something needs to be done about the uncontrolled proliferation of firearms. There is too much talk about "gun rights" and none about gun responsibilities.

Of course, there is no such thing as "gun rights", but the politicians are too cowardly to say that. And they are even more cowardly to not bring up gun responsibilities when the term "gun rights" is used.

RKBA folk like to say that cars, cigarettes, alcohol, and so are cause more deaths than do guns. the problem with that argument is that cars are useful. I would argue that we should wean the US from its cars in favour of mass transit, but cars are useful. On the other hand, I have to be taught to drive, licenced, insured, and my car is registered. I can't just get a car and drive it. I am also expected to drive responsibly or I can get hammered civilly and criminally.

I have the freedom to write and post this on the internet. Maybe people will read what I write and see that there are people who are frustrated by this lack of responsibility on the part of people who scream for their "rights". Maybe more of us will link up and work to vote for real change.

Maybe we will begin to see leadership in the media who pander to this talk of gun rights, yet don't do what they can to show that this is a myth, like John Lott's statistics.

When will the US wise up?

Brenda Spencer opened fire with a rifle at the Grover Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego, California, killing two adults and injuring nine children. She later explained her actions with the statement, "I don't like Mondays" back in 1979.

The Boomtown Rats were at a US radio station for an interview when the story of Brenda Spencer came over the news wire. As a loud mid '70s rock band, the Boomtown Rats were (respectfully if not completely accurately) branded punks by the media. As the Sex Pistols and the Clash became the voice of young London punks, The Boomtown Rats carried the flag for the youth of Dublin. After their debut album saw respectable sales in 1978, they recorded "I Don't Like Mondays," their most successful and most enduring hit despite the fact that many US radio stations refused to play it.

I wonder why?

Since Brenda Spencer went "postal" there have been many shootings like this. School shootings like this happen all the time, but they are treated as local news, unless they are like Columbine or yesterday's Virginia Tech shootings.

I mean 32 dead. Wow, that's a new record.

I guess the next big school shooting is going to have to top that to become news.

There are other songs which pinpoint the real instrumentality which allows for this carnage: Guns. Cheryl Wheeler's "If It Were Up To Me", Wall of Voodoo's "Shouldn't have given him a gun for Christmas", Captain Sensible's "Yanks with Guns", Robert Bobby "Guns across the USA", The Beatles "Happiness is a Warm Gun", Johnny Cash "Don't Take Your Guns to Town", Lynyrd Skynyrd "Saturday Night Special", Harry Chapin "Sniper", Indigo Girls "Don't Give that Girl a Gun", various versions of "The Devil's Right Hand", I Can Lick Any Son Of... "Dear Mr. Heston", Ian Hunter "Gun Control", Pearl Jam "Glorified G", Robert Bobby "guns Across the USA", any other suggestions out there?

Anyway, Cheryl Wheeler's "If it were up to me" which ends with "If it were up to me, I'd take away the guns." is also not played on the airwaves. The pro-gun crowd is too scared of it.

Why, let's face it, more guns does not equal less crime. If it were the case, Philadelphia would be one of the safest places in the nation with the largest number of NRA life members and amount of concealed carry permits. Also, Virginia, they can just strap on a gun there, but this is the second time they have been victimised by maniacs with a gun on a large scale (anybody remember Lee Boyd Malvo and John Allen Muhammad?).

I mean those last two paralaysed the nation's capital with only one gun. Shit, the East Coast!

Not bad.

It is the guns and I don't hear many people talking about gun responsibilities!

Sorry, but 28 years is too long and too many bodies have piled up from guns. It's costs this country too much to treat all the gunshot victims.

It's time for guns to be banned.

The only thing stopping that happening is the gun lobby.

For a great piece on Brenda Spencer listen to Mike Pesca's piece from Day to Day, January 31, 2005:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4472389

Add on the following songs:
Stephen Sondheim: Gun Song, Bobby Bare Jr.: Gun Show, Railroad Jerk: Gun Problem, Kittens For Christian: Gun Country, D.R.I.: Gun Control , Guess Who: Guns, Guns, Guns, Junior Reid: Gun Court, Boy Wundah: Change (The Anti Gun Crime Song), 311: Guns (Are For Pussies), Gorillaz: Kids With Guns, Robert Bobby: Guns Across The U.S.A and Bigger Guns., UB40: Guns In The Ghetto, The Damned: Gun Fury, The Tannahill Weavers: At The End Of A Pointed Gun, Steely Dan: With A Gun, Buju Banton: Mr. Nine, Aerosmith: Janie's Got A Gun, Indigo Girls: Don't Give That Girl A Gun, and Julie Brown: Homecoming Queen's got a gun

MORE SUGGESTIONS ARE ALWAYS WELCOME!

BE SURE TO CALL IN AND REQUEST THEY BE PLAYED ON THE RADIO IN AFTER THE NEXT MASS SHOOTING!