“Good Guys with Guns are One Step Away from Becoming Bad Guys, Or Dead Ones.”

“Good Guys with Guns are One Step Away from Becoming

Bad Guys, Or Dead Ones.”

           I have long maintained that the private defensive use of firearms in most situations is a dangerous idea at best. A large percentage of people who carry firearms do so in the interest of personal protection. That in itself is fine. I believe that the minimal training most people are willing to devote themselves to, whether it is for a lack of time or money to go further, is woefully insufficient to prepare for the possibility of actually using a firearm for personal protection.

           Carrying a firearm requires continued practice for proficiency. Hitting the target consistently only scratches the surface of being a responsible gun owner. I have addressed the responsibility of safe storage and retention of a firearm in an earlier post. If you have not already, I recommend starting this series from the beginning at:

 https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/2275265647221169423/5238140367117123368

           To continue, in order to increase your likelihood of surviving an episode such as a public mass shooting incident, or even a home invasion or a personal attack and robbery, there are further points to consider. It is my purpose to explore some of these conditions and the associated responsibilities that come along with carrying a firearm.

           First and foremost, regardless of your local requirements, voluntarily conforming to the most stringent safety requirements and availing yourself of training and practice is vital. Understanding your personal liability and rights, commonly known as “Castle Doctrine” and “Stand your ground”, is almost secondary to the emotional and philosophical preparation that is needed. Such preparation for the possibility of taking a life is essential. I am well aware that many jurisdictions have removed the requirement of a separate permit to carry a firearm you own. It is not my purpose to argue the wisdom of these laws; I merely express my belief that legislating and legalizing this practice is lunacy. Even in jurisdictions that have conditions for concealed carry, there are gun owners who disregard them in the their expressed “God Given Right” (caps emphasis is mine) to carry a gun and go no further in their preparation. This, too, is lunacy.

          Police officers are trained in what is known as “Shoot, Don’t Shoot” in three ways. One is to quickly distinguish between a friend or foe on the practice range and to only shoot the bad guys. The instructors I know take these scenarios very seriously, as we as officers know you must literally make this decision instantly.

The second is to understand the concepts of what is called a “clean shoot.”  This is a set of circumstances that culminate in the use of deadly force, and the determination both at the time and under investigation later that the use of such force was justified. An individual who intends to carry a firearm to protect themselves needs to have a thorough understanding of when they are justified to use it. 

The third involves a shooter holding a hostage for their own protection. Most patrol level police officers have little or no training in this area, as there are specialists who are. The chance that a civilian carrying a firearm will encounter this situation in a school or other public place mass shooting incident is very real, and that they will say or do the wrong thing almost a certainty.

           Beyond the concept of law and liability, there is the philosophical and psychological impact of potentially taking a life. If your gut response is anything like “Screw him, he started it by trying to rob/assault me”, I caution you to consider very carefully the decision to carry a gun. I am a fifteen-year veteran of law enforcement and I don’t even own a gun, only because I do not feel the need to do so. I am long since past the mental preparation to take a life if I have to. By not having a gun, I am reducing the likelihood I will ever have need to do so.

           Since our topics center on schools and public areas, let’s set up a scenario where a gun owner finds himself in a mass shooting situation. There is an initiative to “arm teachers” as a defense against school attacks. Florida has a program called “Volunteer Guardian” which is comprised of 144 hours of training and psychological testing. So, we’re going to use an armed teacher for our scenarios.

 1)    The teacher is in class when a gunman breaks in. Since a school shooter knows the school and the staff, and has a reasonable certainty that staff members are carrying weapons, the teachers are the first to go. The shooter has a well thought out plan. The chances of a teacher having the advantage here is exactly nil.

2)    The teacher or other staff responds from another area to a report of a shooting or the presence of a shooter.

a.      Police officers are subjected to intense training in this scenario, and not every officer has it. This specialized training is referred to as “Active Shooter Interdiction” which prepares for an actual and extremely dangerous situation. In fact, for an officer to be utilized in an actual emergency without the training poses what I believe is an unnecessary level of risk. Therefore, all officers who may be called upon to engage a shooter must receive and update the training to do so. They must also practice the techniques frequently to assure proficiency and understanding of the tactics involved.

b.     The teacher or staff member is responding, as they have been “trained” to do so. Although I am not familiar with the civilian training criteria, I have taken the Active Shooter training. Moving alone in an area where there is a confirmed shooter makes you a target for the shooter. To do so as a civilian adds responding officers to the danger, as they may not have a description of the shooter or how many there may be and can easily mistake the staff for a suspect. Either way, as action is faster than reaction, civilian survival chances are reduced.

c.      In short, there is a fundamental emotional urgency for officers to be deployed in this manner quickly. Extend that urgency to staff, and then couple it with the very real possibility that the teacher will encounter a student they know. The few seconds a staff member may use in reaction to the shooter’s identity may be all the staff get.

 

3)    An armed teacher or staff member makes the first contact with a shooter during an actual incident. This may or may not be an actual armed individual. Therefore, we have several potential outcomes:

a.      The encountered individual is NOT armed, and the staff member wastes time and may even be found by the real shooter in the process.

b.     The encountered individual IS armed, but has concealed their weapons and uses their familiarity with the staff member to lull them into whatever belief they need to in order to gain the advantage.

c.      The staff member engages the shooter, fires and misses, and hits another student.  

 Often, areas will post signs indicating their rules and laws regarding weapons possession. Consider the following signs:

 

 

You can see these signs, or ones like them, posted in many areas. Which one gives your child a better chance?

I believe both signs are inflammatory and present a danger to students and unarmed staff.

The first sign indicates that there are no weapons on the premises. Unless specified in the law, these restrictions do not apply to off duty police personnel, or a bonafide police agency operating on the premises, such as a school PD. A shooter will see this as “open season” without taking into consideration the presence of law enforcement.

The second sign indicates that staff has been trained. This also makes staff primary targets. I do not believe this discourages a shooter with a particular grudge against an institution or individual. I also believe that as not all staff can be armed, this puts all staff at risk.

It is an overly simplistic policy to demand that officers immediately search and confront an active shooter, and expect that lives will be saved as a result. The popular misconception is that once the shooter is “confronted” by staff or police, the shooter will be shot or captured and the problem will be solved.

The same set of risk circumstances holds true when a civilian is in a commercial or open area when a shooter appears. Any overt action by an untrained civilian can attract the attention of a shooter with potentially deadly results. Law enforcement officers know that bold action is a tactical error that could get the civilians killed. If confronting a shooter doesn’t lead to gunfire, it can very well lead to what is known as “psychological spiraling” of the shooter. The shooter will perceive a loss of control over the situation, and make unpredictable attempts to regain it. There are methods of action officers can take if they are caught up in these situations, but are outside the available training of civilians.

All of these situations involve an extremely complicated set of variables that I have not had the time or space to fully explore. Suffice it to say that in order to ultimately end this series of tragedies, a solution has to be put in place to address them BEFORE they happen as well as conduct the ongoing training and practice to deal with them when they occur. I hope to introduce and explore these possible methods as this series progresses.