Active Shooter Response Plan: Public Space Evasion
Rob PincusDescription
Evasion is the first active shooter response plan to consider when in a public space where there is an active shooter. In some cases, this will be as simple as running away or getting in the car and driving away. Other situations will require more creativity in order to evade the shooter. PDN presents some ideas for getting yourself and your family members out of the line of sight of an active shooter.
The first strategy that we want to think about when it comes to being in a public space where there's an active shooter is evasion. If you hear the gunshots and you're in the parking lot of that hospital, school, mall, amusement park, whatever situation is, here's your strategy. Unlock the car, get in it. Start it up, and drive away. Of course you may not be able to do that.
It may not be that easy. You might be in a situation where there's a lot of people trying to get out of that parking lot where the active shooter actually is, and your car is blocked in. This may not even be your car. You may be inside of a building. You may have family members in the environment.
Now there's a lot of reasons why you won't simply be able to get in your car, drive away, and call the police once you know you're safe, but the concept of evasion is still what's most important. Evasion might simply mean hiding behind a wall. Just moving out of the way of where the bad guy can even see you as a potential victim. Think about it. If there's hundreds of people around, and someone is intent on killing lots of people and you separate yourself from that crowd, move out of the room, move into a room, move around the corner.
Hide under a car, behind a car, around the wheel well. Wherever you can get out of that person's field of view, you become much less likely to be a random victim. And that's what's important to remember. Many active shooter situations, especially in that public space, are just guys looking for random victims. They really don't have an agenda.
They really don't even expect to survive. They certainly don't expect to be able to continue doing this for some undetermined amount of time and kill every person on the planet. They're looking for concentrations of people to hurt as many people as they possibly can. And we can't really get into the psychosis of it, and we can't understand it. We don't even probably want to understand it.
What's important to realize is that if you take yourself out of the equation, if you can get away, if you can evade that shooter, you can evade that murderer, you're going to be safer. And the same thing goes for your family. You get that phone call from someone who says, "Oh my gosh, there's someone shooting here." Tell them to look for a window, right? Think about it. If you're on the second story of a school building and you're sitting inside that classroom and someone's shooting in the hallway, what you might be told by that teacher, what you might think about doing if you're that child in that schoolroom is simply sitting there and hunkering down, trying to hope that the bad guy doesn't come into that room.
On the other hand, if you take that desk, break out the window, and jump 10, or 12, or 15 feet, you might hurt your leg, you might hurt your arm, but that's a lot less bad than having that active shooter come into the room and being confronted with a madman with a gun. Or a hatchet or whatever that tool, whatever that weapon is that person is using at that time. So the strategy of evasion sometimes is gonna have to take on some creativity. We may not simply be able to get in our car and drive away. We may not be able to just turn and run.
We may not want to turn our back on the person. We may want to be able to keep an eye on the person and back away this way. But the idea of taking yourself out of the equation, getting your family members out of the equation, first and foremost the most important strategy for dealing with that spree murder, that active shooter situation as a public citizen. Now the reality is you could have a firearm. Maybe you actually are capable of defending yourself in that environment.
You may be a concealed carry permittee. You've got your gun, you're in a public space. You're at the mall, completely legal, completely prepared, completely trained. You still need to get away. There's no reason for you to stay there.
If you don't have an investment where you don't have to defend yourself, if you don't have to get your family out of there, you don't have to go find your family member on the other side of the mall, just leave. Evasion is the most important and best strategy to deal with an active shooter.
Extremely disappointed to see your video begin with an ad for Kevin Deleon's senate campaign. Everyone in California knows he is the ultimate enemy of the 2nd amendment who does not believe civilians should be able to own firearms, much less carry them.
if you had a clear shot ,without hitting any innocents, wouldn't you try to stop the active shooter ?
i am old and single. in my life i have intervened in situations without guns even if it was a stranger, just because it was not fair or right. i guess i saw to many good guy bad guy films. because of that, i have ended at times with a severe concousion. i would probably have to help but try to do it in as smart of a way as possible. by the time the police get there, there would probably be a whole lot of dead people. i would have to try and stop him or her.
Howard makes a good point about helping others but my guess is that he doesn't live in "The People Republic of California" and especially in LA or San Francisco. The legal ramifications of a citizen shooting can be severe. Even if justified, as in the example he sites there is a danger of collateral damage and the fact that long and very expensive legal problems will result of even a well intentioned action. One needs to really consider the huge expense and liability of getting involved when you, or your loved ones, are not directly in peril. Another question is the risk to you worth taking action? Any gun fight is very dangerous to you as the "protector". Is whatever you want to protect worth dying for? If it not worth dying for it's not worth killing for.
I am licensed to carry & am capable of defending myself. If I am somewhere and there is a spree shooting, I'd get my wife to safety, but could not evade the situation when I might be able to save someone's life. If this situation occurred and more people were killed because I didn't respond, I'm sure that I'd live with a lot of guilt.
Always enjoy your videos, just a newbie trying to learn. Agreed, get away if possible, call authorities, let the trained experts handle it. But if you have a concealed carry permit and pistol in possession, and the shooter does great harm to others (strangers, non-family), how do you deal with the questions and remorse you will have for the rest of your life?