Defending Others During an Active Shooter Incident

Let's imagine another scenario. Put yourself in a public environment like that food court at the mall, maybe a school yard, you're picking your kids up from school, maybe you're in a hospital, I'm not sure where you are, but picture yourself in a place where there's a lot of other people. Imagine a spree shooting starts or an active shooter. Someone shows up in this environment and just starts shooting anybody they can find. If you're in that situation, the best thing you can do is leave. And that's probably what most people are going to wanna do. So you're gonna be part of that crowd, and we could talk for a little while about the strategies of trying to avoid getting trampled, moving to the edge, moving to an exit, moving to a hiding spot maybe, letting the crowd pass you by. There's a lot of different things you have to take into account. But what we're gonna talk about right now is, what if I need to move through that crowd? What if my family members, what if my daughter, my mom, someone I need to protect, someone I care about, is on the other side of that crowd and I need to move forward to protect them? Well, I probably don't wanna be doing that with my gun out, flailing around, pointing it at people who aren't threats, making these people think maybe that I'm the threat, now they're going to take action against me. Maybe that responding law enforcement officer is gonna see me with a gun out and think that I am the bad guy. Well, I don't want any of that to happen and I obviously don't want a negligent discharge because my gun was grabbed by someone or just bumped into by someone as I move through that crowd. So I'm gonna protect my firearm, maybe have my hand on it, maybe keep it concealed and have my hand on it. I'm gonna make sure that I'm in control of this gun and nobody else is. The best thing for me to do is keep it concealed and get as much of my good firing grip on it as I can. While I'm moving through the crowd, I'm gonna use the technique we call the half spear. This comes from Tony Blauer's SPEAR system or personal defense readiness. Whereas a full spear is using both forearms to protect my body, I'm gonna be using one forearm to drive through. And the key here is making sure that this angle is greater than 90 degrees. That's gonna create what Mike Janis calls an off ramp for people. As I move through that crowd, they're gonna run into this bone ridge and just take that off ramp and get right out of my way. If I need to push somebody with a little bit more energy I can drive forward with that bone ridge again and knock them and spin them out of my way as I'm trying to get to the point where I can either engage the threat or, preferably, simply find my family member, make sure they're safe and then make my exit. So in this drill, I'm gonna give an up command. When I give an up command, my simulated crowd, of course, they're gonna respond naturally. They're gonna orient towards that threat. When they recognize that threat they're gonna stay compact and move this way. Now they're not locking arms, they're not trying to stop me, they're not grabbing me. Remember, that person's just interested in getting out, get away from the bad man. And I'd be moving that way too, except I need to protect a family member. When I'm on the other side of them, if I don't have anyone between me and the threat, represented by that center target, at that point it would be appropriate for me to present my firearm and do the shooting that I need to do to protect myself, this crowd, and of course my family member. Let's see how it's gonna look. Up! That's a drill that's very dynamic. Of course, you could start out just doing it dry. Do it with a finger gun, maybe do it with a blue gun. Maybe do it with airsoft. Maybe do it with any kind of simulation firearm that you can bring into a situation where you don't wanna be moving through a crowd, moving through even your training partners with a live firearm. But once you've developed the techniques, once you understand how to just keep your hand on that gun and protect it, fight through that crowd, as you saw, I didn't make much forward progress. Some big athletic guys coming forward. All I wanted to do was maintain my space. I deflected them off. Once I was in the clear, I was able to draw my firearm and engage the threat with combat accurate fire. Make sure you're safe when you run this drill, but this is an important drill if you think about defending yourself or a family member in that crowd environment.