After the tragedy

djalley 15Apr2022

We watched the Oxford High School shooting coverage with sadness, as well as interest. Recently, the NYC shootings. In these horrendous events, we see the heroics of people as they protect others in the face of evil, all the while recognizing these heroics should never have had to be displayed. Our concern and our heartfelt prayers are offered to the families of the victims, and those survivors who must overcome the violence visited upon them. We feel resolve that something must be done.

In a sad testament to our political state, these events are swooped upon by various news outlets and politicians to predictably use the incident to advance their agenda. They deceitfully use a veil of illusory compassion to push gun control. They don’t ask an open ended and inquisitive “What can we do to prevent this?”, they instead state “How do we take away the guns?” They don’t partner with gun safety groups, ranges, and education providers, they vilify them. If education is the key to understanding, why is education shunned for this topic? Agenda. Fear drives this agenda, and since education replaces fear, education is vilified.

After these events, I go through my IM conversations. I read my friends’ posts and the conversations with others. I recall the phone conversations that I’ve received because I am an instructor.

Some of these conversations want technical details… The gun used, the capacity, reload time, how easy it is to shoot. I tell them that the firearm isn’t really the issue, but answer their questions that the pistol is a reliable one, does what it was designed to do, that reloading can be accomplished in about 10 seconds with practice, and about 15-20 seconds for the relatively unfamiliar, and that the capacity averages about 15 rounds per magazine. I try to emphasize that the police, law abiding and peaceable people choose and use this firearm or one like it, and that it is the will of the user that determines the outcome of the machine’s use. There is no mind-control chip in the bill of materials for any gun.

Most want information on ownership safeguards… The ownership process. Background checks. Waiting periods. “You can buy a gun in 15 minutes!”, I hear. I explain how there are many, many disqualifying civil and criminal convictions that preclude ownership. I explain the NICS system (a national database of disqualified owners) and how it checks for these. I explain that just because a check is ‘instant’ does not mean that it isn’t thorough. If you run a filter in a spreadsheet, are the results more legit if the program takes longer to show the filtered results? I just googled “hovercraft” on Google. The top line tells me: About 12,600,000 results (0.55 seconds). Would my results be more legitimate if it took 2 minutes for the same results? Three days? A week? If I cracked open the Dewey Decimal System from the local library archives? I ask why the NICS check is different. I ask what a waiting period here would have done. I ask why it is referred to as a “cooling off period” as one friend put it. I ask why they think this terminology is used. Agenda.

Like this last point, many of the statements I’ve received were the typical “I’ve been programmed” and ask why the NRA exists, why the Second Amendment exists (my favorite is “It applies to muskets!”), and the general malaise of “rights-elimination for everybody is OK because I don’t value that right”.

The majority of the questions I field are lumped in to two categories:

  • Should we have guns?
  • Should the guns be so ‘usable’?

This is the part that perplexes me, and honestly frustrates me a bit. Why are some people so willing to blame a machine rather than having the moral fortitude to blame the shooter?

Why are some people so willing to blame a machine rather than having the moral fortitude to blame the shooter?

It boils down to a single, solitary concept: Personal responsibility. Some people are very consensus-driven. The “we” is their moral and ethical compass. Where the herd goes is correct. The type of person who immediately attributes their wrongdoing to “It wasn’t my fault…” or “Yeah but they did….”. For many people, their personal responsibilities are shirked onto the State. Social security instead of saving for retirement. Dependency on handouts instead of seeking employment. Demanding government pay for college. Or whatever else.

This ‘shirk mentality’ is so alienated from the thought of personal responsibility that those with it cannot even ascribe the casualty-event to an evil doing person. The gun becomes the easy scapegoat, free of personal consequence, and happily reinforced by an agenda-driven media who view disarmament as a virtue and believe that a disarmed people is somehow elegant and sophisticated. The gun is some form of sponge, soaking up the universe’s evil, and if we could just somehow melt them all down into steel ingots, that evil would dissipate into the ether and the world would be shiny happy people holding hands.

Now let’s answer “Should we be allowed to have guns?”. Ownership of arms is a freedom all people have. The right to defend one’s self is the right of all living things. That defense may be in the form of biting, poisoning, hiding, camouflage, flight, or even a high proliferation rate from a species stance. We humans are tool users. We are thinkers. We can choose some of these options, AND can choose to use tools. As our capabilities for tool use becomes more sophisticated, so does our tools.

The low-information set of people that believe the Second Amendment protects our right to own muskets miss the point. Defense is a universal right (and any person or government infringing on that right is despicable, and their authority over the individual should be thrown off). It isn’t about the tool, it’s about this basic right of the living.

The very nature of the question is insidious from the standpoint that it pre-supposes that “we” have the right to decide for “us”. “We” do not. I have the right to decide for me. You have the right to decide for you. And if you think you have the right to decide for me, and attempt to enforce that decision, I have the right to defend my rights from your illegitimate authority. This is a vigilance we need to strengthen. We will not tolerate your proposed infringements any further. And certainly not become some evil cretin chose to be evil.

The vilification of training

This is the newest anti-gun agenda item. The vilification of training. Those who train in the proficient use of firearms are somehow concerning. The ‘gun culture’ is to blame.

Every year there are tens of thousand professional and amateur shooting sports enthusiasts practicing marksmanship, practicing the effective wielding and operating of the firearm, practicing moving defensively. And yet the shooting sports community is not responsible for crimes, and members of this ‘culture’ are not the murderers in instances like this.

I had one friend decry on her facebook page the villainy of training. Stating the apparent skill of the shooter, and the proficiency in shot placement. At least she wondered about the state of mental health of the shooter (in an instant message to me) and that mental health needs to be a higher priority, but in the same breath she also opted to infringe on gun ownership through more stringent background checks (which would have failed in the Oxford incident because the father was the purchaser).

The news has likewise been rife with ‘journalists’ (translation: Preformed opinion holders needing a photo op) taking gun training for the sole purpose of criticism. Overlooking every facet of a class instructing safety, justifiable use of force, responsibilities of ownership, etc., for that one potential nugget of something that wasn’t quite right for them to hyperfocus all their preconceptions into.

In November, a guy in Waukesha WI drive his car into a crowd, killing 5 and injuring approximately 25 more. Yet the same people decrying the vilification of firearm training did not vilify the driver’s ed program. They did not suggest making cars harder to buy.

In actuality, the lack of training injures or kills far more people each year. Alec Baldwin, who opposes gun rights, squeezed a trigger and killed a movie worker. If your first instinct was to say “Ya but the armorer was supposed to..”, do us all a favor and read the part about personal responsibility again.

  • Alec did not treat the firearm with the respect due it (as if it were loaded).
  • Alec did not prevent his muzzle from sweeping things he was unwilling to destroy.
  • Alec did not keep his finger off the trigger. (Yes Alec, you DID pull the trigger. Stop lying.)
  • Alec was not aware of his target.

Had Alec not been so agenda-driven, not been so opposed to TRAINING, had taken a single class in gun safety, then Halyna Hutchins would still be alive.

We need to do better as a society. We need to shrug off the fear-driven Agendites. We need to get gun safety back in schools. We need to take responsibility for ourselves and those in our circle. Me. You. As individual people. If Uncle Dave ‘aint quite right’ and buys a gun, we need to confront him on that, as his family unit. We need to store our guns safely. And most importantly, we need to retain the right to defend ourselves against evil, and be able to act to protect each other.

Gun: An American Conversation (wrap up)

djalley 11May2018

For the month of April, the news outlet MLive and other outlets around the country, ran a program called “Guns: An American Conversation”. The idea behind this project was to get people communicating about gun violence, and entertain possible solutions. The framework was to remain respectful, give well-reasoned answers or stances, and, again, remain respectful. If we could take away different perspectives and different stances, then we would become closer to finding solutions.

Keep and Bear, LLC instructor Don Alley was one of those chosen to be a part of this conversation.

The group consisted of about 150 people total from around the country, with viewpoints spanning the spectrum of gun rights and gun violence. While the participants weren’t 100% respectful at all times, and were sometimes steadfast in their beliefs (Don included), the month long conversation certainly didn’t devolve to the typical Facebook vitriol so common elsewhere. In that, at least, the program was a success. Here is Don’s experience.

Initial thoughts

My initial thoughts, admittedly, was that a media outlet was setting up a group to reinforce via echo-chamber that gun rights were collectively granted, alterable, negotiable, and therefore were readily adjustable via consensus. At the very worst, I figured I’d end up being a lightning rod for individual rights by questioning what authority others had over my rights. (As my involvement in the project continued, I discovered that there were certainly those that held that exact viewpoint).

Guidelines for expectations of discourse were provide, which were easy enough to follow should discussion remain fact based, purpose-driven, and earnestly looking for answers.

The beginning

The month long session dove right in, somewhat predictably. There were many anti-gun people eager to make a difference by proposing ideas that they thought would reduce firearm related violence. These tended to trample the Second Amendment, and those proposing these ideas were alright with that.

There was more than a few members that made it clear that any law, any regulation, or any disqualifier to owning arms was more than acceptable to them. If an idea resulted in any firearm being banned, confiscated, or not for sale, they were clearly for it.

Conversely, there were other members who held the opposite viewpoint. Firearm ownership was an inherent right of a free people, and others do not have the authority to alter it. Anti-gunners were quick to point out that because infringement is currently occurring, that infringement is OK.

There were many in the middle, who were either unaware of the nature of a ‘right’, or felt that reasonable limits were acceptable. These people were, ultimately my target audience for conversation, and wanted to delve more deeply into this neutral/unfamiliar conscientious to understand and relate to them better. Fortunately, the best way to show the end-game of an anti-gun stance is to simply ask more questions. With a few leading questions, the motive becomes clear: control over others. Here were some more observations…

The ‘reasonable restrictions’ argument (part 1)

Anti-gunners use the notion that ‘reasonable restrictions’ are allowed by government to safeguard the public peace. Once the authority to restrict is thus established, they argue it’s just a matter of where those restrictions lie, and ‘we all’ get a say in that. There are a number of issues with this approach.

Anti-gunners like to equate the 1A to infringing the 2A. “You cannot yell Fire! in a crowded theater. This is an example of a reasonable restriction”, they like to argue. Thy are correct that you cannot do that, but they are incorrect calling it a reasonable restriction. It’s actually a crime called ‘inciting’. A ‘restriction’ in this case would be to make it so the word “fire” was illegal to utter. Other popular 1A crimes include slander, libel, and fraud. The system has taken these 1A-based actions and criminalized them because they can lead to physical or financial harm. Aside from these, the 1A is held in high public regard, and further limitations to the 1A are generally held unfavorably.

Likewise, 2A-based abuses are also crimes. These include assault, manslaughter, assault with a deadly weapon, and murder 1, 2, 3. These actions are already criminalized, and as such, if the 2A were held in the same regard as the 1A, further restriction would not be pursued, but the understanding that lawbreakers would be brought to justice.

‘Reasonable restrictions’ are not warranted if the action under scrutiny is already a crime.

The ‘reasonable restrictions’ argument (part 2)

Of interest in the ‘reasonable restriction’ argument, the SCOTUS case DC vs Heller clarified that the 2A is an individual right, but that the government had authority to restrict “unusual” firearms. Since recent estimates show that there are at least 2.4 million AR-15 style defensive carbines in private ownership in the USA, with who knows how many other ‘assault weapons’ (please forgive my use of the term) in private ownership, this style of firearm cannot be considered ‘unusual’, and the ruling would actually prohibit government entities from banning this particular arm.

The ‘restrictions are not infringement’ argument

Yes, they are, by definition. I posted a progression of a firearms transaction from total freedom to authoritarianism. It went like this:

  • Total freedom: I walk into the gun store, choose the firearm I want, voluntarily transact, and leave with the firearm I’ve purchased.
  • Add firearm restrictions: I walk into a gun store, choose the firearm I want (from a list of features the government has deemed I may purchase), voluntarily transact, and leave with the firearm I’ve purchased.
  • Add background checks: I walk into a gun store, choose the firearm I want (from a list of features the government has deemed I may purchase), get NICS checked (ensure I am not on a list that the government has deemed not allowed to purchase a firearm), voluntarily transact, and leave with the firearm I’ve purchased.
  • Add purchase permits: I first go to the government, take a test to prove I am eligible, wait on those results, get issued a purchase permit, I walk into a gun store, choose the firearm I want (from a list of features the government has deemed I may purchase), get NICS checked (ensure I am not on a list that the government has deemed not allowed to purchase a firearm), voluntarily transact, and leave with the firearm I’ve purchased.
  • Add waiting periods: I first go to the government, take a test to prove I am eligible, wait on those results, get issued a purchase permit, I walk into a gun store, choose the firearm I want (from a list of features the government has deemed I may purchase), get NICS checked (ensure I am not on a list that the government has deemed not allowed to purchase a firearm), voluntarily transact, leave the gun store, wait 3 days to ‘cool off’, return, and leave with the firearm I’ve purchased.
  • Add red flag laws: I first go to the government, take a test to prove I am eligible, wait on those results, get issued a purchase permit, I walk into a gun store, choose the firearm I want (from a list of features the government has deemed I may purchase), get NICS checked (ensure I am not on a list that the government has deemed not allowed to purchase a firearm), voluntarily transact, leave the gun store, wait 3 days to ‘cool off’, return, and leave with the firearm I’ve purchased, which I may keep only until such a time that the collective preference of society deems I am allowed to have it, and I must surrender them should a single judge deem it so. I will not be afforded due process, I will not be able to face my accuser, and I will not have a say in their disposition. I may have to prove myself worthy of exercising my right, and the state may make that proof as attainable or unattainable as it sees fit.
  • Authoritarianism: Gun store? We outlawed those. Why do you need a gun? I am reporting you.

Each step above cumulatively infringes on a person’s right, and distances the freedom the 2A enumerates into a set of privileges and preferences, eventually ensuring that no firearms and no people are in the ‘approved set’.

Anti-gunners are quick to point out how ‘quick’ it is to get a firearm. You can walk in and walk out with one. This is as it should be when exercising a Right. What they don’t emphasize is that the person is run through a somewhat efficient database that is able to check ineligibility right away. Because something is ‘quick’ does not mean that it isn’t thorough or comprehensive.

Rejection of the slippery-slope argument

In logic, critical thinking, political rhetoric, and case law, is a consequentialist logical device in which a party asserts that a relatively small first step leads to a chain of related events culminating in some significant (usually negative) effect.

Anti-gunners like to call out the cautions and concerns of pro-gunners as being slippery slope arguments. “Just because we enact regulation now does not mean that we will enact more legislation later.”, they say.

Yes, it does. Yes, they will.

We had the 1934 National Firearm Act which effectively outlawed automatic weapons,  short barrel rifles and shotguns, and suppressors. This was followed with the 1968 Gun Control Act, which regulated firearms as interstate commerce, restricted many firearms, and attempted to relegate firearm ownership as “sporting purpose” in origin and not militaristic in origin. From there, an 80’s era assault weapon ban attempted to prohibit ‘military style’ firearms. A myriad of state level and local bans have followed in the years since. We now have a retired SCOTUS judge calling for the repeal of the 2A, and multiple politicians introducing bills that outright ban firearms.

A slippery slope argument is no longer a logical fallacy when the slope has been proven to exist and is indeed slippery.

In fact, another participant used the “pieces of cake” argument to highlight the iterative, repeated infringement. He likened one’s rights to a cake. When someone came along and said “I will take a piece of your cake, but you get to keep the rest”, the cake owners acquiesced. When they came back for more, the cake owner protested but gave in. Now, with only a slice left, they are coming for it once again.

The anti-gunners were actually livid with this analogy. My take on it was that they were clearly exposed as incrementally infringing rights, and their call for “middle ground common sense” legislation was highlighted as another failure in a long history of gun control failures.

I asked “If we do another gun ban like you’re asking, can we add language to the bill that any future politician suggesting further bans shall be forcibly removed from his office, even upon pain of death, and those enforcing that removal have a full and complete pardon?” I did not get a reply.

The qualifications of those that would make you defenseless

This was actually a post that infuriated me the most. It was a ladies-only post, so I respected their space, but I still read it and took away what I could. The reason for my anger was how ill-informed some of the participants were regarding self defense. After exhibiting potentially lethal ignorance on the topic, they continued to use the group to talk about protective actions. Hint: If your personal protection strategy is based on ‘hope’, or ‘willful ignorance’, don’t try to impose your viewpoints on to others via gun control.

That being said, many/most of the participants cited situational awareness, staying in areas known to be safer, having some defense training, and many only go walking about with their dog.

Here are some of the personal protection strategies of some in the group:

  • “I am disabled and ride an electric scooter. I feel that is my armor. I also carry a can of hairspray that will temporarily stop someone if sprayed in their eyes. I also have one of those really loud alarm buttons I can press to attract attention if needed.”
  • “..I assume my world is essentially a safe place and should I be a victim of violence, it would be a random circumstance of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I would never carry a gun.“
  • “I also know some basic self defense just from watching some videos.”   followed up with a question as to what videos she watches. She answered “The ones that pop up on my Facebook feed and Twitter“.
  • “I was raised to use my house keys as weapons. Putting one or two between my knuckles to pierce my attacker and wound him. “
  • “Protection of the female from male predators has been throughout our history and part of our present.. I don’t think carrying a gun will fix our future..“

Another prevalent topic was the need to ‘feel’ safe. Not ‘be’ safe, feel safe. This is a false measurable, as how one feels is unimportant when protective topics are addressed, yet the solutions offered throughout the project seemed to repeatedly be based on how to ‘feel safe’.

There were more than a few posts with women knowing a good bit of martial arts, carrying defensive firearms, and carrying pepper spray/gel, and again, there was a high degree of stated situational awareness.

There is, however, a danger in considering a vocal gun control proponent’s argument, however. They are, quite literally, arguing to make you defenseless. The ‘bait’, is that you will not need defense any more if all guns are taken away, but the sum of human history up to the invention of the firearm shows that theory to be in error. In fact, advent of the firearm helps ensure females are safer than they ever have been in history, as the device relies on a chemical reaction (the cartridge going off), rather than physical strength, to project protective force.

How gun owners are perceived

It has been my experience that gun owners view the American population in two groups:

  1. People who want violence eliminated (but the means in which this is accomplished varies greatly).
  2. Criminals.

During this month long project, it became clear that anti-gun people view Americans in 3 categories:

  1. People who are anti-gun and therefore want violence eliminated.
  2. Pro-gun people who are alright with violence, or are themselves criminals waiting to happen.
  3. Criminals.

This attitude was prevalent throughout the project, with gun owners sometimes outright vilified. One post even stated “another good guy with a gun, until he wasn’t” regarding an assaultive encounter under discussion.

I see this as the biggest divide on this issue. To the anti-gunner, the 2A is not really a right, it’s a road block to imposing their preference. It must be questioned, marginalized, scrutinized, and the founding fathers’ intent on it must be doubted. This is the only way it can be eroded. Then, they will have their way.

Until then, pro-gunners are apparently one step away from becoming criminals.

I, for one, will continue to see American’s in the 2-category model I first mentioned, and I will continue to reject and vehemently oppose the notion that gun owners are violence proponents simply by virtue of employing a means of protection.

The obligatory NRA bashing

This is the time honored tradition of the anti-gunner, but also represents one of the biggest wins this project offered. The topic started with the usual “NRA wants dead babies” statements. Not put out there as fact, but rather that the NRA is complicit in every shooting occurring in the USA.

Fortunately, there were many pro-2A people who were able to shed some reason on it. Some of these points were:

  • Issues you (anti-gunners) are for have lobbies. Why do you not oppose them? Are lobbies evil or not?
  • Why do you feel the NRA is racist? (Apparently Ted Nugent’s opinions translate to the entirety of the organization.)
  • Who is the NRA made up of? (Answer: Between 5 and 10 million Americans willing to open their wallet and their junk mail boxes to support their cause).
  • For your causes, you (anti-gunners) get corporate support (such as Soros funded protests). Why is it that the NRA getting corporate support from related industry members vilified?

As I mentioned, I felt this was out biggest ‘win’ in the discussion. It became very clear that the answer to “Why is the NRA vilified” is “Because they are effective.” Based on the responses of many centrist viewpoints in the group, they felt the NRA and its members were unfairly targeted and vilified for supporting their cause.

Gun owners should have to ____________

I mentioned this one in last month’s post, and it remained prevalent throughout the month long project. The restrictions proposed, and the solutions offered seemed to largely revolve around this format.  ‘Solutions’ varied from carrying extra liability insurance (ensuring gun rights are only for the wealthy), to mandatory safety training (enabling anti-gun areas to impose very difficult testing), to waiting periods, to more invasive background checks, to even getting clearance from a psychologist, the solution was clear: gun owners must bear the brunt of freedom infringement for the mere feeling of safety in others.

One of the moderator’s favorite participants had an op-ed piece published in his local paper, suggesting that liability insurance be required for gun owners. It was heartening to find his op-ed received a near-90% disapproval to his ill-thought suggestions.

Built-in bias

The program was moderated such that only a few new topics were introduced each day, and conversation swirled around those. During this month, a homeowner used an AR-15 to stop multiple people invading his home. This link was rejected as a talking point. The same day, another gun control school walk out occurred, where one student was shot in the ankle. This article was rushed through to the top of the line and published.

The AR-15 link was rejected ‘because we already know guns like this can be used defensively’. But, don’t we already know school walkouts occur? Don’t we already know sometimes someone in a large group suffers injury?

While the conversation was free on each topic, the conversation was indeed steered by what topics were brought up.

Conclusion

I’ve come away with a somewhat hopeful feeling: That truth, logic, safety, and true freedom lie on the side of the pro-gun community. We rely on our training to protect us during an altercation, and the justice system to follow up. The anti-gun side relies on the justice system upfront to make them safe, but their disarmament goals ensure that failures within the justice system will continue to harm peaceable Americans.

Follow the RULES!

djalley 08May2018

This morning the Detroit News has yet another report of a man negligently (negligently not accidentally) discharging his pistol with fatal results.  The details are sparse but what we are told is that he was cleaning his pistol, then in the process of showing it to his wife discharged it right into his chest.  Of all the stupid ways to die…

If I understand this right, he was cleaning his pistol while it was loaded.  Then managed to, in showing the pistol to his wife, point it at his chest and actuate the trigger.  It is at this point that I want to reiterate the 4 BASIC rules of safe gun handling:

  1. ALWAYS TREAT EVERY FIREARM AS IF IT WERE LOADED.
  2. NEVER POINT A FIREARM AT SOMETHING YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO DESTROY.
  3. KEEP YOUR FINGER OFF THE TRIGGER UNTIL READY TO FIRE.
  4. BE SURE OF YOUR TARGET AND WHAT IS BEHIND IT.

These rules are all you need to safely use a firearm, yet so many people forget them, never learn them or disregard them.  When that happens we have people shooting themselves in the chest unintentionally.

This was a needless death, but let us not let the moment pass without reflection on how you can learn from his mistake.  While the above rules deal with how to safely operate a firearm, they don’t specifically speak to how to safely clean one.  With that in mind I offer my humble advice for your consideration. The first step to safely cleaning your firearm is to MAKE SURE ITS UNLOADED!!!  Remove the magazine, open the cylinder, open the bolt, lock the action open, do whatever you need to do on your firearm to get access to the chamber so you can visually AND physically inspect it!  If there is something there STOP! REMOVE IT! Then proceed to break down your firearm according to the owner’s manual. If you want to take it a step further, clean your firearm in a room or area free of live ammo.  You do this and the worst thing that can happen to you while cleaning your firearm is dropping it on your foot.

Once your firearm is clean refer to the 4 cardinal rules of safe gun handling and you will never appear in the news like the poor fellow above.  Stay safe, have fun, & concentrate on the front sight!

Post by Berge Avesian, Keep & Bear LLC

The Las Vegas Shooting: I’m worried and what can I do to protect myself?

djalley 02Oct2017

Just as we were about to hit “Send” on this month’s newsletter, the news feeds started reporting the Las Vegas shooting incident. At the time we write this, there are an estimated 50 deceased and 200 injured. Word such as “Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their loved ones” are important to say, but it feels a hollow and empty gesture compared to the magnitude of loss these people must be experiencing.

As we learn more about the incident, we will hear the same things we have always heard. Some officials will call to disarm everyone… Some will call for the ‘assault rifle’ to finally be banned, and some will call for a time of reflection before any rash decisions are made. But, what everyone is really saying is “I’m worried and what can I do to protect myself?”.  And in reality, this is the best question we can ask. Here’s how K&B responds to this:

Situational awareness:

Always be aware. It sounds like you’re on duty 24/7 if you try this, but it really does become second nature, and once a person becomes practiced at it, takes little or no time to enact. Where are the exits? Where are access doors? Where is cover? Where is concealment? Where might a bad guy approach from? What might happen here?

In all, we are creating a library in our head to enact various mitigations. Ducking for cover, getting away, having to stay and fight, etc.

Even well trained citizens might never have thought about bullets raining down from above, and this is part of what is scaring everyone. Our situational awareness must be 3 dimensional.

Overcome normalcy bias:

You know that door marked “Employees only” or “Authorized personnel only”? In times of emergency, go through that door. The stupid words on the stupid door no longer apply to you or anyone you care about. If going through that door gets you our of line of sight and to a place of cover/concealment, you take it. You do what it takes to stay alive.

Remember that private security or ushers or whatever will be undergoing the same transitions out of normalcy bias as you. They may be in the mode of “preserve order” or “continue enforcing policy”. In short, the commands of these relatively untrained people no longer apply to you. Get to safety for yourself as quickly as possible and with as little harm to others as necessary.

This may sound incomprehensible, but even in the Sept 11 World Trade Center attack, there were guards telling people to return to their desks, that there was no need to evacuate. This was normalcy bias in action, and it cost people their lives.

Having a plan and enacting a plan:

Always have a plan. Now that we are aware of our surroundings and factors in our environment, and now that we are aware of how normalcy bias can restrict our decisions and actions, we can make a plan that might not include it. Enjoying a meal at a restaurant? Get seated near a back exit, kitchen area, or other escape route that might be different than the front doors. Enjoying a concert? Maybe you enjoy it from an area a bit closer to the emergency exit. Or maybe you know that those steel barricades are easily jumped and lead to a parking lot full of concealment options.

 

In short, train yourself to see what options there really are. Train yourself to act quickly and decisively once Bad Things are afoot, and train yourself and loved ones to execute your plan quickly. Train as if it were a matter of life and death. Because sadly, it may one day be.