Defense Against a Shooter

Date: Weds, 23 Mar 2005

I just finished reading a front page story in the Washington Post about the terrible school shooting in Minnesota.

It’s hard to even grasp what was going through the minds of the killer or his victims.  A mass shooting defies explanation or commentary, so I won’t pretend to make sense of it.

One part of the article stood out to me though, as strongly as if it had been underlined.

When the shooter burst into a classroom a young girl, 15 years old, was sharpening her pencil.  As the door flew open one of her classmates yelled for her to get under a desk.  He then laid down in front of her.

He was fatally shot.

I can only imagine that the time between the door opening and the young man getting shot must have been less than 30 seconds.  The circumstances that led to the victim going to the floor included noise, terror, seeing others shot, concern for his classmate, overwhelming confusion about what to do.

Going to the floor was probably a default action.  Hit the deck.

I remember reading that the victims of the San Ysidro McDonalds shooting were told to lay down on the floor by the shooter – and he proceeded to walk among them, on and off for over an hour, picking victims and reloading.

I don’t mean to second guess the victims of tragedy or to claim I would do other than just what they did.  None of us can really know.  But laying on the floor is a bad idea.

In a sense, the floor is a second location.   Remember rule number three?  And victims go there out of fear of injury.  Remember rule number four?

The five rules of survival tell us to immediately dive out a window and never mind the stitches.  Or run for the door and figure we may get shot in the back or legs or whatever.  Doing this could save more lives than our own.  When others see us bolt they may snap out of the paralysis fear has imposed.  Some,  maybe many, will follow.

If you want to know the other rules, you don’t need to buy anything from me – just go through my newsletter archives.  The rules are there, with explanations, and they’re free.

As I’ve said before, when most of us pass on, it will be from the accumulated results of stress, because stress lowers our resistance to disease and lowers our ability to self-heal.  With that in mind, regular exercise and eating whole foods gives us more practical “protection” against harm than martial arts.

But random violence is a different deal.  To survive it, we need to know the rules and make our critical decisions in advance, and accept them – diving through glass and all.

I’d like to put the five rules of survival into an eBook.  It will be free and available to anyone with a computer and an internet connection.  I’ll see that it’s easy to download and pass on to others.  Before I do that though, I need to gauge the interest level.

If you want a copy, just reply to this email so I know to get you one.  If there are specific things you think I should include beyond the 5 Rules of Survival, please share your thoughts with me.

Remember the recent victims.  And also remember that life’s good so train and live like you mean it,

Rob LaPointe