Survive A Shooting

So there you are, sitting peacefully in a "gun free" zone, minding your own business. Suddenly, someone with criminal intent, taking advantage of the fact that this is a gun free zone so he can operate without threat to himself, opens fire.

How do you get out of that alive?

The fact is, criminals don't obey the law. Duh! So they don't care whether or not a zone has been officially declared "gun free." They carry guns because they intend to use them in criminal activity. If you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, you end up a victim. End of story.

Except that really ought to be the beginning of the story, not the end. This is where we ask ourselves why law-abiding citizens are denied the right to defend themselves against the lawless. The Second Amendment clearly gives citizens the right to bear arms, so what gives with these "gun free" zones that effectively deny us our Constitutional rights?

That question should be the beginning of the story. How did we get to this point? And how do we change it?

But I digress. Actually, I want to touch on the subject of how you can save your own life when some lunatic opens fire in a crowd. There are strategies you can use to give yourself a better chance of survival.

The first strategy is to shoot the bad guy — but since, in this example, you're a law-abiding citizen and are in a "gun free" zone, that one is off the list.

As an aside, let me say that one option is to avoid "gun free" zones. If a building is so designated, let whomever is in charge of that place know that you don't feel safe there, so you're going to take your business elsewhere. If enough people boycotted the "gun free" zones, there might be a shift toward a more sane policy.

Okay, back to the business at hand.

If you hear gunfire, start moving. A moving target is harder to hit than one that is standing still. And the best kind of movement is erratic, unpredictable, bobbing and weaving, shifting directions, ducking for cover, and putting distance and hard objects between you and the shooter.

An alternative is to rush the shooter, preferably while his attention is distracted in another direction. This only works if you're already close to the shooter and you don't have to climb over a bunch of obstacles to get to him. If you can get to him in two heartbeats, take him down hard, get control of the weapon and strip it out of his hands. What you do with him after that is up to you, but leaving him without eyesight, functional limbs, consciousness, or the ability to breathe is something to consider.

This is, after all, your life or his. Think about it — if you live, you can carry on doing good things in the world — if he lives, he's likely to do this bad stuff again, perhaps killing innocent women and children.

Where's the justice or the mercy in that?