What could I do in the face of a mass shooter? I don't own a gun. I've never even fired one. The idea that I could out-shoot a committed killer is a myth anyway. And while I'm big and strong at 6-foot-3 and 200 pounds, I'm not quick on my feet. I can't dodge a bullet, but I can't wrestle one either.Just as irrational as the distinction between "likely" and "unlikely" is the distinction between "difficult" and "impossible." You've reasoned that in the unlikely event of a shooter, it is impossible that you could do anything about it. Experience and evidence shows that this is wrong, and furthermore, that it's the way out of your problem.
We take precautions against many dangers more remote than encountering an active shooter. Sometimes it only makes sense to do this if we wrap a bunch of them together, so that the probability begins to justify the expense of the precaution. I have a Homeowner's Insurance policy that exists to manage a bundle of many unlikely (but expensive) dangers associated with being a homeowner. It would be silly to buy a policy for any of those risks by itself, as all of them are quite unlikely. Taken together, though, they justify the minor annual expense of purchasing the policy.
So if you don't want to carry a gun and learn to use it accurately, OK. You're free to make that choice. But consider bundling the active shooter threat with a number of health-related threats associated with being a big guy who isn't "quick on his feet." Join a jujitsu club, or take Krav Maga, or something similar. The physical exercise will manage a bunch of other threats, and you'll also develop a much increased capacity to escape in the event of an active shooter -- perhaps even to overcome and triumph, if you happen to be in just the right place at the right time.
Like those guys on the French train. Heroes, we say, but the day before they were heroes they were just guys on vacation. American guys. Guys like you, if you choose to be like them.
Indeed. Those train riders weren't carrying. They didn't look like (based on absolutely no information at all) they'd had any particular unarmed combat training, either.
ReplyDeleteThey were armed with a mindset, though. That's the critical difference.
On that train...incident...there's another aspect that's been little publicized. Many of the other passengers on that car booked for the exits as soon as they could. But a critical subset of those heading for the way out tarried to yank the emergency cord that sounded the alarm (throughout the train? Only to the engineer's cabin?) and that called for the engineers to hit the brakes (the connection between the cord and the train's brakes was unclear in the one reference I saw on this part). The point in this paragraph, though, is that even those who'd written off their own ability to do anything about the crisis...did something useful about it.
The VOX guy clearly hasn't internalized the fact that losing is a frame of mind.
Eric Hines
So do you want to be shot cowering in a corner or go down fighting? Any chance is better than none.
ReplyDeleteE Hines is correct- it is the mindset- and the mind IS the weapon, everything else is just an extension.
Sheep and peasants aren't allowed to be armed with certain weapons.
ReplyDeleteThis has become self obvious by now to those in the Know.
https://ymarsakar.wordpress.com/2015/09/20/sexual-culture-and-the-leftist-alliance/
ReplyDeleteAlso Larkin's TED lecture is there and it's connected to this subject of "mind over matter" or the human brain being the best weapon in our arsenal.
Slaves of Islam and the Leftist alliance, you all don't have to worry about this thing: masters got it covered, as usual.
I think a lot of this comes form the myth that the 'shooter' is some quasi-superhuman unstoppable force. They are human, just like you and me, and therefore, fallible, and subject to being distracted, making errors, and being flustered under pressure. It's odd for someone to write this right after a perfect demonstration of the fact that unarmed people can take down a shooter if they are determined.
ReplyDeleteI do believe that Spencer Stone was said to have an interest in and experience in MMA techniques, so he was perhaps prepared even beyond his training as an Airman.