View Full Version : Colleges Offer Improvised Weapons Training to fight active shooters.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080826/ap_on_re_us/campus_shooting_classes;_ylt=AtGzs6tms32nDlXQOlUbhzpH2ocA
This is a small step in the right direction, but it falls short. It is very difficult to move towards an enemy gun under fire. i'd like to see arms authorized for faculty and school staff immediately.
Why should the rights of Americans stop at the school house door? That doesn't make any sense.
In Oregon students are allowed to carry with a CHL at the school I attended, and it works just fine. :drillsgt:
Batesmotel 08-26-2008, 17:32 How about letting students carry a gun on campus? Lets see gunman with a shotgun. Do I want to defend my self with a laptop or a handgun?
13bullets 08-26-2008, 17:34 Q: What stops active shooters?
A: Active shooters. :50cal:
hardballing 08-26-2008, 17:40 Can't open the link as I am on work PC's and that is verbotten but...
I do remember reading in the last couple of years about programs where in essence a shooter would be "bum-rushed" by ALL in the room, screaming, throwing chairs, books, bags, whatever at the person until he was swarmed and smothered. Sad substitute to being able to properly defend yourself and others.
Totally agree that this is not nearly as effective as a trained shooter but...
LOTS better than a bean in the head while curled into the fetal position.
Jes sayin is all.
13bullets 08-26-2008, 17:45 KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Hundreds of colleges across the nation have purchased a training program that teaches professors and students not to take campus threats lying down but to fight back with any "improvised weapon," from a backpack to a laptop computer.
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The program — which includes a video showing a gunman opening fire in a packed classroom — urges them to be ready to respond to a shooter by taking advantage of the inherent strength in numbers.
It reflects a new response at colleges and universities where grisly memories of the campus shootings at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University are still fresh.
"Look at your environment through the lens of survival," said Domenick Brouillette, who administered the course at Metropolitan Community College, which serves more than 20,000 students. "Survivors prepare themselves both mentally and emotionally to do what it takes. It might involve life-threatening risk. You may do something you never thought you were capable of doing."
Nearly 300 professors at Metropolitan Community College were shown the video as part of a training exercise before the first day of classes on this downtown campus. The training, produced by the Center for Personal Protection and Safety, a for-profit firm based in Spokane, Wash., is also available for the school's students.
The training drills teachers and students in a "survival mindset," said Randy Spivey, a former U.S. Department of Defense hostage negotiator who is executive director of the center. The center's roster includes retired FBI agents and others with federal law enforcement experience.
"There are two extremes. On the one hand is paranoia, and on the other is oblivion," he said. "We're just trying to get people to keep this on their radar."
The training discourages cowering in a corner or huddling together in fear, Brouillette emphasized at the Kansas City session.
Instead, Metropolitan Community College faculty members were taught to be aware of their surroundings and to think of common classroom objects — such as laptops and backpacks — as "improvised weapons."
The program has been bought by nearly 500 colleges, which tailor the company's safety messages — laid out in instructional videos and other training guides — to craft localized violence prevention programs. Spivey expects that by year's end that number will have grown to about 1,000 schools.
Schools may provide the training to students as well as staff, as at Metropolitan, or limit it to instructors or security personnel.
Campus safety experts interviewed by The Associated Press said they are not aware of any similar survival training courses marketed specifically to college campuses.
"It's a dark subject," Brouillette said. "But we can't say 'It's never going to happen again.' It's 'When is it going to happen?' And we have to be prepared to survive that."
The sort of aggressive survival response cited by Brouillette troubles school violence researcher Loren Coleman, a retired University of Southern Maine professor.
Showing students violent images of school shootings could trigger post-traumatic stress or other reactions that resident advisers, graduate assistants and similarly untrained workers would be unequipped to handle, Coleman said.
And the techniques shown in instructional videos such as "Shots Fired" could provide inspiration for troubled students considering their own acts of violence, Coleman suggested.
"You more or less are giving them a blueprint for how to avoid law enforcement," he said.
At the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, officials are looking for ways to incorporate the training as part of the school's "Alert Carolina" program. Campus police chief Jeff McCracken said the school may offer hands-on training to students and faculty, or simply post a link on the university Web site.
Despite the relative rarity of deadly violence on campus, colleges can no longer assume that they are immune from such problems, McCracken said.
"I do think it's important that we talk to our folks and give them some guidance on how to protect themselves and others," he said. "It's not something that 10 years ago we thought we'd be talking about. But unfortunately, it's something we need to do now."
Todd Bowdish, a Metropolitan Community College life sciences professor who participated in the recent training session, agreed that today's classroom climate requires extreme caution.
"It's a really basic thing," Bowdish said. "We have drills for fires and tornadoes. This is just another tool for the toolbox."
hardballing 08-26-2008, 17:48 The sort of aggressive survival response cited by Brouillette troubles school violence researcher Loren Coleman, a retired University of Southern Maine professor.
"
Me thinks Loren needs a set of big girl pants.
bchandler 08-26-2008, 18:03 I don't think many of today's students will be willing to gang up and throw their Macbooks, oversized sunglasses, or soy ventis at a gunman. It will be up solely to an armed student to end a threat like that.
rsagona1 08-26-2008, 18:26 Sorry, but if an active shooter comes in, call me a wuss, but I'm jumping out a window, running out, somehow to get away. Even if I fail, I'm going to try to LEAVE.
I don't see myself being John Wayne and running up there doing a roundhouse kick to the shooter.
I think when that situation happens, it would be too surreal. The loudness, the confusion, it would be chaos.
Sure, you default to your training. But you're really limited when you're unarmed.
I'm a college student. I'm always looking for exits and always run scenarios through my head. Most of those scenarios include me getting the hell out of there.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Hundreds of colleges across the nation have purchased a training program that teaches professors and students not to take campus threats lying down but to fight back with any "improvised weapon," from a backpack to a laptop computer.
ADVERTISEMENT
The program — which includes a video showing a gunman opening fire in a packed classroom — urges them to be ready to respond to a shooter by taking advantage of the inherent strength in numbers.
It reflects a new response at colleges and universities where grisly memories of the campus shootings at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University are still fresh.
"Look at your environment through the lens of survival," said Domenick Brouillette, who administered the course at Metropolitan Community College, which serves more than 20,000 students. "Survivors prepare themselves both mentally and emotionally to do what it takes. It might involve life-threatening risk. You may do something you never thought you were capable of doing."
Nearly 300 professors at Metropolitan Community College were shown the video as part of a training exercise before the first day of classes on this downtown campus. The training, produced by the Center for Personal Protection and Safety, a for-profit firm based in Spokane, Wash., is also available for the school's students.
The training drills teachers and students in a "survival mindset," said Randy Spivey, a former U.S. Department of Defense hostage negotiator who is executive director of the center. The center's roster includes retired FBI agents and others with federal law enforcement experience.
"There are two extremes. On the one hand is paranoia, and on the other is oblivion," he said. "We're just trying to get people to keep this on their radar."
The training discourages cowering in a corner or huddling together in fear, Brouillette emphasized at the Kansas City session.
Instead, Metropolitan Community College faculty members were taught to be aware of their surroundings and to think of common classroom objects — such as laptops and backpacks — as "improvised weapons."
The program has been bought by nearly 500 colleges, which tailor the company's safety messages — laid out in instructional videos and other training guides — to craft localized violence prevention programs. Spivey expects that by year's end that number will have grown to about 1,000 schools.
Schools may provide the training to students as well as staff, as at Metropolitan, or limit it to instructors or security personnel.
Campus safety experts interviewed by The Associated Press said they are not aware of any similar survival training courses marketed specifically to college campuses.
"It's a dark subject," Brouillette said. "But we can't say 'It's never going to happen again.' It's 'When is it going to happen?' And we have to be prepared to survive that."
The sort of aggressive survival response cited by Brouillette troubles school violence researcher Loren Coleman, a retired University of Southern Maine professor.
Showing students violent images of school shootings could trigger post-traumatic stress or other reactions that resident advisers, graduate assistants and similarly untrained workers would be unequipped to handle, Coleman said.
And the techniques shown in instructional videos such as "Shots Fired" could provide inspiration for troubled students considering their own acts of violence, Coleman suggested.
"You more or less are giving them a blueprint for how to avoid law enforcement," he said.
At the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, officials are looking for ways to incorporate the training as part of the school's "Alert Carolina" program. Campus police chief Jeff McCracken said the school may offer hands-on training to students and faculty, or simply post a link on the university Web site.
Despite the relative rarity of deadly violence on campus, colleges can no longer assume that they are immune from such problems, McCracken said.
"I do think it's important that we talk to our folks and give them some guidance on how to protect themselves and others," he said. "It's not something that 10 years ago we thought we'd be talking about. But unfortunately, it's something we need to do now."
Todd Bowdish, a Metropolitan Community College life sciences professor who participated in the recent training session, agreed that today's classroom climate requires extreme caution.
"It's a really basic thing," Bowdish said. "We have drills for fires and tornadoes. This is just another tool for the toolbox."
Yea, mass wave attachs have been very effective...
...at killing those in the mass wave. :dunno: :shocked:
Meh...allow students/staff/faculty to carry. End of problem.
Yea, mass wave attachs have been very effective...
...at killing those in the mass wave. :dunno: :shocked:
Didn't the Chinese try this during the Korean War?
I've never faced down a man with a gun. I've never been shot at, or attacked with a knife, or what-have-you. I'm purely speculating here. For all I know, put in a life or death situation, all my training (and even my carry gun, if I'm attacked when I've got it on me) will go out the window and I'll do nothing but pee myself. I can't say for sure, because I've never been there -- and I hope I never go there, to be honest.
I'd love it if I died of old age sixty years from now, and if I glanced at my nightstand the day before and said "Heh, why'd I ever get that Glock in the first place? Never used the thing for much but shooting paper."
But. Faced with an active shooter, disarmed and sitting on campus (where I'll be starting back up again with classes, to wrap up my degree, soon)...I'd rather take a bullet or two charging at the guy, starting the herd towards him to trample him, strangle him, and tear him apart...than just be another college kid who gets shot in the back while thirty or forty people try to fit through a one-person door, or while three or four hundred of us try to fit through hallways just to find the exits were chained shut or something.
If I've got to get shot at by a psychopath and if I've got to have it happen to me while I'm not allowed my carry weapon, I can only hope I'll at least go down sticking a pen in his eye or swinging my desk at his head. If enough of us take that approach, one person will lose to us eventually.
Until students and faculty can carry concealed weapons, I'm all for this sort of training/mindset. It beats the hell outta telling kids to just curl up and die.
glockeglock 08-26-2008, 19:33 Improvised weapons should be banned! They could be used to hurt someone! :upeyes:
Johnny45 08-26-2008, 19:35 "They" always said before not to fight back, what's changed?:whistling: Why not just allow CCW in colleges, that seems to work in Utah.
rock_jock 08-26-2008, 19:49 If the training teaches anything BUT the fact that the first few students to get close enough to have any effect are going to get shot, then its not realistic.
Besides, all the shooter has to do is dodge a few laptops and then he can begin shooting at will. Yes, its better than nothing, but a far cry from a gun.
13bullets 08-26-2008, 20:21 Besides, all the shooter has to do is dodge a few laptops and then he can begin shooting at will. Yes, its better than nothing, but a far cry from a gun.
Better than nothing!?!? I'm a straight married man, and I'd rather suck his c%*$ than throw an effin laptop at him and make myself target #1.
GTFO, like rsagona1 said.
I think teaching students to fight with improvised weapons is a GREAT idea.
I also think they should be given the option to carry a gun...but when it comes down to it, it only takes one person to bring down a guy with a gun in a room full of people. (yeah, I know it ain't that simple in real life, and I've never--and hopefully never will be--in a situation like that....
But in the long run, the numbers are always on the side of people who resist, compared to those who hit the floor and pray that they aren't the ones who get killed.
Clyde in CO 08-26-2008, 20:39 Didn't the Chinese try this during the Korean War?
Yes. And it worked.
Standing up, fighting, and dying is better than laying down, crying, and dying.
13bullets 08-26-2008, 20:43 Just to clarify, I am not advocating stay and pray.
Man up and run. :running::dog::horse::treadmill::outtahere:
AK_Stick 08-26-2008, 20:45 All that "training" is well and good eyewash for most.
The problem is, if someone does something they didn't train for, i.e. the first time they rush someone, and joe snuffy in the front row takes a round to the face, 99% of them are going to quit.
bchandler 08-26-2008, 23:05 Just a thought- what if a gunman burst into a classroom, you somehow ninja'd up on him and Chuck Norris'd him in the head, stole his weapon, and held him at gunpoint, and then when the cops get there they see YOU with the gun holding an "innocent bystander" hostage, and you get the charge. That would be horrible. Hopefully someone in class would vouch for you, but I don't think many people would be paying close attention in a shooting scenario.
agentl074 08-26-2008, 23:10 Why not just let LTCH'ers sign off on a liability form and let them carry?
Dragoon44 08-26-2008, 23:20 The best improvised survival tactic if you cannot be armed is grab the nearest whiny liberal and use them as a bullet shield.
:supergrin:
AK_Stick 08-26-2008, 23:22 Just a thought- what if a gunman burst into a classroom, you somehow ninja'd up on him and Chuck Norris'd him in the head, stole his weapon, and held him at gunpoint, and then when the cops get there they see YOU with the gun holding an "innocent bystander" hostage, and you get the charge. That would be horrible. Hopefully someone in class would vouch for you, but I don't think many people would be paying close attention in a shooting scenario.
I'm pretty sure if someone bursts in with a gun, alot of people are going to notice.
Just a thought- what if a gunman burst into a classroom, you somehow ninja'd up on him and Chuck Norris'd him in the head, stole his weapon, and held him at gunpoint, and then when the cops get there they see YOU with the gun holding an "innocent bystander" hostage, and you get the charge. That would be horrible. Hopefully someone in class would vouch for you, but I don't think many people would be paying close attention in a shooting scenario.
That is why you fill the guy full of lead, throw the empty gun, and sit quietly back in your seat, ready to take notes like nothing happened.
Caver 60 08-26-2008, 23:43 The best improvised survival tactic if you cannot be armed is grab the nearest whiny liberal and use them as a bullet shield.
:supergrin:
I almost spit orange juice all over my keyboard when I saw that post. Great logic Dragoon44. I like it. Keep it up,
JasonC8301 08-27-2008, 00:13 As outlined in above posts, the only way to fight an active shooter is with an active shooter.
I for one would run away and be swearing like a mofo because I know full well I could have been in a better position to fight if I had a firearm with me to go up against the active shooter. I am not saying I am willing to sit in a classroom with a interceptor vest with sapi plates, a kevlar helmet, a combat load of ammo and my M16/M9 combo but I just hate running away from a situation that will end in lives being lost, knowing I could have done something more than just run away or be the idiot to throw a book or laptop at a person gunning down students/faculty in a gun free zone.
Reading reports about these columbine and virginia tech shooting, liberals do not learn anything and the liberal policy makers have no fear because they are guarded by a detail of guys with guns (if Obama/Hillary want to take guns away, lets start with their Secret Service protective detail (much respect to the SS agents risking their lives to save lives but why shouldn't I also have that choice to protect my life?) These shooters lacked experience, high powered weapons, training, but had a high desire and motivation to kill. I have no motivation or desire to face a gunman in a gun free school environment with a book and laptop. That mindset is present because policy makers and liberals expect society to be a utopia and have no whack jobs/insane people that have a deep seeded desire to take lives for pleasure.
This whole mindset deal of bum rushing the shooter is a step in the right direction but far from a solution. Do you guys/gals want your son/daughter to be fighting a gunman intent on taking lives with a less than ideal tool? I know I would not.
costanza187 08-27-2008, 06:39 I tend to think that if one is going to engage in a gun fight, it would be best to have a gun.
Deradius 08-27-2008, 06:47 Critias and Ender have nailed it.
In the absence of concealed carry on campus, teaching students to fight with improvised weapons at least presents to a larger propotion of the student body an option or set of options they may not have been aware of.
However, trying to neutralize an armed mass shooter with classroom miscellany seems like a dismal prospect indeed.
There is a reason why IDPA matches don't typically start off with you armed with only a hole punch, a man purse, and a bottle of hair gel and facing off against a target at twenty yards.
"Stand by!"
glockeglock 08-27-2008, 07:53 Critias and Ender have nailed it.
In the absence of concealed carry on campus, teaching students to fight with improvised weapons at least presents to a larger propotion of the student body an option or set of options they may not have been aware of.
+1 It also changes the mindset to one of "fight," instead of "submit" or "give up." This is a step in the right direction. Some of those who become convinced "fight" is the right answer will most certainly start looking for better tools for the job. It also similarily changes the groupthink to that of "fight" becoming a more acceptable view, and ultimately, "better tools" a very reasonable and logical extension of the view.
Sorry, but if an active shooter comes in, call me a wuss, but I'm jumping out a window, running out, somehow to get away. Even if I fail, I'm going to try to LEAVE.
I don't see myself being John Wayne and running up there doing a roundhouse kick to the shooter.
I think when that situation happens, it would be too surreal. The loudness, the confusion, it would be chaos.
Sure, you default to your training. But you're really limited when you're unarmed.
I'm a college student. I'm always looking for exits and always run scenarios through my head. Most of those scenarios include me getting the hell out of there.
Last semester we had a kid flash a gun on campus and this led to many debates in all the classrooms. I got into it pretty good in one class because my professor told us that if there was a shooter going around killing people we would lock the door and wait for police. I was surprised at how many people were ok with sitting in a class where half of the classroom is windows that go from the floor to the ceiling. Then I spoke up....
me: If there is a shooter I don't care what anyone says I'm running to my truck and leaving as fast as I can.
prof: Everyone will stay in the classroom.
me: I will take the chance of running to my truck rather than sitting here in a room that is half glass waiting to die.
prof: No. If there is a shooter everyone will stay in the class and I will lock the door. I will not allow anyone to leave you will be forced to stay in the room.
me: You can try to stop me....but you wont.
Then a few other people in the class had the light click in their head about the room being half glass....So some people started to back what I was saying and the professor dropped it.
wtchdr4011 08-27-2008, 09:20 MY grandfather took his rifle to school as a child. They kept them in the coat closet. After school they would hunt on the way home.
So wait... Let me get this straight. It's ok for college students and faculty to use weapons to save their lives, just not effective weapons. ALRIGHTYTHEN!
Believe it or not, I think that this is progress. It doesn't take a large leap to go from "hit him with the large history textbook I carry everyday" to "why should I carry a big textbook when this smaller lighter 1911 will be more effective?"
"It's a dark subject," Brouillette said. "But we can't say 'It's never going to happen again.' It's 'When is it going to happen?' And we have to be prepared to survive that."
The sort of aggressive survival response cited by Brouillette troubles school violence researcher Loren Coleman, a retired University of Southern Maine professor.
Me thinks Loren needs a set of big girl pants.
She needs to be on the wrong end of one of these little shootouts and see what it feels like to wonder or not if you are going to die, if the police will get there in time, wondering if there was something you could do to stop it before you get killed. but you want to know something a little ironic, at least to me? I just attended basic police academy (for the second time in my life) and the students aren't allowed to carry guns at school except when they are at the range, and on graduation day.
First off I support CCW by the students. It is the most effective countermeasure.
This reminds me however of hijacking defensive mindset after 9/11. I mean if you even moved close to the cockpit 10 passengers kept an eye on you and 20 would have beat you to death if you tried to open the door to the cockpit.
Something to be said for immediate response from a determined amount of people stopping a single shooter.
I'm totally against this idea of students fighting back. School should be a place of thinking, learning and sharing ideas, not violence.:shame:
"Now class....(tap, tap, tap) Class....(tap, tap, tap) CLASS!!!!!! PAY ATTENTION!!!!....."
"Never bring a laptop to Gunfight!"
"Class dismissed!"
srg
cloudbuster 08-27-2008, 12:13 Can't open the link as I am on work PC's and that is verbotten but...
I do remember reading in the last couple of years about programs where in essence a shooter would be "bum-rushed" by ALL in the room, screaming, throwing chairs, books, bags, whatever at the person until he was swarmed and smothered. Sad substitute to being able to properly defend yourself and others.
Totally agree that this is not nearly as effective as a trained shooter but...
LOTS better than a bean in the head while curled into the fetal position.
Jes sayin is all.
Yes, those are known as "human wave" tactics that are used by countries that don't place any value on the lives of individuals as long as the collective goals are met. Countries like Leftist Academialand.
If I was in college I'd take the class just so I could incredulously ask the instructor, "You seriously want me to charge a gunman armed with only an improvised bludgeon? Funny, but that sounds a lot less safe and effective than me just shooting him."
agentl074 08-27-2008, 13:37 As outlined in above posts, the only way to fight an active shooter is with an active shooter.
I for one would run away and be swearing like a mofo because I know full well I could have been in a better position to fight if I had a firearm with me to go up against the active shooter. I am not saying I am willing to sit in a classroom with a interceptor vest with sapi plates, a kevlar helmet, a combat load of ammo and my M16/M9 combo but I just hate running away from a situation that will end in lives being lost, knowing I could have done something more than just run away or be the idiot to throw a book or laptop at a person gunning down students/faculty in a gun free zone.
Reading reports about these columbine and virginia tech shooting, liberals do not learn anything and the liberal policy makers have no fear because they are guarded by a detail of guys with guns (if Obama/Hillary want to take guns away, lets start with their Secret Service protective detail (much respect to the SS agents risking their lives to save lives but why shouldn't I also have that choice to protect my life?) These shooters lacked experience, high powered weapons, training, but had a high desire and motivation to kill. I have no motivation or desire to face a gunman in a gun free school environment with a book and laptop. That mindset is present because policy makers and liberals expect society to be a utopia and have no whack jobs/insane people that have a deep seeded desire to take lives for pleasure.
This whole mindset deal of bum rushing the shooter is a step in the right direction but far from a solution. Do you guys/gals want your son/daughter to be fighting a gunman intent on taking lives with a less than ideal tool? I know I would not.
Good comment!
Texas357 08-27-2008, 14:18 Improvising is for unforeseeable incidents.
Preparation is for predictable incidents.
"active shooter at a school" now falls into the "predictable" category.
mike7465 08-27-2008, 15:24 Just a thought- what if a gunman burst into a classroom, you somehow ninja'd up on him and Chuck Norris'd him in the head, stole his weapon, and held him at gunpoint, and then when the cops get there they see YOU with the gun holding an "innocent bystander" hostage, and you get the charge. That would be horrible. Hopefully someone in class would vouch for you, but I don't think many people would be paying close attention in a shooting scenario.
Chuck Norris'd him in the head....
:rofl:
hill billy 08-27-2008, 16:01 Why not just allow CCW in colleges, that seems to work in Utah.
I fully agree with this and wonder on the outcome of a shooting in a Utah school would be at this point.
I know its better than a laptop but I'm stuck with one of these while on campus....
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a295/rmc85/crop1.jpg
When I could have one of these on my side...
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a295/rmc85/crop4-1.jpg
hhhmmmmmm....which would you want?
I know its better than a laptop but I'm stuck with one of these while on campus....
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a295/rmc85/crop1.jpg
I might rather have the laptop. You can go from a distance and get some good speed behind it. :supergrin:
I might rather have the laptop. You can go from a distance and get some good speed behind it. :supergrin:
oh man...now I have a whole new set of questions.
do I get a heavy laptop so I can get some good ft pounds behind (like a .45) or go with the new smaller and light laptops so I can get some speed (9mm).....OR maybe I'll get one thats between the two (.40) and have the best all around man stopper.
oh man...now I have a whole new set of questions.
do I get a heavy laptop so I can get some good ft pounds behind (like a .45) or go with the new smaller and light laptops so I can get some speed (9mm).....OR maybe I'll get one thats between the two (.40) and have the best all around man stopper.
Caliber Wars 2.0
HP vs. Dell vs. Mac?
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