Active Shooter Safety Guide -PSA

America was shocked, again, with mass shootings over the last two weeks. Mass murders in Gilroy at the famous Garlic festival, then El Paso, Texas, and finally in Dayton, Ohio. All told thirty-five were killed – 3 in Gilroy, 22 in El Paso, and 10 in Dayton.

Even by American standards the horrific violence was shocking even though it was familiar and part of “normal” American life.

So far this year there are 283 dead and 1037 injured by mass shootings alone. The most recent ones were fueled by racist words tweeted and advertised by the White House. Donald Trump has run over 2000 Facebook ads this year that include the word “Invasion” in regards to immigrants arriving on our southern border. Never mind there are over a half million immigrants from Canada and Europe who have overstayed their visa, the White House and media exclusively focus on Brown and Black immigrants.

Your Facebook family who are conservative, older, and white, are seeing those racist ads.

American mass murders are so common two countries recently issued travel warnings for their citizens who visit America.

The El Paso mass murder is the 7th most deadly in U.S. history, after Las Vegas (58), Pulse nightclub (49), Virginia Tech (32), Sandy Hook (27), Sutherland Springs (26), Luby’s Cafe (23), El Paso (22) San Ysidro (21), University of Texas (18), Parkland (17), San Bernardino (14.)

There are so many mass shootings Americans forget some of the worst in history. America has so many mass murders that it is common for conspiracists to loudly proclaim many of the murders are staged or “false flags” designed to achieve a number of vague goals that are too many to list here but mostly center around government/military takeover of everyday living.

That we disregard the death of citizens, babies and kids even, as a fake event with crisis actors is beyond detestable and is what finally got Alex Jones kicked off most online sites and hauled into court as Sandy Hook families who lost loved one sued him over his broadcast lies. Under oath he finally admitted he said things for entertainment and that he himself did not believe his own words – yet his millions of followers still do.

Words matter.

With a record 291 mass shootings this year, clearly whatever the nation is doing to prevent mass murders isn’t working. Tip: The nation isn’t doing anything to prevent mass shootings.

President Clinton signed the Assault Weapons ban in 1994 and mass shootings decreased by 43%, and then George W. Bush allowed the ban to expire and since then mass shootings have increased over 230%. There have been multiple attempts to get the law back on the books but Mitch McConnell refuses to allow a vote on the matter that 80% of Americans agree should be in effect, along with background checks, age limits, and felon restrictions.

One of the first acts Donald Trump signed was to allow mentally ill Americans access to buy any type of gun/weapon, something the NRA wanted in their push to get everyone armed, including teachers and children. So when you hear republicans say, incorrectly, that mass shootings are a mental health issue, ask why then did they eliminate the ban on mentally unstable people from buying assault weapons?

Americans are being slaughtered by mass murderers who are almost exclusively white men heavily armed with weapons that are designed to kill many humans as quickly as possible – ten were killed in under a minute in Dayton. They are angry even though they have an entire country at their disposal and that caters to their every whim, but they angry at diversity, pissed at immigration, and mad about equality.

When you’re used to privilege equality seems like oppression.

Despite the national shock, outrage, and call for something to be done, elected officials respond with their usual empty “Thoughts and prayers” and admonition not to make the current killing “Political” and warning that “Now is not the time” to discuss mass murderers.

We have definitive proof that “Thoughts and prayers” do not prevent mass shootings. All mass shootings are political and it is beyond past time to discuss and enact sensible solutions like literally every other country on the planet has successfully enacted.

We don’t have to live this way and in fact there are clear actions that have been taken around the world to prevent or even eliminate mass shootings. Right now, America is the only country in the world that consistently suffers from mass shootings and America is the only country that takes no action as a result of shootings, beyond lip service, the aforementioned “thoughts and prayers” and plenty of editorials and yelling matches on cable news.

With that said, here is a guide culled from various government websites on how to protect yourself should you find yourself in the midst of active mass shooter event.

1. Be aware of your surroundings, and if you see something, say something
   1. Your location can include: high schools, open air concerts, church, synagoge, mosque, nightclub, municipal building, community college, navy yard, grade school, movie theatre, immigration center, army fort, Indian reservation, restaurant, office, bar, post office, apartment complex, Walmart, Target, Amazon, big box stores, freeway, walking down the street, or in general just be in America.
2. Make a Plan
   1. Know where the exits are and plan your escape route
   2. Scout out places you can hide
   3. Remember what I learned growing up in Oakland: Bullets have no names.
   4. Unfortunately the exit is the entrance for the shooter so your best bet is he runs out of ammunition and/or stops to reload giving you a chance to run.
   5. But most likely he will have a magazine that holds about 100 bullets and have extra ammunition and smaller guns.
   6. There’s really nothing you can do other than hope he leaves, kills himself, or is finally subdued by police (unlike the Parkland school police officer who remained outside the school, afraid to go in, and allowed dozens of kids to be killed while he hid in the school yard).
3. Escape
   1. Let’s say you are exiting a Walmart and you pass by a fella who is a member of the well-armed militia armed with a Ar-15 or similar weapon as he enters Walmart, what should you do? Well, if you’re in an open carry state, like Texas, you can’t do anything because carrying one or even multiple weapons of mass destruction is perfectly legal. So a citizen out to buy cheap goods imported from China, cannot distinguish passing a mass murderer versus passing Joe the mechanic who wants to show off his Ar-15 to make up for his deficiencies elsewhere in his life or his body.
4. Hide
   1. But not in groups because you are an easier target. So, get away from your fellow citizen and/or family member and save yourself, the government says. Don’t do what the couple in El Paso did as they both covered their two month old baby to protect him from the murderer. Both parents were killed but the baby survived.
   2. The shooter isn’t worried about a door, table, or the toothpaste aisle as their bullets shot from an Ar-15 or similar weapon travels three times faster than a handgun bullet, and the shooter can be less accurate but cause more damage because the bullet is traveling at 2,000 to 3,000 feet per second.
5. Fight
   1. But only as a last resort. So the Karate, Capoeira, Hot Yoga, 9-Round boxing, and wrestling you do with your kid could pay off right here. As long as they or you can outrun those bullets, which we know you can’t, and make your way to the shooter to take him out.
6. Use Your Gun
   1. If you are a gun owner and are carrying at the time of the shooting, try shooting the mass murderer. You may only get one shot because he will be able to unload approximately 87 rounds per minute, or 21 in fifteen seconds. Your Glock is no match, no matter how much training you get.
      1. The standard Glock magazine will hold 10-12 bullets each. You can fire with some accuracy at close range/a few feet, which is what handguns are made for. The Ar-15? It can spray an area from 500 yards with hundreds of bullets in a minute.
      2. It is worth noting in El Paso/Walmart mass murder in Texas, there were many gun owners who had their weapons on them in the store during the shooting. Not one got a shot off or even attempted to. Why? Because a handgun is no match for an automatic firing machine. There was even a military veteran, armed, in the store and he did what he is trained to do: save lives by pulling them out of danger after recognizing the situation of being confronted with a Ar-15 type weapon versus his handgun. You, Mr. and Ms. gun owner are not as skilled as a member of the military and even if you are, your lone handgun is useless in this scenario.
      3. There are no, zero, nada, none – documented stories where a “good guy/woman with a gun killed a mass murderer while in the act. It is a myth.
7. Ar-15 effect on the human body.
   1. Ar-15 bullets will enter a human body with such velocity it won’t just lodge in an organ as a handgun bullet typically will. Ar-15 bullets will explode through you and will leave a hole the size of an orange as it exits your body. The effect of its speed and accompanying shockwave will splatter your insides in a trail following the bullet’s exit from your body. Your insides will show the effects of the speed and power of an object that entered and exited so fast it left a shock wave that adds to the internal/external damage. Many doctors have said that Americans need to see the mangled destroyed bodies of citizens killed by these weapons so the carnage can be properly understood. It’s not like TV or the movies.

Guns will not be banned in America anytime in the near future. There are more guns in America than that are people. However, 80% of all guns are owned by 3% of Americans. Mostly men. Mostly white men.

If you are a woman and there is a handgun in your home and you have a partner, that gun’s usage will most likely be against you. Women are more likely to be killed with a handgun used by someone they know, most often a husband or partner. There is a direct link between toxic masculinity + handgun ownership + gun violence against women.

It is not video games, as the president and other gun apologists are saying – many countries spend more time playing video games than Americans and do so without mass murdering events.

There isn’t a call to boycott GameStop or Best Buy where video games are sold because no one believes video games cause mass murders. If that were true there would be mass murders around the globe as video games are a bigger world-wide industry that movies.

Gun mass murders are a unique feature of American society not a bug or flaw. We allow teenage boys to buy military-style weapons without restrictions. The irony of those who profess to “value the sanctity of life and the unborn” and yet have no issue with young men buying these weapons if tragically ironic. As Gloria Steinem said: “We should make it as hard for boys to buy guns as we make it for girls to buy contraception; add a wait period, get doctor’s prescription, inform their parents, protest outside the gun shops where the weapons are sold, and shame the boys as they walk into/out of the shops.”

It’s not mental illness either. These men write lengthy “manifestos”, and plot and plan in great detail all aspects of their crime online and in personal blogs and message boards. Most of the planning is around ensuring maximum number of deaths.

Mental illness is serious and there are millions of Americans and people around the world who are treated for mental illness who are not mass murdering people.

It isn’t immigrants either, of course. Or Muslims, or ISIS, or anyone else. More than 90% of American mass murderers are done by white men. The FBI recently testified that America has a domestic terrorism problem that is based on white supremacy/white nationalism. Americans look away from homegrown white supremacy murders preferring to direct anger toward the villain of the moment: Immigrants. And before that Muslims and the always present scapegoat: Black people. White men commit the vast majority of mass murders and access to assault weapons makes it easy to maximizing the kill zone of public places. Read it aloud and internalize its truth so that you are not manipulated by the media: “White men who are racist and support white supremacy are the most common mass murders and are a domestic threat.”

That is straight from the FBI so if you are a supporter of law enforcement, this is what law enforcement is telling you.

White supremacy and mass murders did not start with Donald Trump, but he has lit a match with racist language that caters to a racist base of voters who cheer his racist words and actions. Words have power.

Hate crimes have risen by 226% in counties that hosted a Trump rally in 2016. Two. Hundred. Twenty. Six. Where Donald talks, racist acts follow and grow.

The El Paso murderer directly quoted the president’s words ten times in his verified manifesto that is circulating online. Indeed, every mass murderer over the past year, in America and abroad, attributed their actions to the occupier of the White House.

It is an American tradition for white men to kill large number of innocent people as a way to assert their rights and ownership of America. So whether it is one of hundreds of massacres of Natives or enslaved people, burning down and killing Black American cities, homes, farms, and businesses, the terror of the Klan and attacks on Civil Rights advocates, all the way to Timothy McVey/Oklahoma City bombing or Columbine these men use weapons of war to reassert their dominance in society.

American has an angry white male issue that has never dealt with but which is often swept away and excused all in the protection of an ideal of something that doesn’t exist: White male superiority.

The problem will not get better until definitive action is taken to restrict assault weapons from being sold, buying back assault weapons that have already been sold, adding deep background checks, preventing re-sells at gun shows, and punitive measures that allow suits against those who illegally sale assault weapons.

As President Barack Obama said recently: “All of us have to send a clarion call and behave with values of tolerance and diversity that should be the hallmark of our democracy. We should soundly reject the language coming out of the mouths of any of our leaders that feed a climate of fear and hatred that normalizes racist sentiments; leaders who demonize those who don’t look like us, or suggest that other people, including immigrants, threaten our way life, or refer to other people as sub-human, or imply that American belongs to just one certain type of people…. It has no place in our politics and public life. And it’s time for the overwhelming majority of Americans of goodwill, of every race and faith and political party, to say as much – clearly and unequivocally.”

© 2019 by Myron J. Clifton and Dear Dean Publishing. All Rights Reserved.