Pardon me for this off-topic post, but I have been away all day and don't know if it is redundant or not. In view of the shooting at Virginia Tech, it might stimulate discussion:
Such senseless killings will probably never be completely eliminated, but some policies and precautions may reduce them.
-Such as "effective policies for building/room lockdown under such circumstances."
-Such as "who gets into this country, and who is barred?" There is WAY TOO MUCH SLOP in our system on this issue.
-Such as "what do you do when you see someone shooting indiscriminately?"
I told my wife if she ever saw something like this she should do everything possible to become inconspicuous. Hide behind a car, sign, bush, tree, building, in a door. LOCK the doors. Stay away from windows. KEEP QUIET (no screaming). And so forth.
As for myself, and I hope my courage will stand up if the time ever comes, I plan to tackle the son of a bitch, take that gun away from him and shoot him with it. If I can. Maybe a few of us can use the Todd Beamer method on him. "Let's Roll!"
After 9/11, I was the coordinator for my department's evacuation procedures in the federal building (no big deal, there were only eight or ten of us out of hundreds in the building). The building had a new fire alarm system, and our instructions were to go down the stairwells in an orderly fashion and go outside.
I did not see this as being good enough, so I implemented a buddy system for our department. Evacuation may not be appropriate for a shooting incident, but the buddy system probably is.
That is: ManyMoose checks to see if Jack and Jill are able to leave the building, Jack checks on Charlie and Bill, and Jill checks on Mary and Robert. Mary and Robert check on ManyMoose. We leave together, with our coats and shoes on. (In winter, it can be a BIG mistake to go outside in shirt sleeves for a fire drill if it turns out there is a real fire -- or a bomb threat, terrorist, shooter, etc.) At the rendezvous point, we again count noses with the buddy system.
I had seen the buildings in NY go down on TV, so I moved my department's rendezvous point two blocks away from the building and I don't think that was far enough, but another three blocks would have put us in mountain goat habitat. The other departments started moving away too after they saw us doing it.
I posted a map to the rendezvous point on the partitions near each cubicle.
During this period, my agency sprung for system furniture in order to save space. We had extra people rotate into our area to clear theirs for the furniture. I made sure they all knew our procedures, and set up a volunteer buddy for those who needed special assistance.
Shootings such as this will NOT be solved by more gun laws, or abridging the Second Amendment in any way. In fact, if even ONE person with the right mindset had been armed, this tragedy could have been reduced substantially.
I am NOT saying that everybody should be armed, and I don't intend to go that way myself. But I do demand the RIGHT to be armed under the provisions of the Second Amendment.
I apologize for my crude language above, but the term I used is hardly adequate for the shooter at Virginia Tech. |
