The Firing Line Forums - View Single Post - Do Rampage response training videos teach rampagers how to do it?

sigcurious · September 15, 2012, 03:10 PM

I would think no more than the other sources of tactical information. While they may provide some insight, I do not think on the John Q. Public side of things that the information given out is something that cannot be reasoned by someone planning something. I cannot speak for LEA response training.

From what I've seen the information given to the public seems to boil down to 3 concepts; Run, hide, and to a lesser extent fight. Now applying that to two real life examples, the theater shooting and a school shooting, we can see how some of the ideas remain valid while others become moot.

In the theater shooting running and hiding become very difficult as there are limited exits and natural funnels for people, making it easy for a potential shooter to dominate the space. I do not think that it takes a training video for someone to reason that a theater is a confined space with a lot of people and limited exits.

A school shooting, given the lesser concentrations of people and higher segregation of space, the area would be harder to control without preparation that would likely get noticed. Running and hiding seem to be valid even if the potential shooter knows that people are going to run or lock themselves in separate spaces. To over come this a potential shooter would need to prepare in ways to control a much larger space such as disabling locks or planting crowd control type devices to direct where people run. Both of which would be difficult to do without having their efforts negated(locks fixed) or noticed(devices found or seen planting devices).

From what I've seen, fighting does seem to be relatively effective in the cases where people do choose to engage an active shooter. However it also seems that instances where people's reflex is fight rather than flight are few.

In the end unfortunately no matter what protocols people are taught, the potential shooter will always have an advantage by virtue of picking the time and place of the event. There will always be certain spaces that are just not easily secured or defensible as the world in general is not designed with being able to defend from attack in mind.

September 15, 2012, 03:10 PM	#2
sigcurious Senior Member Join Date: May 25, 2011 Posts: 1,755	I would think no more than the other sources of tactical information. While they may provide some insight, I do not think on the John Q. Public side of things that the information given out is something that cannot be reasoned by someone planning something. I cannot speak for LEA response training. From what I've seen the information given to the public seems to boil down to 3 concepts; Run, hide, and to a lesser extent fight. Now applying that to two real life examples, the theater shooting and a school shooting, we can see how some of the ideas remain valid while others become moot. In the theater shooting running and hiding become very difficult as there are limited exits and natural funnels for people, making it easy for a potential shooter to dominate the space. I do not think that it takes a training video for someone to reason that a theater is a confined space with a lot of people and limited exits. A school shooting, given the lesser concentrations of people and higher segregation of space, the area would be harder to control without preparation that would likely get noticed. Running and hiding seem to be valid even if the potential shooter knows that people are going to run or lock themselves in separate spaces. To over come this a potential shooter would need to prepare in ways to control a much larger space such as disabling locks or planting crowd control type devices to direct where people run. Both of which would be difficult to do without having their efforts negated(locks fixed) or noticed(devices found or seen planting devices). From what I've seen, fighting does seem to be relatively effective in the cases where people do choose to engage an active shooter. However it also seems that instances where people's reflex is fight rather than flight are few. In the end unfortunately no matter what protocols people are taught, the potential shooter will always have an advantage by virtue of picking the time and place of the event. There will always be certain spaces that are just not easily secured or defensible as the world in general is not designed with being able to defend from attack in mind.