Said Janel Cooley, who survived the Capital Gazette shooting, quoted in "'Wendi Winters saved my life': Capital Gazette staff say their fallen colleague charged the shooter."
Weeks before the June 28 attack in Annapolis, Winters had taken active shooter training at her church, where a police officer presented the options: Run if you can run. Hide if you can hide. Fight only if you must. Winters fought....
From the details her family has of the attack, Winters’ son Phoenix Geimer said, “It sounds like her. She’s got four kids — she’s not going to take it from anyone”....
Posts
28 comments:
The rule is "charge a gun and run from a knife."
Guns jam and knives can reach you from a distance,
That's "Knives can't reach you from a distance."
Good for her. We need more courageous people like her.
So it took us 9 days to find out there was a heroine. Good to see the journolists are on top of things.
She had plenty of courage, what she didn't have was a gun of her own in a desk drawer or her purse to shoot the bastard in the groin.
They had had threats for years that were pretty credible.
Harden the target,
First responder of the highest order, who stood her ground in self-defense.
What if everyone in the room had charged (with objects in hand, but not guns)? Once you are stuck in a room with the shooter and you're doomed to get shot one by one, the charge is the better technique, right? What's the best way to do it?
If she had a gun and went to pull it out, wouldn't the shooter have the advantage?
If you stand up in front of the shooter and say, "Look at me, I'm pulling my gun," he may still miss. Stress shooting is bad, and it's bad for everybody. But it is not a good strategy. If you are a mousy female in a corner easing your pistol out of your purse while everyone is screaming and running and diving and dying, you will probably have the advantage and may be able to get a couple softening shots into the center of mass.
What if everyone in the room had charged (with objects in hand, but not guns)?
Nobody will learn from the three US servicemen who stopped the terrorist on the train.
They could have been killed, too, if his gun hadn't jammed.
One of the people at the newspaper described hearing him reload while cowering under a desk.
“There is nothing more terrifying than hearing multiple people get shot while you’re under your desk and then hear the gunman reload,” Mr. Davis wrote.
Yes, but that is the time to charge.
Yes, gun owners should be allowed to carry at work. Not required, allowed. That being said, the best active shooter advice I've seen is wasp and hornet spray. Can you imagine a half a dozen different cans of wasp and hornet spry squirting for your eyes from 30 feet away?
Ann Althouse said...
What's the best way to do it?
The object in hand is something to throw. It doesn't need to be deadly, or even particularly harmful. A coffee mug or stapler is probably sufficient. The idea is to make them flinch ( an instinctive reflex, so hard for them to suppress ) while you close the distance. Once you get to them, you need your hands free in order to control the direction their weapon is pointing, so it doesn't point at you or the other innocent people.
Unless they have training, you most likely have the advantage at this point. Their focus is on the gun, that is the only weapon they are thinking about. You need to control the direction the gun is pointing, but at the same time, you can use your feet, knees, anything at hand.
Althouse said...
Once you are stuck in a room with the shooter and you're doomed to get shot one by one, the charge is the better technique, right? What's the best way to do it?
I think the best tactic is swarm. The first defender "attacks the weapon" to misdirect aim or wrest control. Remaining defenders restrain or debilitate the attacker.
Ann asked about drawing the shooters attention if you drew a gun. I understand he used the shotgun to get in the door. She could have shot him as he stepped through.
I don't think anyone will ever let a hijacker take control of a plane anymore.. Charging the shooter is definitely an effective tactic. Maybe this will start a trend......In the presence of mortal danger, I tend to evacuate my bowels and whimper softly. I can't guarantee I'll charge the shooter, but it's the thing to do. If people have that info filed for future reference, perhaps some will act on it.
Check out YouTube channel Active Self Protection. CC footage from around the world showing attacks and assaults of every kind, and analyzing the reactions and responses of the victims.
Ann Althouse said...
"If she had a gun and went to pull it out, wouldn't the shooter have the advantage?"
In what way would his advantage be greater than in what actually occurred?
If she had a gun and went to pull it out, wouldn't the shooter have the advantage?
No. There seems to be a myth out there that shotguns never miss. They need to talk to duck hunters. It’s one thing to take one’s time shooting at helpless people; quite another when someone is shooting back from cover. With a pump shotgun, as I understand the attacker had, unexpected resistance might also cause him to short stroke, where the pump is not brought far enough back to ompletely cycle the action. At the very least it leaves the bastard without a fresh shell in the chamber.
>>What if everyone in the room had charged
We have the same "Run, Hide, Fight" training where I work. I asked in class "What happens to our co workers while we are running and hiding?"
I'm with Ann. Fight, Fight, Fight.
Any training must include complete evaluation of possible actions ... Moral supremacy of self defence vs surrender or running away, attack the shooter or cowering lockdowns!
It's revealing politically that Democrat 'DNA' never advocate self defence, but want to #resistance.
Well, Althouse. You might have just seconds to live. You wanna die in a puddle of your own pee begging for your life?
Like the guy said. Start chucking stuff. These morons get off on the screaming and the tears. They count on it. Throw stuff. Anyhting you can lift. Aim for the head. Some asshole wants your life? Make him pay for it.
In a small office the wasp spray has merit.
I remember seeing footage taken of a guy trying to shoot a lawyer outside an Alabama courthouse. It was comical to see the lawyer dodge behind a tree and poke his head out, while the other guy was trying to put a bullet into it.
The gunman didn't succeed, even though he got off several shots.
The takeaway from that is: keep moving. Throw anything at the bad guy. Even papers will make him flinch away and throw off his aim. Just don't stand there and make yourself an easy target.
One aspect of these shootings I'd love to investigate is the notion that many of them seem to stop shooting themselves. The Annapolis guy was found hiding under a desk, right? Why? The Columbine shooters stopped killing their fellow students of their own free will (IIRR), not because they ran out of targets. Why?
Is it that seeing people die at your hand becomes debilitating and you have to stop? Do you become exhausted, enervated? Why?
Bill Peschel, Is this video you're talking about? It happened in LA, CA rather than Alabama, but it's the same idea.
They reported the attorney was hit but not seriously wounded.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9zy37-_0LU
One of my co-workers was the first to confront a shooter as he was about to enter the Cal State Fullerton library. Not outlined in this story but known to those who were there is that Stephen Becker saw the man coming up to the loading dock with a rifle and tried to stop him with the only thing he had at hand, a few metal shelf dividers. A school security officer had also seen the man making his way from the parking lot and radioed for help, but he was unarmed and likely would have met the same fate.
I was scheduled off that day and heard about it on the radio later that afternoon at home.
Post a Comment