At my daughters’ martial arts class, they offered a firearm awareness session for adult students and parents taught by a dad who is a cop. It was an eye-opening experience for me.
The most valuable part for me - we were hanging out waiting for the session to start, and the guy unexpectedly came out with a blue (plastic training) gun yelling “everyone on the ground now!” We all obeyed, and he proceeded to (fake) shoot every one of us. Then he said let’s try this again, and think about how you will react knowing what just happened. He did the same thing again, and some people still hit the floor. One guy grappled with him but got “shot”, the next guy running to meet him knocked him down and may have been “shot”, and I was next on him with my hand on the gun pushing it above his head and I landed on him, at which point he stopped the exercise.
Now it’s not a totally realistic scenario, because we were expecting it the second time, but my take aways:
- I couldnt understand why some people who had just been “shot” the first time acted the exact same way the second time, waiting to be shot again
- even though I reacted the second time, it took the guy running ahead of me before I made my move, even though I knew what was going to to happen and that the gun was fake. That really bothered me, and I don’t think I’ll ever forget it.
- if enough people fight back, you have the chance that less will be killed in the end
The rest of the session was valuable too. Like how to take a gun or immobilize it in someone’s hand if they are within reach. And the fact that not all people have great aim, especially with pistols, and especially at a moving target. I was the only one there who shoots (other than the cop), and I told everyone they should try target shooting with a pistol and see that just pointing and shooting without aiming/practice does not work like it does in the movies.
That’s not to say that I could stop a shooter. It just made me think about the options and outcomes. And that one way or the other (running or shooting/fighting) I’d be moving, not standing still to be shot without a chance.