From Active Response Training: Are Those Really Gunshots?
When I research active killer attacks all around the world, I nearly always see that victims rationalize the sounds of the gunfire as some more innocuous noise.
Time and again people refuse to believe that this is happening. It is construction noise. It is balloons popping. It is someone kicking the door.
The noises you are hearing may be popping balloons or fireworks. They may also be gunshots. If you assume the former and are wrong, you get killed. If you assume the latter and are incorrect, at worst you may feel some embarrassment. Which option is the best choice?
If you are in a public place and you hear anything that may possibly be gunshots, don’t rationalize the sounds as something less ominous. Assume they are shots being fired and exit the building in the direction opposite the sounds. If it is truly just balloons, you may be embarrassed. Being embarrassed is far better than being dead.
I haven't been in an active shooter incident, and I hope I never am. But I was in a ballroom at a conference with close to 1000 people when a fire alarm went off, and virtually everyone ignored it. Why? It can't be fire, despite the fact that a fire alarm is going off." Bad things won't happen to me. Or something.
Hat tip to Tam at View from the Porch: Facing Reality.
Having an awareness that certain bad things can happen is necessary for overcoming the trap of normalcy bias when something starts to go south.
Otherwise the tendency is to try and rationalize away a developing bad situation as something that isn't bad.
There is more info both at the link at the top, and at Tam's post.
I was working in a building on Summer St. in Boston one time when the fire alarm went off. I grabbed my coat and headed for the door and the customer asked where I was going. He said don't worry it happens all the time. I said since I am a volunteer firefighter I am getting out now, you do what you want.
ReplyDeleteI was at our neighborhood pool when someone drove by and fired shots at the property and all of us on it. I've (unfortunately) heard enough live gunfire to have the "are those shots? Yes they are" reaction while also counting in my head. First time was near Sheffield and Belmont on Chicago's north side in the mid 80s, but I've heard plenty since. Anyway, several of us moved rapidly toward the source, hoping to see the vehicle, or (in my case anyway) return fire.
ReplyDeleteI imagine that most of the people there that day either didn't hear, or didn't credit what they were hearing, but about 10% or more of us did, and that was heartening.
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We've told our kids since they were little to run away from danger and TOWARD SAFETY. It's not necessarily easy to see where safety lies, but it at least gets them to think a bit about it. We also remind them to find the exits when they go somewhere new.
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shooting last night at the state fair in Dallas, between two individuals "known to each other" but still involved bystanders and a lot of running and screaming.
Local parasite blames constitutional carry, not the shooter.
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Many people have never heard the sound of gunshots in real life. And many who have heard them while wearing hearing protection making the real world sound different. Thus they don't recognize the sound for what it is. Normalcy bias also plays a part. Plenty of people refuse to accept reality...that yes, it CAN happen where they are. So their mind decides to find another explanation for the sounds they are hearing.
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