On the off chance you are in a Theater Shooting [View all]

[cthulu2016]

Last edited Sun Jul 22, 2012, 02:18 PM - Edit history (3)

Sad that there is a use for such advice, but if you are ever in a movie theater and someone starts shooting...

If you are very close to an exit that is far from the shooter, or very close to excellent cover, and not impeded by other people, duck out.

Otherwise, get down. Slide under the seats if able. If not, hunch down quietly. (This is awful, but don't let any little ones cry out.)

These people are, however well rehearsed and cold-blooded, in a confused state. They are reacting, as surely as everyone else is.

In general, do not present yourself as a target. Motion attracts attention. Standing up attracts attention. (Everyone killed in Aurora appears to have been in the aisles.)

This will go for most mass shootings in general.

Tragically, this is really advice on how to get the shooter to choose to shoot someone else. That is the grim nature of a world where men sometimes decide to murder large numbers of people in a crowd.

(If you are behind the shooter and feel heroic and impelled to do something, wrap him up. Arms around his arms, your hands locked together, yelling for assistance, and don't let go. Once you are committed you cannot un-commit.)

On Edit: I am well aware, in writing this, of the implication to some that it is not right to have to mitigate risk, and thus that it is indecent or absurd to think about. And I appreciate that some will read such advice as "blaming the victim" as if it were somehow the fault of people in the aisles... which it surely was not. Or that any notion of mitigating risk is somehow acceptance of the underlying causes.

I get that. It is a touchy topic. And there is some intentional irony here... if we are not comfortable with thinking in terms of how to best survive as potential targets then we must find a way to eliminate our status as potential targets!

It's the same way we find Civil Defense advice from the 1960s absurd, even though it was sound advice on the off chance one was on the edge of the zone of total lethality from a nuclear blast. We shouldn't have to think in terms of nuclear blasts and mall shootings. It is surreal and grotesque. But since the world is as it is, these things are real. And the surreal nature of even sound civil defense advice made some people feel more strongly against nuclear weapons.

So if this post makes people stronger in their feeling that we cannot tolerate a world where this advice makes sense, then good.

Because, horribly, this advice does make sense in our world. This theater was 12 miles from Columbine High School. It appears that in this neighborhood mass shooting are a significant part of real life. And if I were a parent there I would give this advice to my kids... as disgusting as it is that one would ever feel obliged to tell children what to do in a mass shooting. But we tell kids what to do vis-a-vis being kidnapped by murderous pedophiles. Are mass shooting really so much less a concern?

We probably spend too much time worrying about mall shootings and kidnappers, and not enough about the benefits of aerobic exercise and the dangers of diving. It seems reasonable, however, to spend as much time (as much or as little) thinking about what to do in a mass shooting as we do thinking about shark attacks and plane crashes. I seldom fly or swim in the ocean, but I do go to the mall.