Being Slightly More Ready For An Active Shooter
The thing about the active shooter attacks that are happening with more and more frequency is that the risk goes up that any one of us will have to deal with one.
Two things you can do to be ready for that. Okay well no one is ever ready... but at least slightly more prepared.
One is to know how to stop the bleed.
Bleeding out is one of the things that happens in an active shooter situation, especially when it takes a while to get medical help. It's worse when there are a lot of injuries that happened fast. People who know how to stop the bleed may be able to do this first aid on scene.
You can google "stop the bleed" and they've got a very simple process you can learn.
It can be taught easily as well. It's the kind of thing that is worth going over in any group you are in, or any office, or at church, or in your family.
Yes that sucks.
We shouldn't have to do this. But here we are.
The second thing you can do is get into the very tough brainspace of what you would do if there was an active shooter.
We do better in emergencies if we have thought through what we will do.
It's a high-risk, low-frequency event. When those things happen, we're better if we've been through some kind of drill, or even talked through it... like in a tabletop exercise.
You can do this with your friends or family.
Many people already talk through this stuff with their kids. Or listen to their kids talk about having to do it at school, and build on that with more conversation about what could happen. And what we all could do in that kind of worst-case scenario.
That sucks, too. Parents everywhere have shared heartbreak about having to have this conversation with their kids.
But this is the world we're in. More specifically, this is the country were in.
We hear stories from active shooter situations where kids who went through the drills and knew what to do sometimes survived because they did the unimaginable things.
There's also guidance online with specifics on what to do on the scene in active shooter situations. This stop the bleed stuff is only a tiny piece. I'm not going to replicate the other stuff here. But make sure if you check it out that it's from a reputable source like a law enforcement professional, or a fire, EMS, school, or government agency.
As the risk goes up, we need to be doing this more. We need to talk about it more.
It's also a way we can educate people about how this is not an okay way to live. We shouldn't have to do this crap.
It's not going to go away until we change the politics that are allowing it.
That means we need to get enough of a majority in the Senate to overpower the filibuster and get some real legislation done to help regulate this.
Even if we can pull that off and start to reduce at least some of the gun risk... it's going to be a long time between now and then.
Keep the faith. We've got good people up in this country. We really do. We're going to need them to hold this democracy together.
The January 6th hearings started up again Monday. The Supreme Court has also been releasing decision, and as always this month - the risk that the Roe versus Wade decision comes out is ever-present. Could be any day.
We're going to need to keep our wits about us as much as we can.
Onward.