Sound advice

Amongst the voluminous fundraising chaff that comes at the end of each quarter from politicians and candidates alike, there sometimes comes valuable information. It’s worth reminding people again that Congressional candidate Dan Bongino knows something about security as a former Secret Service agent, so an item he wrote yesterday which ended up on my Facebook page is, to me, worth repeating:

I do not want to unnecessarily alarm you, nor do I intend this post to be a call for more “police-state” actions but I feel it important to sound the alarm.

The terrorist attack in the mall in Kenya is indicative of two troubling trends. The first is a tendency for previously parochial terror groups to look for international targets to leverage the media coverage of their carnage and the second is a renewed interest by terror groups in “soft-targets”.

If you are the owner or manager of any facility which attracts crowds (i.e. malls, arenas) be aware that your facility may become a target. From my experiences in the Secret Service, there are a number of relatively painless steps you can take to help mitigate the threat.

First, use your relationships with local law enforcement entities to determine what the law enforcement response would be to an “active-shooter” in your facility. Your employees should be intimately familiar with this plan.

Second, make sure law enforcement cooperation includes a blueprint of your facility. It is no coincidence that this is one of the first things an attacker or group of attackers looks for.

Third, rehearse your escape plan. In moments of profound fear and stress, your body will revert to your LOWEST level of training as blood is diverted to major muscle groups and clear thinking becomes nearly impossible. Your escape must be second-nature and require little to no conscious focus.

Sadly, we are in a new era of “sole-proprietor” terror where anyone with an Internet connection and a troubled mind can cause untold carnage. Ignoring this will not make it go away and there is no need to live your lives in fear but there is no good excuse for a failure to plan.

God bless America and all those who defend her.

To me, the key point is the third one because it makes the most sense – it all goes back to the animal instinct of “fight or flight.”  Yet there’s a lot I see between the lines as well.

Now I certainly don’t want to encourage any more of a police state than we already have. Unfortunately, though. these are the cards we are dealt when we live in a jurisdiction which is making the personal protection of a firearm harder to come by and the idea of (legally) concealing it nearly impossible. (Many of those commenting on the Facebook page make that same point.) Look at the Navy Yard shooter for example: it’s the latest case where the people who had weapons to stop him weren’t on site and a further example where a “gun-free zone” makes the occupants less safe than they otherwise should be. “Sole-proprietor” terrorists know this.

Unfortunately, since the “fight” option is off the table because one is unarmed, the “flight” option is the more viable. Having worked in the architectural field, I understand the life safety aspect of multiple exits from a space – although their idea of a life-threatening event is a fire – but places like shopping malls don’t always make them obvious because they don’t want their merchandise walking away through the necessary but rarely-used exits; it’s the reason they are normally tied to the fire alarm system (if opened, the alarms go off.) It goes back to the second point Dan makes, because if someone can understand the blueprints and has a team of terrorists they can block off possible egress points and trap occupants inside.

In this case, there was no fundraising appeal in the piece, but it also brings up a question: what can (and will) Dan do if he’s elected? The Second Amendment isn’t among the key issues he highlights on his campaign page (although the palette of issues he speaks about touches on most basic concerns) so I guess the question is just how far would Dan like to go in terms of eliminating the federal restrictions on self-protection through firearms? In Maryland, the only people who can outgun the police are the criminals, and the tendency of state law is to place the common citizen at the mercy of both. There’s also a relevant discussion of the Supremacy Clause and whether Maryland’s new laws – or similar laws enacted by any other state – violate the Second Amendment, but that’s for another venue.

One has to ask in this day and age, though: why shouldn’t people be allowed to defend themselves with a weapon? If only the criminals and the government have them, the word describing the rest of us would be: victims.