In need of training
The Second Amendment Foundation:
In the wake of last weeks tragic mistaken identity fatal shooting of an armed citizen in an Alabama shopping mall, the Second Amendment Foundation and Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms are calling for a national dialogue on how police respond to active shooter reports in public venues, such as malls, restaurants or movie theaters.
Officers responding to a shooting at the Riverchase Balleria Mall in suburban Hoover apparently mistook Emantic F. Bradford, Jr., 21, as the suspected shooter. Mr. Bradford had a carry permit according to his family but investigators have declined to confirm that. He had drawn his pistol and was fatally shot.
All the details have not been released yet but this one seems to stink. I wonder if NRA will be a part of this dialog? The tend to keep mum on bad police shootings.
November 29th, 2018 at 10:42 pm
I am not anti-cop.
That being said, IMO, one of the most dangerous places to be these days is in the vicinity of cops since the ‘us v them’ & ‘everyone not a cop is probably a criminal’ mentalities seem to be so widespread.
We’ve seen too many times that doing anything, around one that might be considered a ‘threat’, no matter how insignificant, is immediately answered with gunfire, with seemingly only the most egregious screw-ups suffering any consequences.
The ‘training’ LE needs most today in the world of concealed and open carry, is to be taught that just because the guy has a gun in his hand does not mean he is the bad guy and it’s ‘reasonable’ to shoot.
November 30th, 2018 at 2:06 am
A segment of LEO training changed approx. 15 or so yrs ago that “We aren’t shooting too soon but not soon enough when there is a threat.”
Now EVERYBODY is a threat and those that have guns, especially in hand, are the super-threat.
I get it. A gun in hand is 00.5 seconds from being a deadly shot to an LEO head. But there’s a difference in an active shooter and a guy who didn’t hear you pull up and didn’t drop his gun before you got there.
Hint to LEOs: If the guy holding a gun is not shooting innocent people, he may just not be the “active shooter”.
Keep him in your sights? Absolutely! Blast him on the spot? Maybe not.
He may just be an armed good guy.
(there’s more and more of those around now in case you haven’t seen the latest numbers )
November 30th, 2018 at 10:43 am
If the NRA wants to stay relevant, it going to have to get involved in this.
I’m a cop and in the active shooter training I’ve attended, there in no instruction on what to do when encountering a good guy with a gun. A glaring oversight IMHO.
Also, hearing is reduced in high stress situations, so even if an officer gives commands, the good guy might not hear them because his focus is elsewhere. Ideally that is when everyone should slow down, but that’s not being taught.
December 1st, 2018 at 12:31 am
“…no instruction on what to do when encountering a good guy with a gun.”
Bit more than an oversight; that is a death sentence for armed good guys on both sides of the blue line, and an astounding statement after 30 years of widespread carry permitting…no damn wonder this shit happens.
And a lot more time and focus on that in the training of private carriers is needed too, in lieu of the role playing games and shoothouse shit that much of it has come to entail. But that’s just not as sexy for the trainees and profitable for the trainers is it?