The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Gunset Training Group or its affiliates.
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As I mentioned in Part 1, over the last couple of weeks I’ve spent two days training two local agencies and 3 days teaching solo officer active shooter response instructor for the State of Ohio. This is the second instructor class I’ve helped with, but the first one I was present for all three days. We had 11 students from all over Ohio. Since this was an instructor class we spent a lot more time on the why of what we do. Here is some food for thought for anyone who is thinking about becoming an “active shooter/threat instructor” and then creating your own program.
It was interesting, to say the least, watching the student’s faces when we discussed some of the things that would now be expected of them once they became active shooter instructors for their respective agencies. I got the impression that not all of them had completely thought through everything that goes along with being an active shooter instructor. The way I see it, anyone who teaches active shooter response – as in teaching someone to go find bad guy and stop bad guy using whatever legal means necessary – needs to have a really good grasp of seven areas: active shooter history and current trends, the legal use of force (LEO/civilian specific), weapon handling skills, breaching (more for LEOs), tactical movement, force on force (FoF) scenario development/management and trauma treatment. When asked, not many of the people in the class had that wide level of training/experience. This three day course touched (albeit briefly on some of them) on all of those topics, but focused more on the history/current trends, legal use of force and scenario development/management. Let’s dive into each of the seven areas and why they’re important.
Active shooter history/current trends – History does not always repeat itself. One of the complicating factors in this highly videotaped age is the prevalence of surveillance video and body camera video. These videos get played over and over on the news and online after they’re released. We use those videos to learn and adapt. To think potential active shooters aren’t doing the same thing is foolish. I think the biggest change we are seeing that requires us to alter our mindset is the mistaken belief that active killers will just commit suicide when confronted by the cops. That used to be a pretty common outcome, but no longer. Look at the figures below from the FBI to see the drastic change from 2015-2023.
Another change we are seeing is the killer’s willingness to engage law enforcement and even ambush them as soon as they arrive. Examples of this include the Nashville Covenant School incident, the Planned Parenthood incident in Colorado Springs and the Umpqua Community College incident. We need to be ready to fight as soon as we show up. For instructors, we HAVE to study active shooter events if we are to be able to properly prepare our students for future events. The FBI releases reports every year with great information about the previous year’s active shooter incidents. The USSS also produces some great reports on active shooters through their National Threat Assessment Center. The other instructor teaching this class spoke very highly of Ed Monk’s Active Shooter Instructor class and recommended it as an additional resource for instructors.
The legal use of force – this area is a little more complicated to teach than just tactics. Why? It takes a lot more time to become really well versed in the intricacies of self defense law (non-LEO) and/or LE use of force case law. The only way to get well versed is to read and study case law. If you are only teaching your agency, then that may simplify things since you only need to worry about the courts in your area. But if you teach across multiple states, especially states in different circuit courts of appeals, then you have some more studying to do. Teaching non-law enforcement as well? Well, there’s some more studying to do since self-defense law isn’t necessarily the same as LE use of force law. And self-defense law can vary from state to state. If you’re looking to get more training on self-defense/use of force law, there are some specific trainings available. For LEOs, your state academy probably has use of force specific classes, as does organizations like LLRMI, PATC, and Objectively Reasonable, to name a few. For non-LEO self-defense law training, Massad Ayoob’s MAG 20 is probably the gold standard, although there are others (I only link to training organizations I am personally familiar with).
Weapon handling – although it probably isn’t absolutely necessary to be a certified firearms instructor, anyone teaching active shooter response has to be sufficiently well versed in weapons handling, especially safety rules, so they can point out obvious violations. Especially muzzle direction and finger on trigger issues that crop up. These two violations can lead to the shooting of innocents in situations that could have been avoided. I’m not going to spend much time on which instructor qualification you should look at because there are so many different requirements from state to state. But I will say this, I encourage anyone who wants to be a firearms instructor to seek training beyond the minimum (aka the NRA Basic Instructor or any given state’s LE basic instructor training). There are several private entities who offer “instructor” level courses. I would say the gold standard in the non-LEO world are the instructor courses offered by Rangemaster.
Breaching – for non-LEOs, breaching is more than likely not going to be a skill that will be critical to responding to an active shooter. Breaching being the use of dedicated or improvised tools to force entry into rooms and/or buildings. Non-LEOs who are dedicated responders in schools or churches should know how to defeat any dedicated active shooter barricade devices that their organization has installed. For my LEO readers, what breaching tools do you have available in your vehicles? Do you know how to use them? If the answer is to the first question is “none”, spend a few bucks and get some basic tools – sledge hammer, large crowbar and a good pair of bolt cutters. If you don’t know how to use them, you’ve got a couple options for informal training that won’t cost anything. Find the SWAT guy who’s the breaching specialist if your agency has one. If that’s not an option, suck up your pride and stop by the local firehouse and ask the hose jockeys for some pointers. We’ve had great success using our tactical medics (firefighters with our local FD) and SWAT guys to train the patrol section.
Tactical movement – this can be a very contentious topic if you’re teaching multiple agencies. Especially if you get SWAT guys from different teams who use have different movement philosophies in the same class. So what do you do? Well, anyone who teaches this topic should have a general understanding of the basics of tactical movement. Which can, for the most part, be boiled down to using angles to your advantage. For my LEO readers, there are plenty of venues to get GOOD training. Some of the best venues to get that training are the various state Tactical Officer Conferences (OTOA, TTOA, GTOA and the ITOA all come to mind). The National Tactical Officers Association (NTOA) and the State and Local outreach programs from the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) also provide good training. For non-LEOs, there are some great places that offer this type of training. The Tactical Defense Institute has been training non-LEOs for decades and is a hidden gem in southern Ohio. One class non-LEOs should look at getting into are the FASTER classes. These are taught at TDI and other locations and would be a great foundation class for any non-LEO instructor. There are other companies out there, but I’d suggest vetting your chosen company very well before spending your money on a class since there are a lot of shyster companies out there. The Alliance, OH Police Department has a nice facility in northern Ohio and they host some really good instructors there so check out their website if you’re interested.
Force on Force (FoF) scenario development – after all is said and done, FoF scenarios should be the heart of any good active shooter training program. But bad scenarios do more harm than good. I remember the “scenarios” from my basic academy many years ago. They were all designed to be impossible for us to “win” and focused on killing us. We didn’t learn much from them other than we were gonna die gloriously at some point. So what makes a good scenario? As I see it, scenarios should have three general characteristics:
- Based on real incidents (this includes gunfire and injured/dead people)
- Have negative consequences for mistakes (airsoft/simunitions)
- Not impossible to complete successfully
Scenario development is an art. Instructor programs for Reality Based Training (RBT) or Scenario Based Training (SBT) aren’t nearly as prevalent as regular firearms training, especially for non-LEOs. For my LEOs out there, do some searching and go to a RBT/SBT instructor course. FLETC has them, TEEX has them and there are other private companies doing them. The godfather of RBT – Ken Murray – also teaches an instructor level course. At the very least, Ken’s book – Training At The Speed of Life – should be the very first resource you invest in.
SBT/RBT, when done incorrectly, can get people killed so it’s necessary to have draconian safety measures in place. I’m a firm believer in using blank guns during SBT/RBT scenarios. The sound and smell they produce cannot be replicated using audio recordings. I bought a NEF starter pistol 12 or 13 years ago just to use in scenarios. I’d been using blanks in SBT/RBT at work for years, but we used blanks fired out of real firearms and I was never completely comfortable with that practice. So when I found that starter pistol, I bought it without a second thought. It’s been fired thousands of times over the years. The nice thing about this starter pistol is that you can buy the blanks at any Lowe’s, Home Depot or Menard’s. Now, my belief is that real firearms have no place in SBT/RBT. The danger is too great when there are other viable options. Blank only firing pistols can be found for less than $100, so why risk a serious injury or death?
Trauma treatment – we (law enforcement in general) don’t do enough medical training. We’re better at it than we used to be, but we still don’t spend enough time on medical training. That’s a topic I could spend an entire article on, so let’s stick to trauma treatment during active shooter incidents. What should your trauma training focus on? Tourniquets, chest seals and rapid transport. Time is of the essence and we need to change our perspective on how we handle injured people. “Stop the killing so you can stop the dying” is a common attitude towards active shooter response for law enforcement. While I agree that attitude should be the primary attitude for the first few officers on scene, quite often that attitude is wrong for the 10th or 12th officer to arrive. How many officers does it take to take out or contain the bad guy? Watch this video from the CVPA High School shooting in ‘22 and then come back.
When the shooter is located, there are more than a dozen cops right outside the room he is in. Most of them are not doing anything productive. I think at least a 1/3 of them should have shifted their mission to trauma management. The injured people in the CVPA shooting waited for 30 minutes before they were evacuated. This situation has been repeated over and over through the years. We can do better. Any active shooter trauma treatment training should include a healthy dose of rapid extraction to a casualty collection point outside the building or rapid extraction and then transport by PD vehicle. I may ruffle a few feathers when I say this, but forget the whole Rescue Task Force concept. It’s a feel good measure for John Q Citizen and the fire departments. We have seen over and over that the rapid transport of victims by PD units or private transport works. Dayton, Pulse, Aurora theater, the list goes on. Philly PD has been doing the “scoop and run” transport of trauma victims for years. It works. There have even been at least 2 studies done of the Philly method. So why are we waiting?
If you choose to become an active shooter instructor, you’ve got a lot of work ahead. It’s worth it. Train hard. Stay safe.
