Embedded Files
March 14, 2023
On February 13th, 2023 a tragedy occurred at Michigan State University. Yet again, a violent attack occurred by a suspect with currently unclear motives. My intent is not to highlight the evil and malicious actions or the individual who carried them out. However, any time an event like this occurs, there are learning opportunities. My goal is to bring out some learning points from this tragic incident that we can use to prepare, and ideally prevent, a similar situation where we may happen to be.
I’ll start off by saying that I never wish to come across at criticizing those involved and their actions or inactions. The men and women that were victims of this attack did not plan on being victims that day, and likely didn’t think about such an attack being a possibility until they were thrust into the event by the actions of the suspect.
My next point is that I have no desire to make political statements regarding this incident. I address this blog post to those men and women who have a desire to be ready to stand in the gap should they be placed in a similar incident.
All of that being said, here is a general summary of what occurred:
On the evening of February 13th, 2023, around 8:18 PM, the suspect (a male in his 40s with no known connection to the university) entered Berkley Hall classroom room 114 from the rear of the classroom and began firing a handgun, hitting several students and fatally wounding two. After firing an unknown amount of shots, the suspect left and continued shooting around and inside the nearby student union building, where another student was shot and killed and several others were injured. The suspect was later located and confronted off campus, where he died of a self-inflicted gunshot.
There are 3 primary points I would like to draw from this tragic incident in order to help you be more prepared should you find yourself in a similar incident
The natural first reaction is denial
The majority of people live their day to day lives without being exposed to a violent attack such as this. It’s a normal reaction for your brain to try to put odd sounds into the context of what you expect to hear. In an interview, the professor that was teaching a class in room 114 of Berkley Hall (Marco Díaz-Muñoz) stated that he heard loud popping sounds prior to the suspect entering the classroom. He stated that it “didn’t sound like gunfire in the movies” because it was too loud. He thought that it was an exploding transformer or fireworks. It was only seconds later when the suspect entered his classroom and began shooting.
Just being aware that your brain will try to justify out of context noises like this is an advantage. The goal here isn’t to respond by fearing every loud noise you hear, but having a mindset of preparedness. Which leads me to my next point:In the absence of preparation and training, you will likely freeze
According to Professor Díaz-Muñoz, both he and several students were frozen in place when the attacker entered the room and started shooting. Some students dove to the floor, and others ran to the front of the classroom as the attacker was shooting from the rear door.
Fight, flight, or freeze is a common list of the options that people default to when placed into an adrenaline-laced incident or environment. From a logical standpoint, freezing is the worst thing that you can do in a situation like this. Unfortunately, when thrust into a violent attack like this, your brain will be in complete overload if you’ve never planned, prepared, or trained yourself how to respond. The “freeze” is an attempt by your brain to pause everything that’s going on to try to figure out how to respond to this new stimulus.
In the MSU shooting, it wasn’t until after the attacker left the room that the professor was able to force himself to move to the front door of the classroom and hold in shut in fear that the attacker was going to reenter the classroom from the front door.
Having a plan of how to respond to a violent attack is crucial. Then even more important is to mentally rehearse over and over how you are going to respond. By engraining the response in your brain through repetitive training, you’re programming your brain to default to your training instead of freezing to try to make a plan of response.You can take steps to mitigate the disadvantages of the action/reaction curve
Beyond just planning on how to survive a worst case scenario, it is possible to be proactive to tilt the situation in your favor as someone prepared to respond to a potential threat. While the campus of MSU restricts carrying firearms for personal protection, consider how the violent attack may have been stopped before so many students were shot and killed if someone was present with a concealed firearm. If you are able to lawfully carry concealed and have the training to confidently engage a threat without placing bystanders in danger, you may very well be able to stop an attacker before they have time to inflict multiple casualties.
Even in a situation like this where concealed carrying was not allowed, there are steps you could take to prepare for an attack. In an open seating classroom, you can choose a seat where you can most easily see the entrances to the room. Even if your seat is assigned, proactively make mental notes of points of cover/concealment that you could quickly move to in the event of an attack. Take note of improvised weapons you could use to defend yourself or others. Books, chairs, desks, laptop computers, etc. can be used as weapons or distractions to create a moment in time to stop the attacker.
Historically speaking, most mass killings like this are targeted at soft targets, meaning places where the attacker does not expect to encounter resistance. At MSU, the attacker most likely knew that firearms were not allowed on campus, and fully expected to be able to conduct his assault without being fired upon or attacked in return. In most cases, when the attacker meets resistance (in a large number of cases when the police arrive several minutes later), the attacker(s) commit suicide, either self-inflicted or “suicide by cop”. What if that resistance happened immediately, rather than in the several minutes it takes for law enforcement to arrive and locate the threat.
Be prepared with a mindset to attack the attacker. Don’t be a victim by simply hoping to survive. Proactively prepare to engage a threat to the best of your ability.
Takeaways
In short, don’t have a mindset of “if” you are ever placed in a situation like this. Prepare with a mindset of “when”. This is not based out of a mindset of fear, but of love. I know that the best way I can be prepared to defend those I love is not to just hope that they are never attacked, but to have a mindset of “when this happens, this is how I will respond.”
Look for training that can prepare you for violent attacks such is this, particularly scenario based training. There’s nothing better to prepare you to respond to an active shooting than simulated active shooter training.
As most of the people that I train and speak to are believers in Christ, my encouragement is not to have a mindset of fear, but of faith.
Have any thoughts or questions on this incident? I’d love to hear your feedback at isaac@htlwarrior.com.
Until then, I encourage you…
Be a warrior…
Stand in the breach…
Hold the line…
Be blessed,
Isaac
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Michigan_State_University_shooting#cite_note-House-2023-9
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse