Sadly, yet another lunatic was on the rampage in Colorado
this
past week. Politically, this event
can be discussed in a wide variety of ways.
The mainstream news will, of course, focus on the extreme emotions felt
by those immediately involved. Many
people will once again clamor for the prohibition of firearms. Some will likely even blame the movie itself. Regardless of where you stand it must be
admitted that, tactically speaking, this was an easily preventable event.
First, what do we know?
A former PhD student of neuroscience from the University of
Colorado, James Holmes, re-entered the Century 16 Theatre screen 9 through a side
entrance around twenty minutes into the film.
Due to the fact that this was the first showing, the consensus from the
audience appears that they believed him to be a gimmick for the showing. He entered through the emergency exit wearing
complete ballistic gear (a ballistic helmet, vest, shin guards, groin and
throat protector) and a gas mask. After
tossing two smoke or irritant gas devices into the air, he fired one or two
rounds into the ceiling and then began firing into the crowd.
As we can all imagine, this was likely a very chaotic
scene. But real life isn’t
Hollywood. There were many calms during
the storm.
He had at least two guns and possibly three on his
person. Initially he is said to have
used an AR-15 type rifle which is similar in style to the M-16/M-9 used by the
military, but would necessarily have been semi-auto. Apparently, he had a 100-round drum magazine
on the AR-15 which quickly jammed. These
types of drums are notorious for such drums which, I would imagine, is why
nobody uses them in situations outside of pleasure or sport shooting. So at this time he switched to a handgun and
proceeded to shoot and walk up the stairs towards the back of the theater.
Let’s stop here and analyze the situation. Some lunatic barges into the theater and
begins shooting at people. At this
point, the fight or flight instinct will kick in and each person will make the
quick decision to engage the aggressor or flee.
Before I proceed, let me make it very clear that I am not in any way
suggesting this event was the fault of any of the victims. No person should have to endure this type of
horrific violence during any event in life. The decision of all 200 some moviegoers was
to flee, as I’m sure most people would do on first thought.
There are two events to keep in mind here. First, his initial gun jammed. Decently trained soldiers will take at least
five to ten seconds attempting to ascertain the cause of malfunction so I’m
sure it took this guy at least this long and probably longer. Apparently he eventually gave up and moved on
to his next gun of choice. Hopefully,
quite a few people took this opportunity to escape the theater. Ideally, the mob of people surrounding him
would have kicked his kneecap, put a knee in his groin, or simply bum rushed
him. But they didn’t for reasons which
are probably quite valid. The next
event, however, is nearly unforgivable.
The eyewitness accounts all agree that he slowly walked up the stairs
towards the back of the theater as he was randomly shooting people.
My question is, how many people did he have his back turned
to? How many people were directly to his
sides? The gas mask he was wearing
severely restricted his field of view which would have allowed him to see only
directly in front of him. Additionally,
his ears were either ringing from adrenaline and the report from his shooting
or he had planned accordingly and had earplugs in. In either case, his hearing was also severely
reduced. A mob of two or seven or twelve
people could have easily jumped him from behind and ended his rampage.
So why did nobody attempt to stop him? Why was a theater full of people (200?)
able to be so completely nullified by a single person? Why was not one other person armed as
well? Or perhaps, why did nobody shoot back?
The one thing we can take away from this is that it is the personal
responsibility of each and every individual to protect themselves. One woman crouched down on the floor dialing
911 while spent casings were dropping on her forehead. Once the police arrived he gave himself up
without a fight, but what about those long minutes it takes police to
respond? The fact is, the only real job
of the police is to attempt to track down and capture those who have already committed a crime. It is
everyone’s responsibility – mine, yours, all of us – to protect themselves in
the heat of the moment. It is
unfortunate, therefore, that most governments make it so difficult for
peaceable individuals to adequately protect themselves. I wonder how many potential felons out there
are guilty of attempting to protect themselves from unfortunate incidents such
as this?
2 comments:
I agree that we should have the right to protect ourselves and that means being armed, but also people are at times paralyzed from rationality. You dissected each restriction of his senses, but do you think that quickly in the moment? Do you try to take him down or do you throw your body on top of your child, wife, etc. to protect them out of instinct?
The only way to know the answer to this question is to be in the moment. Training can only go so far, but goes much further than simply hoping that others will protect you.
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