Active Shooter Prepare Now or Pay Later
There have been conversations lately about the use of active shooter drills in schools and other organizations. Some say these drills cause unnecessary panic and trauma on the participants. However, when it comes to fire drills people do not have the same concerns. It is is hard to understand why some have an issue with active shooter drills but not other drills such as fire or tornado drills.
Maybe some of the concern with active shooter drills is the way some organizations have conducted them in the past. If you are running a drill there is no need for simulated live fire or people screaming as part of the simulation. When running a fire drill you don’t introduce smoke and simulated fire, so why would you do this with an active shooter drill. The ideal outcome of a drill is that participants can learn how to respond while under a controlled environment so that can effectively learn a pre-planned response.
As long as drills for active shooter response are pre-planned and explained properly there is great benefit to having them done. These drills should be conducted with prior notice and there should be some classroom training on how to respond before a drill is conducted. Participants involved in the drill can then respond in a calm orderly manner when the drill is initiated. This way you are building muscle memory into participants for what to do if an actual incident occurs.
This is the same thought process for fire drills. People are taught what to do in advance. Then when the drill occurs people know where to go and what to do. There is a saying that “you will not rise to the level of your expectations but you will fall to the level of your training”. This is why active shooter drills are so important. When a crisis occurs you don’t want to have to think under stress about how you need to respond. If you have done drills in advance you can then respond effectively based on your prior training. Hopefully more organizations embrace and practice active shooter drills on a consistent basis. The alternative option of not doing the drills could open your organization up to liability and cause unnecessary loss of life.
