YOUR EDC GUN WILL NOT SAVE YOU FROM ALL TERRORISTS
Let’s talk about surviving a distributed, multi-faceted terrorist attack. We’re family with one lone wolf, usually a mass shooter, airplane hijackings, bombings, or deliberate car crashes. Now what if someone does some or all of that? The Islamic terrorist in New Orleans wanted to do that. What if he had accomplices? He kills a dozen or more with the car, then as the crowd is stampeding, they run headlong into IEDs and gunfire.
Or as we saw in Mumbai in 2008, terrorists hit the city in force, using both guns and explosives. An urban battle raged on. In the former situation, you aren’t just running a short distance to safety, you may need to fight for your life when the terrorists attack your refuge. As we saw on October 7 in Israel, it’s not impossible that masses of terrorists rampage through a neighborhood.
What can you do to prepare if you find yourself caught in the crossfire of some event like this? It’s not going to be like doming the crazed loser shooting up the grocery store. You may be facing a speeding box truck or staggering away confused after a bomb rips through a public street.
Gun: A gun is to shoot your way to safety, not to save the day. You are not a one-man counter-terror team. This is a fast track to being killed either directly, by a second shooter, or by police who have no idea who you are. Even if the cops are wrong in the end, you’re still dead. Also you aren’t stopping a vehicle with a handgun or AR-15.
Let’s also talk proficiency. If you can’t use the gun well, it’s not going to save you. It’s not some magical talisman that you can just carry and keep bad things from happening. Train to deploy it rapidly and hit well, preferably at distances out to and beyond 25 yards. The shooter may be wearing body armor, so practice headshots and the so-called “Mozambique” drill. In a large-scale, uncontained terror attack you're gonna want a rifle with plenty of ammo and probably a plate carrier (with plates in it).
At the very least, you should be carrying a 10-round minimum handgun, with spare magazines. You should have two magazine changes with you, so about 30 rounds. I understand that we get lazy, but you might assess New Years’ Eve on the Vegas Strip as a potentially more-likely-to-need 30 rounds environment than the potential ATM hold up at 10 PM on a Thursday.
Vehicle attacks: If a car is bearing down on you, get out of the way. Run laterally, not away from the vehicle; it’s faster than you can run. Get behind something that will stop a speeding vehicle, like dedicated anti-vehicle bollards or giant, concrete planters. Buildings work too. If you go inside, get well inside and out of the path of the doors/windows because the vehicle can penetrate deep inside. A parked car will not stop another speeding car.
If caught in a crowd, work your way to the edges. Face the direction you want to move, keep your arms up to protect your chest, and use your elbows to gently push while squeezing through gaps. Move diagonally with the flow when possible, avoiding head-on resistance. Stay low to maintain balance and avoid being pushed over. Try not to run with the crowd, but get downstream of an obstacle and wait in the “lee” until the crush passes.
Bomb: If you are ambulatory, get out of the immediate area. Consider taking any wounded loved ones or other victims with you. Why? Secondary devices. These can be used to kill more wounded or emergency workers once the response to the first attack arrives. Also shooters or something else might follow up the initial event. Don’t hang around slack-jawed or just move away from where the debris/body parts are. Get out of there!
In any IED threat situation, before or after, avoid suspicious devices. Some strange bag left somewhere? Move away from it and consider telling a cop. This would have saved lives in Boston. Certainly don’t investigate. If a car seems too heavy, has wires in places they ought not to be, etc. consider it suspicious. Keep solid cover, like concrete, between you and any device.
Trauma kit: Carrying a tourniquet, Israeli or compression bandage, and gauze on you is honestly more helpful than a gun in most situations. You can’t carry a gun in a lot of places, but you can carry a med kit. I have one that straps to the ankle and goes under the pants, with room for a TQ, bandage, gauze, and shears. Know how to use the TQ and stop the bleed.
Knowledge: You can take knowledge anywhere. First aid is something that you can learn and practice pretty easily. Observational skills and discernment are another thing you can work on. Reading the signs of a sketchy situation or choosing safer places, like behind a vehicle-stopping obstacle or facing the door, is a learned behavior.
Take the time to absorb your surroundings. Look for exits, danger points, potential threats, idiots, etc. Learn about building and venue layouts. For instance, in malls you can take the “employees only” doors into a back hallway that often dumps outside. Learn behavioral clues, like if people start running or if bearded, Arab males start standing up in unison on the airplane.
Communication: Though not everyone carries a radio with them, or should, in some cases you might want to use walkie-talkies to communicate. Cell networks are easily overwhelmed in major emergencies or even just large, benign, events. Jammers could be used to as well. If you have a Baofeng or whatever, you can pass critical information or at least check in when everyone else can’t communicate. But you NEED to have a plan, which includes pre-arranged frequencies and contact procedures.
Also, if you’re reporting to the police, do you know how to effectively communicate information? Can you recall what the suspect looked like, where he went, and what he was armed with or is the dispatcher going to have to pull the info out of you like a dentist extracting teeth? Do you even know where you are (most people don’t bother to look at street signs or learn maps)?
Planning: The best way to avoid being killed or wounded in a terrorist attack is to avoid going places where they occur, like any large gathering of people. That means concerts, festivals, fairs, parades, etc. But of course we can’t stop living and you can be targeted anywhere, so that leaves common sense. Plan exits and rally points. Game out what you will do if you find yourself in a terrorist attack. People who tend to play out mental exercises do better in emergencies vs. those that have never thought about it.
Finally, buy my books. I have some ideas about how the average person can think about, anticipate, plan for, and mitigate chaos at home. amzn.to/3iRuq9M
Let’s talk about surviving a distributed, multi-faceted terrorist attack. We’re family with one lone wolf, usually a mass shooter, airplane hijackings, bombings, or deliberate car crashes. Now what if someone does some or all of that? The Islamic terrorist in New Orleans wanted to do that. What if he had accomplices? He kills a dozen or more with the car, then as the crowd is stampeding, they run headlong into IEDs and gunfire.
Or as we saw in Mumbai in 2008, terrorists hit the city in force, using both guns and explosives. An urban battle raged on. In the former situation, you aren’t just running a short distance to safety, you may need to fight for your life when the terrorists attack your refuge. As we saw on October 7 in Israel, it’s not impossible that masses of terrorists rampage through a neighborhood.
What can you do to prepare if you find yourself caught in the crossfire of some event like this? It’s not going to be like doming the crazed loser shooting up the grocery store. You may be facing a speeding box truck or staggering away confused after a bomb rips through a public street.
Gun: A gun is to shoot your way to safety, not to save the day. You are not a one-man counter-terror team. This is a fast track to being killed either directly, by a second shooter, or by police who have no idea who you are. Even if the cops are wrong in the end, you’re still dead. Also you aren’t stopping a vehicle with a handgun or AR-15.
Let’s also talk proficiency. If you can’t use the gun well, it’s not going to save you. It’s not some magical talisman that you can just carry and keep bad things from happening. Train to deploy it rapidly and hit well, preferably at distances out to and beyond 25 yards. The shooter may be wearing body armor, so practice headshots and the so-called “Mozambique” drill. In a large-scale, uncontained terror attack you're gonna want a rifle with plenty of ammo and probably a plate carrier (with plates in it).
At the very least, you should be carrying a 10-round minimum handgun, with spare magazines. You should have two magazine changes with you, so about 30 rounds. I understand that we get lazy, but you might assess New Years’ Eve on the Vegas Strip as a potentially more-likely-to-need 30 rounds environment than the potential ATM hold up at 10 PM on a Thursday.
Vehicle attacks: If a car is bearing down on you, get out of the way. Run laterally, not away from the vehicle; it’s faster than you can run. Get behind something that will stop a speeding vehicle, like dedicated anti-vehicle bollards or giant, concrete planters. Buildings work too. If you go inside, get well inside and out of the path of the doors/windows because the vehicle can penetrate deep inside. A parked car will not stop another speeding car.
If caught in a crowd, work your way to the edges. Face the direction you want to move, keep your arms up to protect your chest, and use your elbows to gently push while squeezing through gaps. Move diagonally with the flow when possible, avoiding head-on resistance. Stay low to maintain balance and avoid being pushed over. Try not to run with the crowd, but get downstream of an obstacle and wait in the “lee” until the crush passes.
Bomb: If you are ambulatory, get out of the immediate area. Consider taking any wounded loved ones or other victims with you. Why? Secondary devices. These can be used to kill more wounded or emergency workers once the response to the first attack arrives. Also shooters or something else might follow up the initial event. Don’t hang around slack-jawed or just move away from where the debris/body parts are. Get out of there!
In any IED threat situation, before or after, avoid suspicious devices. Some strange bag left somewhere? Move away from it and consider telling a cop. This would have saved lives in Boston. Certainly don’t investigate. If a car seems too heavy, has wires in places they ought not to be, etc. consider it suspicious. Keep solid cover, like concrete, between you and any device.
Trauma kit: Carrying a tourniquet, Israeli or compression bandage, and gauze on you is honestly more helpful than a gun in most situations. You can’t carry a gun in a lot of places, but you can carry a med kit. I have one that straps to the ankle and goes under the pants, with room for a TQ, bandage, gauze, and shears. Know how to use the TQ and stop the bleed.
Knowledge: You can take knowledge anywhere. First aid is something that you can learn and practice pretty easily. Observational skills and discernment are another thing you can work on. Reading the signs of a sketchy situation or choosing safer places, like behind a vehicle-stopping obstacle or facing the door, is a learned behavior.
Take the time to absorb your surroundings. Look for exits, danger points, potential threats, idiots, etc. Learn about building and venue layouts. For instance, in malls you can take the “employees only” doors into a back hallway that often dumps outside. Learn behavioral clues, like if people start running or if bearded, Arab males start standing up in unison on the airplane.
Communication: Though not everyone carries a radio with them, or should, in some cases you might want to use walkie-talkies to communicate. Cell networks are easily overwhelmed in major emergencies or even just large, benign, events. Jammers could be used to as well. If you have a Baofeng or whatever, you can pass critical information or at least check in when everyone else can’t communicate. But you NEED to have a plan, which includes pre-arranged frequencies and contact procedures.
Also, if you’re reporting to the police, do you know how to effectively communicate information? Can you recall what the suspect looked like, where he went, and what he was armed with or is the dispatcher going to have to pull the info out of you like a dentist extracting teeth? Do you even know where you are (most people don’t bother to look at street signs or learn maps)?
Planning: The best way to avoid being killed or wounded in a terrorist attack is to avoid going places where they occur, like any large gathering of people. That means concerts, festivals, fairs, parades, etc. But of course we can’t stop living and you can be targeted anywhere, so that leaves common sense. Plan exits and rally points. Game out what you will do if you find yourself in a terrorist attack. People who tend to play out mental exercises do better in emergencies vs. those that have never thought about it.
Finally, buy my books. I have some ideas about how the average person can think about, anticipate, plan for, and mitigate chaos at home. amzn.to/3iRuq9M
I carry something like this: amzn.to/3DF4yZ8
You can also get a bare one and load it with supplies you already have. amzn.to/4j0BLP2
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