Americans Need Active Shooter Training

Video footage was released last week of college student and security worker Jon Meis pepper-spraying, attacking, and disarming an active shooter on the Seattle Pacific University campus in June 2014.

In the process, Meis saved his own life and undoubtedly the lives of many others.

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One expert is helping train Americans to do just this — in life-or-death situations. He believes we’re far too passive in the face of emergency situations and must be more prepared to defend ourselves and others around us.

Ryan Hoover, 42, is the founder of Fit to Fight, a training program based in Charlotte, North Carolina, that teaches self-defense and active shooter training. Hoover is a leader and trainer in Krav Maga, mixed martial arts, and Active Killer Defense. He has trained law enforcement agencies all over the world as well as the North Carolina Justice Academy, security personnel at Rammstein Air Force Base, and leaders in local schools and houses of worship.

Hoover spoke with LifeZette about why he feels the time for Americans to learn to protect themselves is right here — right now.

Question: What made you become so passionate about active shooter training?

Answer: We started really focusing [on this] after the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School [in Newton, Connecticut, in 2012]. I started really examining what typical lockdown procedures are in public schools, and I was pretty disappointed in what the typical protocols are for an active shooter in the building. I have two kids in public schools myself — this affects all of us.

Question: Why do you feel accepted lockdown protocols aren’t enough — in schools, businesses, offices, and churches?

Answer: The problem with a lockdown is simple. It’s fine — until the shooter comes through the door. I’ve found that a “close and lock the door, turn off the lights and put everyone in a corner, then be quiet and hope they don’t come in” strategy is not effective. Some systems encourage barricading the door, and that is good — if you have the time to do it.

Everyone has to remember that somebody’s going to be first. A room or an office has to be attacked before lockdown even occurs. So we looked at what a lot of the current training out there is encouraging, including “run-hide-fight,” and they actually aren’t focusing on the “fight” part of the equation. They’re afraid. It’s very complicated and political to begin teaching self-defense in terms of active shooter training.

Question: So what went wrong in the tragic Orlando situation, in your opinion?

Answer: Here’s the hard truth. Other than maybe the first couple of victims in the Orlando massacre, everyone else who died did exactly what experts have told them to do all throughout their lives. They ran, they hid — and they died. In the end, their training failed them. And unfortunately it resulted in the largest mass shooting in modern American history.

There’s no reason that 300 people versus one guy should have that result. Leaders have to stop being unwilling to change strategies. They need to talk very seriously about these events and about public safety.

“I wake up every day trying to figure out another way to approach schools, and get the ear of someone who can affect a change in thinking,” said Hoover.

Question: What makes your training more effective than other programs?

Answer: We are a training-driven organization. We want people to physically train. The idea of sitting in a classroom and watching a PowerPoint on what you do if a terrorist starts shooting, in my mind, just doesn’t work.

My team also goes through the entire school, office, or church. And we identify what the security vulnerabilities are — if you can hide during an event, what are the best places in your building to hide? Then we train people — very importantly — on where you need to be if that shooter comes through the door. Teaching people in a building with one point of entry to be strategically placed — that shooter shouldn’t get too far inside that doorway before someone is on him, and lives are saved.

If that shooter keeps coming, we need to have been trained to have a plan to fight. What does the fight in a “run-hide-fight” scenario mean to a third-grade teacher? We need to help train him or her to know that.

I will teach everyone in the building how to fight an attacker, because who knows who will be the first point of contact with that shooter? My take is that even if we’re not teaching kids to do this — and our society is not there yet, I feel — I believe that if kids see that the teachers know to engage a shooter, then at least they see it’s not enough just to lock down.

Related: Ingraham: Orlando Narrative Inconvenient for Administration

Question: Are schools taking advantage of your program?

Answer: Private schools and charter schools are, but public schools are not there yet.

I wake up every day trying to figure out another way to approach schools, and get the ear of someone who can affect a change in thinking. In the past month, I’ve met with two congressmen about this training and those went really well. But ultimately, individual school systems will decide whether to become trained.

Question: The optics of training children to engage in actually fighting a gunman may be unsettling to administrators and parents. What’s your take?

Answer: For me, the optics are much tougher of seeing parents crying while body bags are being wheeled out of elementary schools. I tell people, “If I could wake up and no one needs this, that is the best-case scenario.” But since Sandy Hook, every teacher I’ve taught, I’ve taught for free. That’s how critical this training is.

Question: Are businesses as resistant as schools?

Answer: Our training is much more accepted in the business community. I was in Belgium for two weeks after the airport bombing, training there. Still, in America as a whole, we just don’t seem to be there yet in terms of acceptance of where we are as a culture.

“A terrorist made phone calls, reloaded several times, and even engaged in social media during his rampage — all while people hid and prayed, helpless,” said Hoover. “Americans [need] options to respond.”

Question: How about colleges and universities — are they open to self-defense training?

Answer: I had a meeting with the director of academic affairs for a university recently, and I said, “You offer badminton as a P.E. elective. Why not self-defense?” We don’t even want kids to play dodgeball in this society now.

Question: What are the lessons of Orlando?

Answer: It’s this. That a terrorist made phone calls, reloaded several times, and even engaged in social media during his rampage — all while people hid and prayed, helpless. I aim to enhance survivability by giving Americans the options to respond.

Remember — these killers aren’t warriors or tough guys. Eighty-three percent of these active shooter situations are ended by force, and half the time that force is applied by the shooter himself when the good guys show up. These types are too weak and too cowardly to engage in a real fight. That’s why they go to elementary schools — if you really wanted to fight, you’d attack a police station.

Question: Can anyone learn to defend against an active shooter?

Answer: This past weekend we had a 65-year-old woman in one of our active shooter trainings. She didn’t think she could take on our pretend shooter. I looked at her and said, “Then you’re going to die.” At the end, she was doing all the maneuvers, and she said, “For the next session, I’m bringing my niece.”

Related: ‘I’m Thinking of Buying a Gun’

We’re getting people past what their preconceived notions are about themselves, and making them realize they can do something to protect themselves and others.

A terrorist will never take over a plane with box cutters again. That’s because people fought back and the terrorists saw that. We haven’t made the mental and emotional shift when it comes to protecting ourselves in these events — and that’s where it’s got to happen. It’s natural to do everything we can to protect ourselves. That’s how we were made to live.

Further Thoughts from Another Expert
LifeZette also talked to author and former West Point psychology professor Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman. He specializes in the study of the psychology of killing and believes kids must have the tools to actively fight a school shooter.

“I tell educators that ‘stop, drop and roll’ was very controversial when it first came out to prevent kids from dying by fire,” said Grossman, who is based in Mascoutah, Illinois. “‘You can’t teach that to kindergarteners, they’ll live their lives in fear,’ everyone said. ‘They’ll have nightmares about catching on fire.’ But since the fire drills and ‘stop, drop and roll,’ not a [single] kid has been killed by fire in the last 50 years.”

Grossman said he taught his own grandkids “to actively defend themselves, and they’re as precious to me as life itself. I sat them down and said, ‘Pretend you’re at school, and throw these books at me, and then get past me and out the door.’ Far from being traumatized, they soon were saying, ‘That was fun, Grandpa, let’s do that again.'”