Originally Posted By: Russ
Lots of Monday morning quarterbacks in this thread. We are talking about children. You want a group of untrained teenagers to charge an active shooter? Really?


This is not an answer to only your question and point, but you address the thought or mindset in the most brief way.

The thread starter:
Originally Posted By: dweste
As we get details of what the media is calling the "mass shooting" outrage and tragedy at the island summer camp in Norway, what lessons can we learn? How could we prepare our kids, and ourselves, to survive the situation?


We, you and I, will never know all the details of this shooting. We may read every article about it and see every T.V. report. There are facts and indicators we will never have access to.

I can remember my teenage years, which included playing high school football, other sports and other physical activities. Yes, it is a freightening thought of teenagers facing an armed, determined gunman. But this gunman is actively shooting those teenagers, and we see some of how this incident turned out.

What it looks like is that they (news reports) have dropped the number killed by gunfire to 68. The number shot still looks to be around 160 or more. So, I ask, do you want an active shooter to gun down 160 or more teenagers... is that alright with you? No, I don't want my children to have to charge and attempt to disarm an active shooter. That would be a terrible and dangerous thing to do. But what would you rather they do, what is the alternative, to teach them to be murdered?

What took place didn't turn out too good for those kids in my view. I think there was a better thing to do. Monday morning quarterbacking? Maybe to some.

Let's say that some of them together, or even individually, started charging the shooter. Let's say 30 of them were killed and another 60 were shot. Is that a good thing? No, it is a terrible thing. If that did happen and we looked at it, I am sure most would now be saying "They should never have done that, they should have ran and hidden and waited for the trained, armed police to take care of it".

But, if we want to learn something from this, it would be that terrible things happen, and if we don't take action, they will continue to happen. We are looking at what the outcome of running and hiding was in this situation. Every situation is different. Awareness of what is going on around you is a start. Knowing the world you live in is a start. Running from the situation or ignoring reality in most situations won't get you killed, but in an "active shooter" situation, it is not the solution.