Chris Bird’s ‘Surviving a Mass Killer Rampage’: Book Review

If you like TTAG’s Defensive Gun Use of the Day stories, Chris Bird’s book, “Thank God I Had A Gun:  True Accounts of Self-Defense” belongs on your bookshelf. Mr. Bird puts you in the shoes of the good guys, educating readers on things done well – and not so well. For the casual concealed carry licensee, especially in states that don’t require training to carry, Mr. Bird’s comprehensive, easy-to-read book “The Concealed Handgun Manual: How to Choose, Carry, and Shoot a Gun in Self Defense” could save your life.

Mr. Bird’s latest — Surviving A Mass Killer Rampage:  When Second Count, Police are Still Minutes Away — contains a host of practical information gleaned from some of the best names in training — information that’s proven to save lives and stop bad people with evil in their hearts. There’s tips for those don’t (or more likely can’t) carry everywhere.

I teach much of this same stuff in our team’s training courses for adults and teens, but I still picked up some new ways of looking at things. Mr. Bird hits all the basics, and then some. His understanding and learning is rock-solid.

Mr. Bird’s text jumps around a little bit and some of the text is dry, but it’s interweaved with enough defensive gun use stories to keep you turning pages. Through painstaking research and interviews, he puts you in the shoes of genuine heroes. You never know when a good guy will step up to save lives while risking his or her own.

There are other heroes in the book. Specifically, the people leading the charge to arm teachers and church members. Ditto for those working to allow civilians to carrying guns in “sacred” locations. Mr. Bird rides along training programs that empower teachers to carry guns to protect their schools and church pastors and church members seeking to protect the flock.

There are bad guys in the book as well. Plenty of them. Both killers and politicians who enable them. You’ll get enough of both to make your blood boil, wondering how politicians – and a few of our fellow Americans – can’t fathom that “gun free zones” are a dinner bell for would-be killers. Chris Bird shows us over and over that only thing that makes sacred places safe is people like us who carry the attitudes and abilities with which to stop evil.

As with Mr. Bird’s other books, his research is outstanding. He didn’t just talk with experts, he went and took and/or audited their classes. He got his feet wet and hands dirty. He’s serious about this stuff. As you should be, too.