osu-tweet

Just before a good guy with a gun stopped a bad guy with a car and a knife (not a gun) at Ohio State University OSU Tweeted the above to the community. The instruction seems simple enough, right? Apparently not . . .

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Was Mr. McGonigle being facetious? Not if the mainstream media’s reaction is anything to go by. Many an outlet felt obliged to explain from whence cometh the “fight” instruction and what, exactly, it was directing students to do. What did Ohio State’s ‘Run Hide Fight’ tweet mean? usatoday.com asked itself.

In addition to thousands of shares, the Buckeye Alert drew some criticism and confusion with the sentence ‘Run Hide Fight’ Those instructions come straight from the Department of Homeland Security and the phrase is a registered trademark of the City of Houston, who helped to create the national model for surviving an active shooter.

Here’s what the DHS says about the “fight” part of the program:

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OSU used to the DHS active shooter instructions to create the following video, garnering over 330k views (some of which may have occurred during the incident in question).

At 4:04, Officer Adam Tabor addresses the possibility of fighting an active shooter. He reassures potential combatants that [armed] help will be on the way; defenders will only need to fight for a short while. “It could be the most important ten seconds of your life,” he opines.

It would be remiss of me not to point out that the DHS and OSU and the media outlets covering this story make no mention of a self-defense firearm. Or a knife. Or pepper spray. Or a TASER. Or any other dedicated self-defense weapon. It’s all about improvised weaponry (hats off to OSU for showing an employee preparing to garotte an active shooter with an electric cord).

Maybe that’s because Ohio State University is a designating “gun-free zone.” Official school policy bans the “Storage, or possession of dangerous weapons, devices, or substances including, but not limited to, firearms, ammunition or fireworks, unless authorized by an appropriate university official or permitted by a university policy, even if otherwise permitted by law.”

That said, I suppose it’s possible that the “appropriate university official” authorized someone to exercise their natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms on OSU campus. But the bottom line remains: OSU advises students to fight an active shooter, but denies them their right to carry the best tools for the job. Go figure.

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81 COMMENTS

  1. Or just pee on yourself like the feminists propose. Maybe the bad guy will get disgusted and just leave you alone.

  2. Anything likely to distract a shooter would be, by necessity, a weapon that could injure someone. A blunt or sharp object. If the powers that prevail over some “safe space” don’t trust us to possess guns, why should they trust us to possess blunt or sharp objects?

  3. The run hide fight mantra isn’t a bad one, especially when addressing large groups of mostly unarmed people. That said I’d much rather do my fighting while armed (as well as my running and hiding for that matter).

    • But run and hide thus eliminates teamwork, planning, predicting, and executing. It is a very bad recommendation. It stems from the liberal mantra that standing your ground and taking personal responsibility are to be discouraged. Only at the very instant of near death will they then accept some measure of half hearted personal responsibility, perhaps to travel onward to their utopia with some measure of dignity as they are slaughtered.

      • OK, you charge a guy with a riffle across an open quad, I’m sure your demonstration of bravery will inspire the teamwork you wish for. I for one, even if armed, will try for cover and concealment first and then assess my options.

      • For an individual (especially an armed individual), I agree that Run Hide Fight may not be the best course of action. As a general rule for the general public, I think it mostly works. Consider some scenarios:

        I teach 8th grade English at a private school that allows me to carry during class. I have given MANY hours to examing how I would defend myself and the miniature humans in my charge if the need should arise.

        If someone bursts into my classroom, of course I will skip straight to step 3 and fight without running and hiding. But if I hear shots down the hall (or get news of a knife-wielding mad man on the street), my game plan shifts. I care about the 20 kids in my room, and that’s it. I’m not going hunting for the bad guy; I’m locking the door, getting my kids in a corner not visible from the door, and getting myself in the best position to shoot if/when Bad Guy comes to my door (this isn’t as easy as you might think, given thin classroom walls and the probability that the next class over will be huddling behind a few layers of drywall directly behind where my target will be).

        Again, it’s all about the scenarios. Maybe I know there’s time so I bust out a window and have the kids run down the street to the local Y while I cover the retreat.

        Or maybe, as happened last spring, there is a verygeneral threat. A local school was put on lockdown after an armed robbery nearby. When one school goes on lock down, we all get an alert. While the odds of the armed robbers coming from the bank to my campus six miles away are extremely low, the principal immediately pulled myself and two other teacher-carriers out of class and posted us at the entrances. In that case, we were definitely in a fight-first frame of mind.

        • If you watched late news yesterday, you know the officials at OSU were congratulating themselves on how wonderfully their masterful “run hide fight” concept had worked to keep everyone safe, no one was killed, aren’t we wonderful, long after it was determined that the nutjob was shot dead by a good guy with a gun after less than a minute, several minutes *before* their precious alarm went out, destroying sanity for the rest of the day. Campus police, local police, state police, ATF, everybody and his cousin running around like chickens with their heads cut off, all beginning *after* the incident was completely over and done. Miles and miles of police tape stretched everywhere, not one inch of it before the perp hit the ground, dead. The whole day was really, really stupid.

        • LarryinTX, you caught the salient fact that encapsulates in this one incident the sum of bureaucrat virtue: They (including the Governor) took credit for extensive training, extraordinary teamwork, and blinding speed in issuing warnings and sealing off the site….none of which was necessary. The lone wolf cop took down the lone wolf slasher. Good cop. Pathetic administration.

  4. Adam Tabor addresses the possibility of fighting an active shooter. He reassures potential combatants that [armed] help will be on the way; defenders will only need to fight for a short while. “It could be the most important ten seconds of your life,” he opines.

    Or three hours???

    • “Or three hours???”

      Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding!!! We have a winner!

      The recent Pulse Nightclub attack in Orlando, Florida makes it absolutely clear that local law enforcement could literally take hours to incapacitate an attacker. Given that reality, it is utterly and totally beyond me how politicians pass laws which make it illegal to be armed for self-defense.

  5. Why confuse yourself with options?

    Jump to #3. It really encompasses the other two when necessary. #1 and #2 are what you do in your pants if you ain’t doing #3 from the outset and you encounter a bad guy.

    Plus. This is a didactic tool for those being aggressed by a ‘bad-guy’. Your enemy is not #1 “running away”, or #2 “hiding”, they are merely repositioning themselves as part of #3.

    Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet.
    -James “Mad Dog” Mattis

    • It is interesting that an acronym used to teach motorcycle safety works so well for many other situations.
      Scan
      Identify
      Predict
      Decide
      Execute

      When I ride, I use SIPDE under the assumption that everyone else wants to kill me.
      When I carry, I use SIPDE to ensure that I am prepared to kill everyone else should the need arise.

      • I learned that when riding, first off, you’re invisible and no one can see you. But if they DO see you, THEN they’ll try to kill you. As evidenced by the guy who tried to merge into me on I5 last week, while looking right at me out his side window.

        And yet, no shooting happened.

        Gun must be broke.

        • Nice, all of it. Why does it feel like we’re skirting infecting the minds of others that they will get themselves, their lineage, their friends, their livestock, their possessions, their neighbors, their country burned to the fing ground if they even hint that they’re thinking of fing with you?

          Israel at least goes and knocks their house down, or their mom’s house down. I say level the block. Let’s make each other’s local neighbors each other’s-problems and not our own. You tolerating fwads around you only leads to me having to deal with fwads around me. You want me to do a surgical strike on your neighbor, I want to gnuke your hemisphere.

  6. I never understood the hide, comply or capitulate aspect pushed by everyone from top police to politicians to the media.

    Statistically you are better to confront the attacker immediately. Speed, violence and force of action wins 80% of the time. Either way, passive is not the right tactic historically speaking,

    Social Engineering to make the populace complacent and dependent on The Man to keep them safe?

    • “Social Engineering to make the populace complacent and dependent on The Man to keep them safe?”

      You think?!?!?!?

    • There are people out there whose job it is to protect you. That is impossible on the individual level, and so, they don’t do (accomplish) it.

      So they keep you from doing self-protection, as that is detrimental to them keeping their job.

  7. Why insist on authority without responsibility while denying the tool to carry out the instruction? Ask that question to OSU management and note length of pause before their answer. Same time alotted to die on campus.

  8. “Just before a good guy with a gun stopped a bad guy with a car and a knife (not a gun) at Ohio State University OSU Tweeted the above to the community.”

    Actually, it came just after a good guy with a gun stopped the bad guy.

  9. My gun free workplace has an active shooter plan that only has run and hide
    When I suggested that we should fight with improvised weapons as a last resort, the staff was for the idea
    Management did not agree

    • I have worked in two ‘gun free’ work places & carried every day–they do not have the right to deny the ability to defend myself–actually carried multiple different types in addition to a firearm

  10. funny how the lame stream media first reported it as a shooting, guess on firearms can do damage, personally they need to keep cars and knives away from the Somali’s, stop all imports from owning a car, knives, welfare , health care , housing, etc send them to euorpe as they love them for cheap labor!

  11. I was subjected to “workplace active shooter” training, at a client site, that included the cheesy “Run, Hide, Fight” video. I much prefer being armed to relying on drywall as concealment, a copy machine as cover, and a fire extinguisher as a weapon.

    The responding officer, being armed, was properly equipped to bypass the idiotic, “Run, Hide, Fight” directive, and engage the attacker directly – thereby preventing further injury and potential loss of innocent life.

    Gun Free Zones rob law-abiding citizens of that same opportunity, and force them to follow the idiotic, “Run, Hide, Fight” directive.

    • Obviously, the responding officer was too young and inexperienced to realize that he was supposed to find cover and radio SWAT, so that they could set up a command post in order to engage the perp 3+ hours from now. Which is clearly supposed to be the plan, as they were *still* engaging the perp 6+ hours later, which was 6+ hours after he was croaked.

  12. It only takes one ahole to ruin your day, and there are literally millions of POS (D) aholes, and their millions of POS evil let-in millions. Take charge of your own safety, and don’t just get tunnel vision on the immediate perp.

    P L E A S E

    N O T E:

    Most if not all of the multitude of terror attacks under Obama have been Democraps or their POS let-in minions.

    F2 the (D) ! Especially all of you fing POS (D) still playing at home. FU and your progeny. I am warning my great great grandkids about you.

  13. I don’t think it’s right to bash a school for not wanting guns on their property. If someone doesn’t want to have guns at their school or house or store or whatever, you simply don’t go to those places. If people CHOOSE to be victims, then that’s their right as well. The narrative of a lot of your articles makes it sound like people HAVE to carry a firearm, which is not the case.

    • I don’t think it’s right to bash a school for not wanting guns on their property.

      A school is unable to prevent someone who is intent on bringing guns to the school from doing so. The school can only effectively disarm innocents who are present when that person does so.

      If someone doesn’t want to have guns at their school or house or store or whatever, you simply don’t go to those places.

      The Ohio State University is a (wait for it…) public institution. They don’t own the property; the people of Ohio do.

      But beyond that: property rights have nothing to do with carrying a firearm, and do not trump the right to keep and bear arms.

      If people CHOOSE to be victims, then that’s their right as well.

      Because it is somehow right/moral for people to be forced to choose a different, even inferior, education in order not to be forced to become a defenseless victim?

      The narrative of a lot of your articles makes it sound like people HAVE to carry a firearm, which is not the case.

      One doesn’t have to wear a seatbelt, either – or have a fire extinguisher, or have a first aid kit, etc….

    • Christian,

      If a university’s policy required students to submit to gang rape from staff, would that be okay since students could simply choose another university without such a policy?

      If not, how is a policy that mandates rape a no go, but a policy that mandates death good to go?

      • Not to argue semantics but if you choose to get raped then it’s not rape now is it? It’s simply responsibility of choice.

        • Not to argue semantics but if you choose to get raped then it’s not rape now is it? It’s simply responsibility of choice.

          By definition, one cannot choose to get raped. If rape is committed, then it is solely due to the decisions and actions of the attacker, and the attacker is solely responsible for the act.

        • Christian,

          You are missing the point: claiming that it is okay for a property owner to require rape/death as a condition to enter their property — as long as there are options to go on other properties — is still obscene and wrong and has no place in a decent and righteous society. And to really emphasize the problem with requiring rape/death: what happens when there are no longer any options? What happens when someone is travelling through a rural community and EVERY property requires rape/death as a condition to enter … and the traveler is out of gasoline and has no food? Is it still okay to require submission to rape as a condition to enter someone’s property to purchase food or gasoline? After all, the traveler has a choice to sit on the road and hope that some other traveler comes along and is willing to provide food or gasoline.

        • “What happens when someone is travelling through a rural community and EVERY property requires rape/death as a condition to enter … and the traveler is out of gasoline and has no food?”

          U_S! You tricky devil! You’re sneaking in a reference to Chicago, right?

    • It creates an unsafe environment and disadvantage for responsible Americans that are willing and able to defend themselves from threats.

      That is the height of irresponsibility and I hope they get sued to high heaven by every person that was stabbed and denied their Constitutional right to be armed. This could have ended with no stabbings.

      • Exactly…And if you choose to submit yourself to an unsafe environment then who does the fault fall on?

        • Exactly…And if you choose to submit yourself to an unsafe environment then who does the fault fall on?

          You seem to ascribe to Jungle Theory, in which the freedoms and actions of law-abiding are justly constrained by the actions of the lawless.

          Such theory is immoral and repugnant.

        • “Exactly…And if you choose to submit yourself to an unsafe environment then who does the fault fall on?”

          It falls on those who created and allowed the unsafe environment to exist. It falls on those who have tried desperately to convince us that the unsafe environment is a lie, all is safety and wonderment, trust us. Who do *YOU* think is at fault? The teenaged girl who makes a wrong turn and finds herself in the midst of Gangland Chicago? Alone and unarmed? Do you think at all?

    • Criticizing (a.k.a. “bashing” because criticism is all that’s going on here) a school for not wanting guns on their property is one of our unalienable rights. They don’t like what I have to say about their policy? Too bad. I have no obligation to shut up about it.

        • I would, and I have, ignore them. More do every day, “gun free zones” are not. But those of us armed will be defending *ourselves* there, not you. If I may be arrested for producing my gun, you can bet it will only be presented to save *ME*, screw you. I will watch you die without a twitch.

    • Man! That actually brought tears to my eyes! A university instruction video on how to deal with a mass murderer, that includes and supports an armed response from students and faculty!

      This shows how much we have achieved in regaining our 2nd amendment rights, and how much further we have to go!

  15. there’s a bully program for kids based on wrestling that has:

    “Rule 3: If verbally attacked, follow the Three T-steps (talk, tell, tackle).”

    but only tackle. no kicking or punching. just maintain control while weathering the storm, then try talking again.

    i’m just happy to see the pendulum start its swing back.. finally.

  18. Run Hide Fight — how precious! I hope the little snowflakes enjoy shitting their panties in their safe spaces.

    Anyway, their slogan sounds so much nicer that “Run to Cover and Shoot the Bastard.”

  19. I noticed how they advocate to ‘Incapacitate’ and act in an ‘aggressive manner’ and throw things at the shooter. No mention at all of any extreme violence to keep beating/stabbing the shooter until he no longer poses ANY kind of threat.

    It’s great that all that University training advocates the default setting already ingrained into the human animal. ‘Run, hide, fight’ is nothing new and has been what has been going on since the first active shooter ever.

  20. Some government-produced video or pamphlet we reviewed on TTAG a couple of years back advised that if it came to having to fight you should “look around for a pair of scissors” to assail the shooter/stabber/whatever with. Later the government produced media suggesting you carry around a few heavy cans of food to throw at an assailant. How incredibly stupid is this stuff?

    Just stop the friggin’ “gun-free zone” cr*p and let people carry firearms. Tell the scared, wussified cowards to STFU or GTHO.

    Ohio States’ Tweet including “Run Hide Fight.” is just sickening, idiotic and hypocritically perverse. Puts the lie to any illusion Ohio State had about being a place of “Higher Education”.

  22. What about those students and faculty who were protesting with dildos a while back? Maybe they could train each other to “whack” an active shooter with their dildos. It could work?!?

  23. It’s not surprising any call for personal accountability and responsibility on the part of the plebs would be disconcerting for those unwilling or unable to think for themselves.

  24. Whacking the bad guy with their concealed-carry dildo seems like the best suggestion yet–should it be done one at a time or all together at once ?? Can we obtain a training video to teach this “dildo whack attack” method? DMD

  26. For those boo hoo-ing the “run, hide, fight” mantra, it was developed by professionals (DHS / military / security types) after analyzing many active shooter cases to give the best chance for indivisual personal survival, not stop the shooter / save everyone.

    There are many variables in any shooting incident, and you would have to adjust accordingly, but the “run, hide, fight” was developed as a easy to remember reaction list for “civilians” (i.e. people with no or little training) to give them the best odds for survival.

    Even for those of us with training (military, ex-military, police, ex-police, or civilian but trained) it’s still a good outline to follow until oportunity presents itself.

    ~ stay frosty everyone =)

    • In any such propaganda, there should at least be a mention of “prepare, gun up, shoot the mofo”. WAY more effective.

  27. “Just before a good guy with a gun stopped a bad guy with a car and a knife (not a gun) at Ohio State University OSU Tweeted the above to the community.”

    Are you sure about that?
    I was told that the Run/Hide/Fight notice was distributed after the threat was dead.

    After all, the first university employee to know of the attack was a cop, whose first action was to challenge the attacker and second action was to shoot him. Radioing supervisors would have come later.

  29. Back when I attended The Ohio State University in the dark ages of the ’80s, my friends on the pistol team kept their competition pistols in their dorm rooms. Nobody thought anything of it.

    Time to do away with this criminal protection zone b.s.

  30. The problem with these instructions is that snowflakes have had their fight instinct removed through decades of liberal inbreeding. They literally do not know how.

  31. People without guns MUST run. Away from gunfire. People with guns CAN run toward gunfire.

    Most shooters are lousy shots. Moving is survival. Cowering is death.

  33. I remember reading that unholy triumvirate of Run Hide Fight for 7 years at my old job at Fedex, in a warehouse, with all of the doors open in the wee hours of the morning. Complete lunacy, best we could do is throw someone we didn’t like at the bullets first as we ran the opposite direction. Same thing for fire safety.

  34. Have the make and model of the attacker’s vehicle been identified yet? We have to get these assault vehicles off our streets.

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