Revoking permission to make us a victim

kw: book reviews, nonfiction, self preservation, violence, terrorism, mass murder

Dr. Gary M. Jackson has worked in anti-terrorism more than 30 years. Over such a time, patterns become clear. He has distilled his expertise into a very useful reference book, Surviving Mass Victim Attacks: What to Do When the Unthinkable Happens.

If you read through the book, as I did, it develops in you a view of self-preservation as a solemn responsibility. Please do get the book, and read it through, even if some of the repetition gets tedious. Any good educator knows that repetition aids learning. After reading it keep it handy, and go back over sundry items as they come to mind, perhaps prompted by yet another outrage covered in breathless haste by the media.

The author wants us first to understand the commonalities behind mass attacks, from a "going postal" shooting incident to a bombing to a truck/knife attack. He boils down the motive to five categories:

• International Terrorism (usually religion based)
• Domestic Terrorism (religion based or anti-government)
• Self-Radicalized Terrorism (also usually religion based)
• Mental Health Issues
• Hate and Bias

In the three Terrorism categories, the overwhelming majority of religion based incidents are motivated by Radical Islam (read my review of Muslim by Hank Hanegraaf to see why "radical Islam" is a redundancy). However, in all the categories above means and weapons used by the attackers fall into categories that help us better understand ways we can increase our chances of survival:

• Firearms
• Knives
• Vehicles
• Bombs

The news media focus primarily on mass shootings, but cars and trucks are being used more frequently, particularly based on urging by ISIS and al Qaeda, as are knives. Lately, crashing a truck into a crowd is followed by knifing that continues until the attacker is killed.

For the first three categories of attack, the first three rules of survival are:

• Escape
• ESCAPE
• ESCAPE

OK, I know that in the book they are Escape, Hide, and Counter-attack. But the author takes pains to drill it into our brains, that a mass attacker intends to kill as many victims as possible, and seldom intends to leave the scene without either committing suicide or being killed by police or the crowd. Therefore, he stresses many times that we should have no thought except to escape, until it becomes clear that we cannot do so.

We have all likely heard of survivors who "played dead" and were passed over. But all too often, the attacker goes back and puts more bullets into all the prone bodies, to be sure his victims are truly dead. Also, for every report of someone who survived by hiding, there are many reports of a seemingly-good hiding place being found full of bodies later on. So, escape! Hiding and attacking the attacker are kind of Hail-Mary attempts when escape is impossible and you are practically nose-to-nose: dead if you stand still, so why not try something? If you must attack the attacker, do your best to use a weapon, either one you brought with you, or something improvised, like a broken bottle or table leg. The cardinal rule here: there is no such thing as a fair fight, and the mass attacker already has a big advantage.

Only in the case of a bombing is escape not the best. If you survive the blast, running could put you in the path of a second blast. Remember the Boston Marathon bombings; there were two bombs. Running would be a bad strategy. Tend to your wounds and keep hidden.

Later in the book we read how to formulate our own preparedness, so that we know how to get quickly out of a place if it is attacked. A quiet, small restaurant, for example, is unlikely to draw a mass attacker, who will instead look for a target with more potential victims. If we plan to be somewhere amongst a crowd, then, we need to check out all the alternative exits. Even in a mall, it's well to remember that all the bigger stores will have a back exit, but some of the smaller ones may not. That will inform our choice of escape routes if an attack happens while we are there.

There is a lot I could say, but I'll leave that to the book, which says it very well. It is well worth getting familiar with its contents.