Originally published on Notes From the Fields We Know, December 20, 2012.
Do a thought experiment. Count to four by thousands. One thousand one, One thousand two, One thousand three. One thousand four. Now fire an imaginary gun. Repeat. How many times did you fire in one minute? Five minutes? Ten minutes? Well, 15, 75 and 150. How many of those shots hit a target the size of a paper plate? Professionals hit that size target about 60% of the time during an incident. Let’s cut that in half for the average person. Of the shots fired, 4, 22 and 45 are lethal.
Fifteen shots a minute, 30% hit rate, 4 lethal shots per minute. The police stopped the killings in the last few mass shootings simply by showing up. One incident was stopped by a civilian who appeared to be a detective. Combine those two bits of information and it’s clear that the longer the police take to respond the more people who will be killed. The response time at Sandy Hook was about 10 minutes. Twenty-six dead. The police are not the first responders. The true first responders are the teachers and administrators.
December 20th, 2012 6:01pm