Active shooter events are on the rise and it has become a very controversial topic with people on both ends of the political spectrum arguing for opposite solutions. This article will review the most relevant data sources on active shooters, in order to extrapolate key details on how to prevent, react, and respond to these horrific situations with special emphasis on statistics for the armed citizen.
FBI data indicate a pretty clear upward trend in active shooter events. They also indicate that these events are increasing in numbers of victims killed and wounded.
This sounds bleak, however, often times in life there is a silver lining. There has been a noticeable increase in these types of events being successfully stoped by armed citizens, which is cause for celebration.
Due to the huge increases in states issuing more permits or adopting constitutional carry, there are more citizens than ever legally able to carry a firearm. This is a great start but we will need to do more to help curb these events.
Before we go any further, we are going to review some preliminary statistics on active shooter events so we can have a common understanding how they play out.
Active Shooter Event Statistics
Much of the active shooter stats in this section come from this excellent report from ALICE.
- 160 active shooter events occurred in the United States between 2000 and 2013, an average of 11.4 per year. 1043 casualties occurred during those events. Of those, 486 lost their lives
- 70.0% of the incidents occurred in either a commerce/business or educational environment.
- 70% of incidents end in 5 minutes or less.
- 60.0% of the incidents ended before police arrived.
- Only 14 percent ended without applied force, such as by a negotiated surrender.
- 37% were over in less than 2 minutes.
- Only 1.3% had 2 shooters involved.
- 85% of K-12 incidents the shooter was a student, former student, former teacher or related to a person in the facility. This means that the option of hiding has a low probability of success due to threat knowing where everyone is located.
- In 64 incidents (40.0%), the shooters committed suicide; 54 shooters did so at the scene of the crime.
- at least 107 (66.9%) ended before police arrived and could engage the shooter, either because a citizen intervened, the shooter fled, or the shooter committed suicide
- The most commonly used weapon was a pistol (60%), followed by rifles (27%), and shotguns (10%) (Source)
- Attackers carried multiple weapons in 41% of the attacks. (Source)
In summary these are short, violent events, that often end with violence being applied to the perpetrator either by their own hand, or through bystanders on scene. In approximately 40% of these scenarios police weren’t even on scene while the event was on going.
This isn’t a dig at the police. I’m simply pointing out that these happen so quickly that the police will have little time to react, and locate the threat.
Now that we have some common understanding of these types of events, let’s move onto the types of wounds we are likely to see at an active shooter event.
Active Shooter Event Casualty Statistics
This is one area where most people have a very poor understanding of what actually happens and what kind of medical interventions are actually effective.
Much of this data comes from this excellent study, and autopsy data from active shooter victims.
- 52% of casualties in K-12 were in hallways or classrooms.
- Victims had an average of 2.7 gunshots
- 58% of victims had gunshots to the head and chest, and only 20% had extremity wounds
- The probable site of fatal wounding was the head or chest in 77% of cases.
- Only 7% of victims had potentially survivable wounds.
- The most common site of potentially survivable injury was the chest (89%).
- No head injury was potentially survivable.
- There were no deaths due to exsanguination from an extremity.
Due to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq we have seen huge advances in first aid, and tactical casualty care. The biggest advance is the use of the tourniquet to control massive hemorrhage, which is one of the key causes of preventable death on the battlefield.
Unfortunately this is not the case in active shooter events. You see soldiers, and Marines (i.e real heroes) wear body armor which protects their vital organs from bullets and blast fragmentation. This leaves the arms and legs as the primary exposed targets. Any wound to these appendages can be well controlled with a tourniquet.
Check out this article if you want some more in depth info on active shooter casualty care.
This study highlights the fact that many of these victims had head and chest trauma which a tourniquet will not help. While most head trauma is immediately fatal, penetrating trauma to the trunk can be treated with chest seals. This is why I recommend that everyone get some medical training, and have access to tourniquets, chest seals, and combat gauze.
Dark Angel medical is a great place to get some gear and training as well. They have loads of med kits to offer, but something simple like this one would work quite well.
I do not advocate buying a medical kit and keeping it around as a sort of good luck charm, hoping to ward off emergencies. Get some competent training past basic first aid!
Now that I’m off my soap box we can get back to some statistics on active shooters, and more specifically looking at those situations where armed citizens intervene.
Active Shooter Events and Armed Citizens
Traditionally there have been numerous anecdotes about armed citizens and these types of events. Everyone has heard about a guy who did x, y, or z, but until recently there really haven’t been any solid stats on active shooter events where armed citizens intervene. Until now.
Concealed Carry did a great in depth review of active shooter events where armed citizens where present, and they found some surprising stats.
We can also see from the next chart that more and more events have an armed citizen present. I think this makes sense as the amount of concealed carry permits issued has been going way up as well.
Lastly they also highlighted that they found no cases where an armed citizen mistakenly shot the wrong person, or missed the attacker and hit a bystander.
This is interesting as many folks think this is a likely outcome, and to be fair it is still a possible outcome, but I think it has probably been over hyped.
Are Armed Citizens Successful at Stopping Active Shooters?
This is the million dollar question, and the stats from Concealed Carry indicated that they are overwhelmingly successful. They show that in 94% of these cases the attacker(s) were slowed or completely stopped by armed citizens, which is great news.
What Works in an Active Shooter Situation
It seems clear from the statistics listed above that the traditional run, hide, fight is probably not the best advice. I’m not saying it’s wrong, but I think it misses out on the real world complications of these scenarios.
We can see from the stats above, that many of these scenarios are in businesses or schools. The attackers are often employees of these facilities and they will be familiar with the layout and likely hiding spots.
If you are in one of these locations the first order of business is putting a locked door between you and those around you and the threat. If you can’t do that then you need to leave the location as fast as possible.
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If you are carrying a weapon and you make the decision to intervene then you get a high five, but realize that this should not be a fair fight. If you know your target is the shooter, and he is actively hurting people then you will be fine to use lethal force to stop the threat. This isn’t a fair fight, if you can engage the threat without exposing yourself then common sense says do so.
I would also caveat that with the recommendation that you look for some quality legal training, so you know exactly what you can and can’t do in your state, and where and what type of weapon you can legally carry.
I also can’t stress enough that you should reholster your firearm as soon as you can safely do so, preferably before the police arrive. I’m going to be honest here, anyone holding a gun is going to be in serious danger once the police arrive.
Put the gun up, and follow all commands they give you even if you are the good guy, they don’t know that, and they will treat everyone the same until they have control of the scene.
Final Thoughts
Personally I view these events as a mystery. I don’t know why people are increasingly choosing to display their anger, and rage by shooting those that had no part in creating it.
The practical part of me says this doesn’t really matter, and it is simply a reality of our time. Personally I think many of you reading this right now are of the same mindset. You would do anything you can to prevent or stop one of these events, and that is to be commended.
I would also say that the best intentions won’t amount to anything if you do not have the appropriate training, and more importantly, the right amount of practice.
Much of this training does not have to be expensive, or complicated. You can check out this article on an awesome dry fire simulator that has really helped my practice.
You would also do well to get some medical training which will come in handy in many more situations than active shooter events. In the end we all hope this situation never happens to us, or our loved ones, but there are some great steps we can take to be ready in case it does.
Now get out there and start training!
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Good Information!