Hey all, forgive me for the morbid topic. However, we are teaching CCW classes and defensive pistol courses for some local churches and was trying to find some data which indicates how long, on average, a mass shooting lasts. I’ve tried Google, but no luck. Just trying to impress the importance of timely decision making and action.
I don’t know that how long the event lasts is that relevant. To me, what is important is to express that if there is an active shooter then they need to first try to run and get away. If they can’t get away for some reason, then hide and barricade yourself. Then if the shooter encounters you, fight with everything you have.
Run, hide, fight.
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Posts: 8668 | Location: The Lone Star State | Registered: July 07, 2008
I’m sure some people with better insight will chime in. A big variable is if all the victims are confined to a single room or if the shooter goes from room to room. The guy in LV was active for a long time because people didn’t realize what was happening at first. Then it took a long time to clear the area. The guy in the theater had all his Vic’s right in front of him.
Never be more than one step away from your sword-Old Greek Wisdom
Posts: 2294 | Location: SE Mich-- USA | Registered: September 10, 2002
The last training class I attended it was stated the actual shooting/killing mainly occurs within the first three minutes. This is why Leo's don't wait for SWAT to set up on active shooting events. The standoff's and dealing with typical secondary IED's take up the bulk of the time. Vegas was exceptional in the actual shooting duration.
Posts: 1278 | Location: West Palm Beach, FL | Registered: June 11, 2010
As Wishful Thinker said, Columbine was 48 minutes. You'll never see an active shooter situation last that long again. That was a true cluster fuck. Many lessons learned from that episode.
Posts: 5754 | Location: 7400 feet in Conifer CO | Registered: November 14, 2006
The San Ysidro McDonalds shooting in 1984 went on for over an hour while the Chief took ~45 minutes to get there before authorizing SWAT to take Huberty out. ~20 dead, ~20 wounded.
Luckily, I have enough willpower to control the driving ambition that rages within me.
When you had the votes, we did things your way. Now, we have the votes and you will be doing things our way. This lesson in political reality from Lyndon B. Johnson
"Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." - Justice Janice Rogers Brown
Posts: 48369 | Location: Texas hill country | Registered: July 04, 2005
This is the sort of thing where an average number is absolutely meaningless. The biggest factor is the speed of intervention. Without intervention, it goes on until the active shooter runs out of ammo, or accomplishes whatever they feel their goal was. With intervention, it rapidly ends (suicide or they get capped).
“People have to really suffer before they can risk doing what they love.” –Chuck Palahnuik
Maybe because facts like average time being less than average LE response time means that the people on the scene might need to have an idea of how to protect themselves until the cavalry arrives?
There is an impression out there that all these "mass shootings" are like Las Vegas where hundreds of rounds are fired and huge numbers of people are injured. In reality, the average "mass shooting" occurs at a business, is over in 5 to 8 minutes, and results in 2 fatalities and 2 injuries. The shooter is normally one of the fatalities. That in no way implies that any individual incident won't fall well outside the "average" range.
Facts are always good things to have, especially in times when hyperbole is used to sell add time and secure votes...
Originally posted by stoic-one: Can someone explain to me what value quantifying something like this would actually serve?
There really is none. None at all. Active killings last as long as it takes to come to one of three outcomes. Quantifying time of past mass shootings have nothing to do with the next. You have a lot of people trying to be experts right now to court the surge in "church security" demands and dollars.
Get off your soap boxes boys. As stated above it seems that the op just wants a talking point to make folks think, "on average mass shootings last x time and the average Leo response time is Y so that's why you carry" type of thing.
Perhaps. But let me lay a little knowledge on you. In 12 to 18 months, maybe sooner, there will be a whole crop of attorney's that will do nothing but sue churches. Most of it will be liability and civil rights violations. And they will likely also go after the instructors involved in the "training". Once the church sanctions this "team", they are all but responsible for the vicarious liability that goes with it. We've seen this play out before in other fields, and this one is next because of the boom in "teams" and "training" right now.
I'd rather be on a soap box now, as to let this move forward and someone's life be ruined later because they saw this as an easy buck with no repercussions. During the suit, the "instructor" will have to get on the stand and produce DOCUMENTS on where they were trained, and by what authority they are granted to teach the material. Along with a whole host of other issues. They'll watch their house be gone. Their savings. Gone.
So then comes "Well, I'd rather do this then see another mass shooting". OK. If that is the case, go train somewhere that has a pedigree in security and active shooter.
What you are seeing right now in the trend is EVERYBODY wants to have a security team. No one wants to pay for it.
