Active shooter seminar offered by BCSO
Becoming an active participant in your own rescue is the goal of a free seminar to be sponsored by the Burnet County Sheriff's Office (BCSO) from 1-4 p.m. Wednesday, May 31.
“Civilian Response to an Active Shooter/Mass Casualty Incident” will be held at the new Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Office, 607 North Vandeveer Street in Burnet.
Conducted by the Texas Law Shield, a division of the U.S. Law Shield company, the course focuses on members of the community who frequent restaurants, hospitals, theaters, churches, convenience stores and other locations considered soft, vulnerable targets by domestic and international terrorists.
“Our cadre of police special operations practitioners will teach civilians to recognize the need for constant situational awareness, the difference between Denial, Deliberation, and Decisive Action, and the tactics essential to being an active participant in their own safety - Run, Hide, and Fight,” the company course description says.
This course covers the history of domestic and international mass casualty incidents, and their impact on public safety response. It also explains the mind-set of persons bent on causing serious bodily injury or death to multiple victims and how situational awareness assists the public in recognizing potential for disaster. This three-hour course if free but participants must register in advance, online, at:
https://texaslawshield.secure.force.com/pmtx/evt__QuickEvent?id=a2z3100000SRtxf.
A link to that site also is provided on the Burnet County Sheriff's Office Facebook page. The BCSO (512-756-8080) has been sharing information about the seminar with city government and school district officials, but members of the general public will be welcomed as well.
While this seminar not specifically aimed at licensed gun carriers, the U.S. Law Shield company is a big proponent of education for gun carriers.
The fact that anyone be caught in an active shooter event was brought home locally many times during the campaigns of Suzanna Gratia Hupp, 10 years a Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives from local District 54 (1997–2007). She often described the active shooter event that led to her writing “From Luby’s to the Legislature: One Woman’s Fight Against Gun Control.”
In 1991, she survived the tragic shooting of 23 people at Luby’s Cafeteria in Killeen, among them her parents. She speculated the scene might have played out differently if she had decided not to carry her gun in her purse that day out of a fear of losing her chiropractor’s license if caught possessing a weapon.
