Had I been a little less careful stoking the fire this evening, the gem that follows would have been lost to the flames.
Look out New York Times…
Thank goodness for that bulleted list of similarities, otherwise that analysis would have been lost on me. Tomorrow I plan to go scope out some TEC-9’s and perhaps the occasional AK, be there bars on the windows or not.
With two hours to kill before the next showing of Zombieland, I slayed time in a so-called coffee shop within the U-District’s Metro theater. I found the place empty; I had to ring a bell for service to materialize from concessions. The only wall outlet was located next to a larger-than-life cardboard display of the Rock costumed as “the Tooth-Fairy”, complete with angel wings. The outlet powered my laptop so I could complete exercises to challenge my understanding of material in the book below. As the cafe’s sole inhabitant for those two hours, I got to enjoy the same progression of three of today’s top 40 hits iterated six or seven times. Pauses between cycles were filled by Spanish guitar from the tapas restaurant directly below me.
I marveled at the oddity of my surroundings; so much so I felt neither sad nor lonely. Shortly thereafter, I realized my attitude to be consistent with rule #42 of the movie I had been waiting to see:
Enjoy the little things.
I extracted the following excerpt from the University of Washington Campus Police website. The internet is full of useful tidbits that can very likely get one killed.
Active Shooter Defined –
When an armed suspect(s) is discharging a firearm at community members
or law enforcement, or randomly firing into an area where it is
reasonably expected that persons could be struck by the suspect(s)
fire.
These situations require law enforcement units to take immediate action to end the danger.
The information below provides guidelines for active
shooter incidents on campus. However, every incident varies, making it
impossible to provide an absolute answer for every situation.
.
.
.
4. Trapped with the gunman
• If you are trapped, do not do
anything to provoke the gunman. If no shooting is occurring, do what
the gunman says and do not move suddenly. Only you can draw the line on
what you will or will not do to preserve your life and the lives of
others.• If the gunman does start shooting people, you need
to make a choice (at this point it is your choice): stay still and hope
they do not shoot you; run for an exit while zigzagging; or even attack the shooter. This is very dangerous, but certainly no more so than
doing nothing in some cases. A moving target is much harder to hit than
a stationary one and the last thing the shooter will expect is to be
attacked by an unarmed person. Any option chosen may still result in a
negative consequence.• Again this is not a recommendation to attack the shooter [unless you happen to be Steven Seagal, then of course, by all means do] but rather a choice to fight when there is no other option.