Have you ever wondered why we call someone who runs around shooting people an “active shooter” and why our schools, universities, corporations, government agencies and law enforcement agencies constantly have active shooter training drills? Sometimes they have drills due to a specific threat, fear of the people who work there, or simply to have a plan to limit the loss of life in the event that a disgruntled or disturbed person tries to shoot a group of people at the location. . in question.
Here is the definition according to the United States Department of Homeland Security [DHS] which defines an active shooter as: an individual actively involved in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and populated area; in most cases, active shooters use firearms and there is no pattern or method for victim selection.
A non-active shooter is someone who has a weapon, has made threats or is acting suspiciously, or has been arrested, captured, incapacitated or killed. A non-active shooter could be someone who has just committed an act or is feared to do so in the near future. How to prevent a non-active future from becoming an active one? Ah, there’s the $64 million question, and yes, people are working on it; IARPA, for example, IARPA is the Intelligence Advanced Research Programs Agency, similar to DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) but for intelligence services.
There was an interesting article on the IHSL Startups Accelerator on January 17, 2017 titled; “Thermal cameras – Will they prevent shootings in public places?” which pointed out new infrared technology, specifically thermal imaging cameras, and how such surveillance technologies could be placed in high-density, high-risk areas to see if someone had a weapon under multiple layers of clothing. The piece noted:
“The cameras could detect differences in temperature between weapons and human bodies, allowing officers to focus on those carrying weapons, according to SecurityInfoWatch. [dot] com”.
Metal detectors at checkpoints are often bypassed, and in such direct ways that it makes people unnecessarily nervous. What would happen if the surveillance system was hidden and did not produce false positives? Can you remember a time when you walked through a metal detector or anti-theft device in a store and an alarm went off?
What if you just had the device and security came out to stop the gunman and see what’s going on? You could tell the shooter would just run away, which is the same thing a person with a gun might do at a metal detector anyway. Okay, think of this as a potential way to prevent active shooters.
