Just before a good guy with a gun stopped a bad guy with a car and a knife (not a gun) at Ohio State University OSU Tweeted the above to the community. The instruction seems simple enough, right? Apparently not . . .
Was Mr. McGonigle being facetious? Not if the mainstream media’s reaction is anything to go by. Many an outlet felt obliged to explain from whence cometh the “fight” instruction and what, exactly, it was directing students to do. What did Ohio State’s ‘Run Hide Fight’ tweet mean? usatoday.com asked itself.
In addition to thousands of shares, the Buckeye Alert drew some criticism and confusion with the sentence ‘Run Hide Fight’ Those instructions come straight from the Department of Homeland Security and the phrase is a registered trademark of the City of Houston, who helped to create the national model for surviving an active shooter.
Here’s what the DHS says about the “fight” part of the program:
OSU used to the DHS active shooter instructions to create the following video, garnering over 330k views (some of which may have occurred during the incident in question).
At 4:04, Officer Adam Tabor addresses the possibility of fighting an active shooter. He reassures potential combatants that [armed] help will be on the way; defenders will only need to fight for a short while. “It could be the most important ten seconds of your life,” he opines.
It would be remiss of me not to point out that the DHS and OSU and the media outlets covering this story make no mention of a self-defense firearm. Or a knife. Or pepper spray. Or a TASER. Or any other dedicated self-defense weapon. It’s all about improvised weaponry (hats off to OSU for showing an employee preparing to garotte an active shooter with an electric cord).
Maybe that’s because Ohio State University is a designating “gun-free zone.” Official school policy bans the “Storage, or possession of dangerous weapons, devices, or substances including, but not limited to, firearms, ammunition or fireworks, unless authorized by an appropriate university official or permitted by a university policy, even if otherwise permitted by law.”
That said, I suppose it’s possible that the “appropriate university official” authorized someone to exercise their natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms on OSU campus. But the bottom line remains: OSU advises students to fight an active shooter, but denies them their right to carry the best tools for the job. Go figure.