Produced in partnership with Wal-Mart and Texas State University, the video is designed to teach employees how to deal with an active shooter situation and will be used to train over 1.5 million employees in the near future. It’s nice that they chose to go with a shotgun instead of an AR-15 or other scary looking rifle for the shooter’s gun, but what’s even nicer is the overall message of the video. There’s the typical “turn off the light and be very quiet and maybe he will go away” approach featured, but the most effective method portrayed in the video…
is when a group of employees confront the shooter, tackle and subdue him. The burly man who marshalls the troops to conduct this heroic act prefaces it with the phrase, “we have a right to defend ourselves.” Which, to be honest, might have been more easily done if they had stopped in the sporting goods section before confronting the attacker.
It’s fairly refreshing to see a large company like Wal-Mart acknowledging that their employees actually do have a right to defend their own lives, rather than treating them like children and requiring them to sit quietly in the corner until the adults (police) arrive. I wish my day job had that much respect for us employees, but alas there’s a big fat 30.06 sign out front.