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How did Coca-Cola become so popular in WWII (Stolen from My Daily Kona)

I live in the Atlanta Area, and there are 2 iconic images from Atlanta, one is Delta Airlines, the other is “Coke”,   They say that babies are nursed on this stuff and if you don’t drink Coke, then you must be a carpetbagger or some Yankee sympathizer.  The locals take their “Coke” seriously, so seriously that every carbonated drink here in the south is called “Coke”.

The Coca-Cola trademark remains one of the most iconic brands in history, and the company behind it remains one of the wealthiest corporations in the world. The secret formula for the original flavor that makes this beverage so distinct is guarded with maximum security, as enthusiasts all over the world try to copy it.
It first started as an alcoholic drink, similar to vermouth, but switched to its non-alcohol taste which we know today in 1886, when John Pemberton, the inventor of the patent, had to step down from alcohol production due to legislative circumstances in Atlanta, where the company was seated.
But how did the brand become so influential?
Well, part of the success of the Coca-Cola company lies in its cunning use of marketing and its even more cunning use of investments. When the U.S. entered the World War II, Coca-Cola made sure to be the official drink of every GI Joe on the field. In 1941, a subsidy for servicemen was introduced, making the price of a coke bottle 5 cents, which was more than affordable at the time.

Coca-Cola horse drawn delivery wagon on the Boulevard in Leaksville, North Carolina, 1909.

Also, Coca-Cola briefly turned its investments into weapons manufacture, operating a propellant ammunition loading plant in Talladega, Alabama.
An average of 30 railroad cars of ammunition per day was reportedly produced from their Coosa River Ordnance Plant until closure in August 1945.
The subsidy and the munition production made the company immune to war-time sugar rationing, therefore leaving the production level at its normal rate and even blossom, while their reputation skyrocketed.
The conscripted Coca-Cola employees were also used to operate the 64 newly-formed bottling factories which supplied the military with the beverage. As a result, many of the employees were granted Technical Observer status and were called the Coca-Cola Colonels, never stepping on the battlefield, due to their expertise.

People Gathered By Coca-Cola Stand. Photo: Credit: Rosemary Gilliat Eaton / Library and Archives Canada..

They would go on to produce and distribute 10 billion Coke bottles to Allied military bases and fleets in Europe, Africa, and the Pacific.

Speaking of Africa, while fighting on the North African front, Germans would come across the typical American soft drink. Even though it was forbidden for German soldiers to consume the treat of their enemies, Coca-Cola soon earned its popularity among the members of Wehrmacht, and especially the Luftwaffe.
Allegedly, pilots would wrap Coke bottles in towels while on their sorties and attach them to the underwings of their BF109 fighter planes. This was truly an ingenious cooling method, as the altitude cooled the drink to almost freezing, which was a true refreshment in the desert sun.
A similar method was used by the American pilots in the Pacific Theater of War. They would freeze an ice-cream mixture in mid-air, and upon their return, voila―an excellent icy treat!
As for the Germans, they relied on captured Coca-Cola bottles, which reached an incredible price as contraband goods in the soldier’s black market. The flavor was truly adored by German soldiers, but this was in part due to the fact that Coca-Cola had a factory in Germany prior to the war, and the Germans weren’t all that unfamiliar with the tasty beverage.

Coca Cola advertising. Photo: Karsh, Malak/Library and Archives Canada

For a decade before the war broke out in 1939, the Coca-Cola Company in Germany operated uninterrupted. Once the two countries declared war on each other, the import of the syrup necessary for production was prevented by the embargo. Germany’s new Coca-Cola factory director, Max Keith, then decided to use the potential of the factory and produce a local soft drink that would serve as an equivalent to Coca-Cola.
He gathered the experts to make a combination of fruit pomace and whey―which were ingredients classified as “leftovers”―and thus Fanta was born. The name came from the German word for “fantasy,” as it really took an imaginative effort to make anything tasty from the given ingredients.
The drink was distributed to soldiers, but due to war rationing, its flavor was often used by military and civilians alike to sweeten their food instead of sugar, which was a wartime luxurious commodity.
After the war, Coca-Cola regained its factory in Germany and continued to produce Fanta under its trademark.

During WWII, a trade embargo was established against Nazi Germany – making the import of Coca-Cola syrup difficult. To circumvent this, Max Keith, the head of Coca-Cola Deutschland (Coca-Cola GmbH) decided to create a new product for the German market, using only ingredients available in Germany at the time, including whey and apple pomace—the “leftovers of leftovers”, as Keith later recalled. The name was the result of a brief brainstorming session, which started with Keith’s exhorting his team to “use their imagination” (Fantasie in German), to which one of his salesmen, Joe Knipp, immediately retorted “Fanta!”
The plant was effectively cut off from Coca-Cola headquarters during the war. After the war, The Coca-Cola Company regained control of the plant, formula, and the trademarks to the new Fanta product—as well as the plant profits made during the war.
During the war the Dutch Coca-Cola plant in Amsterdam (N.V. Nederlandsche Coca-Cola Maatschappij) suffered the same difficulties as the German Coca-Cola plant. Max Keith therefore also put the Fanta brand at the disposal of the Dutch Coca-Cola plant, of which he had been appointed the official Verwalter (caretaker). Dutch Fanta had a completely different recipe from German Fanta, elderberries being one of the main ingredients.
Fanta production was discontinued when the German and Dutch Coca-Cola branches were reunited with their parent company. Following the launch of several drinks by the Pepsi corporation in the 1950s, Coca-Cola competed by relaunching Fanta in 1955. The drink was heavily marketed in Europe, Asia, Africa and South America.

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Dear Grumpy Advice on Teaching in Today's Classroom Hard Nosed Folks Both Good & Bad

Medieval Chivalry Wasn’t Just Knights and Valor

Medieval Knights are viewed as moral do-gooders.

Medieval Chivalry Wasn’t Just Knights and Valor

By Kathleen McGarvey University of Rochester
Our popular ideas of the chivalric world are off base, according to historian Richard Kaeuper. The gallant knights on horseback and banners unfurling before exciting tournaments largely come from people in the 19th century who saw the Middle Ages through a romantic haze.

The term “chivalry”—unlike “feudalism”—is a medieval one, and an essential concept for the age. It denotes “deeds of great valor performed by knights,” he says.
But it also refers to the collective body of knights present in an action and—most important—a set of ideas and practices. He writes that “virtually every medieval voice we can hear accepts a chivalric mentalité and seems anxious to advance it (and often to reform it toward some desired goal) as a key buttress to society, even to civilization.”
Chivalry is “pretty much a French creation,” and then it moves through Western Europe . The English, the Italians, the Spanish, and the Germans not only adopt it but also make it their own.

He identifies three phases of chivalry. The first, he calls “knighthood before chivalry”—the beginnings of the military profession in the period before kings and other noblemen would have called themselves knights.
In the second period, such high-born men begin to cultivate
And in the third phase, which he calls “chivalry beyond formal knighthood,” the influence of chivalry pervades society. By then, it’s a “set of ideas that organizes thought and behavior.”

Dressage by e_monk encapsulates the image of a chivalrous knight on horseback. (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Dressage by e_monk encapsulates the image of a chivalrous knight on horseback. ( CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 )

Kaeuper uses five “model” knights to guide readers through the concepts of his book: cross-Channel, 13th-century hero William Marshal ; 14th-century king of Scotland Robert Bruce ; 14th-century French knight and author Geoffroi de Charny; late 14th-century Castilian warrior Don Pero Niño; and 15th-century English knight and author Thomas Malory, still famous for his Le Morte d’Arthur.
All the figures—whose lives illustrate changes over time in chivalry and its geographical range—are the authors or subjects of a major textual work. “They’re active participants” in the chivalric world, he says.
As a historian, Kaeuper finds enormous value in literary texts. “I use a lot of miracle stories, as well as standard imaginative literature,” he says. “They’re important—because they are imaginative, because they show what people are worried about, what they’re hoping for.”

Young Knight in a Landscape by Vittore Carpaccio. (Public Domain)

Young Knight in a Landscape by Vittore Carpaccio. ( Public Domain )

Lessons for today?

The title of his book is deliberate because Kaeuper wants to emphasize that what he is examining is medieval chivalry, not post-medieval chivalry or neo-Romantic chivalry.
Describing his task as “cutting a path through the thickets of Romanticism,” Kaeuper says that people in the 1800s in England and continental Europe, and to a lesser extent, the United States, looked back to the Middle Ages in a search for national identity and in an effort to escape problems of modernity.
“Far from dark,” he writes, “the medieval past was not only colorful and fascinating, but too important and too useful to be ignored. The romantic revivers did not and perhaps could not recognize that they were altering the original drastically and investing it with meanings that would have surprised its first practitioners.”
According to Kaeuper, the chivalric world resonates still—and he feels its power as it touches on issues of violence, religion, governance, and more.
“It’s a scary subject, because it’s so serious,” he says. “The editor of one of my books wrote to me and said, ‘This isn’t just about the Middle Ages. This is a modern book.’ That’s not the goal. My goal is to understand the Middle Ages. But you can see how it applies.
“If you start thinking modern as you go into the past, you distort the past. If you start with the past and see if it informs the present, I think you’re on the right path.”
Top image: Medieval Knights are viewed as moral do-gooders. Source: Public Domain
The article ‘ Medieval chivalry wasn’t just knights and valor’ by  Kathleen McGarvey-University of Rochester  was originally posted on Futurity and has been republished under a Creative Commons license.
Source: University of Rochester

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Dear Grumpy Advice on Teaching in Today's Classroom This great Nation & Its People

For the Football Fans out there!

1920: Professional football is born

Men like this do not play
professional football anymore.
If they did, I’d still be a fan.

On this day in 1920, seven men, including legendary all-around athlete and football star Jim Thorpe, meet to organize a professional football league at the Jordan and Hupmobile Auto Showroom in Canton, Ohio. The meeting led to the creation of the American Professional Football Conference (APFC), the forerunner to the hugely successful National Football League.
Professional football developed in the 1890s in Pennsylvania, as local athletic clubs engaged in increasingly intense competition. Former Yale football star William “Pudge” Heffelfinger became the first-ever professional football player when he was hired by the Allegheny Athletic Association to play in a game against their rival the Pittsburgh Athletic Club in November 1892. By 1896, the Allegheny Athletic Association was made up entirely of paid players, making it the sport’s first-ever professional team. As football became more and more popular, local semi-pro and pro teams were organized across the country.
Professional football first proved itself a viable spectator sport in the 1910s with the establishment of The Ohio League. Canton, the premiere team in the league, featured legendary decathlete and football star Jim Thorpe. From his play with the Carlisle School to his gold medal in the decathlon in Stockholm in 1912 and his time in the outfield with John McGraw’s New York Giants, Thorpe was an international star who brought legitimacy to professional football. The crowds that Thorpe and the Canton team drew created a market for professional football in Ohio and beyond. Still, the league was struggling due to escalating player salaries, a reliance on college players who then had to forfeit their college eligibility and a general lack of organization.
On August 20, 1920, the owners of four Ohio League teams–the Akron Pros, Canton Bulldogs, Cleveland Indians and Dayton Triangles–met to form a new professional league. Jim Thorpe was nominated as president of the new league, as it was hoped Thorpe’s fame would help the league to be taken seriously. On September 17, the league met again, changing its short-lived name to the American Professional Football Association (APFA) and officially electing Jim Thorpe as the league’s first president.
The APFA began play on September 26, with the Rock Island Independents of Illinois defeating a team from outside the league, the St. Paul Ideals, 48-0. A week later, Dayton beat Columbus 14-0 in the first game between two teams from the APFA, the forerunner of the modern NFL.

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Dear Grumpy Advice on Teaching in Today's Classroom This great Nation & Its People

Happy Birthday Virginia Dare!

Virginia Dare’s Birthday!
The 1st American of European background was born in 1587!

Marble sculpture of Virginia Dare formerly in St Bride’s ChurchFleet Street, London

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All About Guns Cops Dear Grumpy Advice on Teaching in Today's Classroom Fieldcraft

What to Do in an Active Shooter Situation

Brett and Kate McKay | November 30, 2015                               Manly SkillsTactical Skills

what to do in an active shooter situation

It’s a sad fact of life in the 21st century that active shootings have become a regular occurrence in the United States. In other parts of the world, terrorist groups are using active shootings to, well, terrorize. While the media focuses on the firestorm of political debate these events cyclically create, I’ve rarely seen them discuss what people are actually supposed to do in these situations.
According to the FBI, active shootings in public places are becoming increasingly common. Which means it would serve everyone to understand how to respond if they ever find themselves in the line of fire.
Over the years I’ve talked to a lot of military, tactical, and law enforcement professionals who’ve spent their careers training and dealing with violent individuals: U.S. marshals, SWAT officers, and special forces operators. And I’ve asked them all this same question: What’s an average joe civilian like me supposed to do when faced with a gunman who’s indiscriminately firing on people?
They’ve all answered the same way.
In today’s article, I share expert-backed advice on how best to react if you ever find yourself in a situation with an active shooter. Learning how to survive a shooting is much like learning how to survive an airplane crash: such an event is statistically unlikely to happen to you, and simple chance may make you a victim before you’re able to take any volitional action. But if there are things you can do to increase your odds of survival even slightly, you ought to know and practice them.

Something to Keep in Mind: You’re Probably On Your Own

In a study done by the FBI in 2014, it was discovered that most active shootings end in 2 minutes or less. That’s not enough time for law enforcement to arrive. So when you start hearing gunshots in places you shouldn’t be hearing gunshots, understand that you don’t have very much time to think about what you should do.
That’s why…

You’ve Got to Know What You’d Do Before It Actually Happens

man contemplating actions for active shooter situation
When any sort of emergency situation strikes, be it an active shooter or even a fire, the natural response for most people, surprisingly enough, is not to do anything. We highlighted several of the reasons for this passivity in our article about why most people freeze up in emergency situations. For example, the “normalcy bias” causes victims to act like everything is fine even though things are far from it. Our brain is predisposed to assume that things will carry on in a predictable way. When the pattern is broken, it takes a long time for the brain to process this aberration. This is why many people who witness traumatic events report that it felt surreal, like they were watching a movie and it wasn’t really happening. They also often say that at first they thought the gunshots were fireworks or a car backfiring or a book falling — things that would fit better in their usual paradigm of daily life.
Another bias that keeps us from taking action is our natural tendency to follow the crowd. If we see that everyone else is cowering in fear or locked up by inertia, then our natural tendency is to act the same.
The way you overcome these inclinations towards passivity is deciding exactly what you’ll do in the event of a shooting — before one ever happens. You’ve got to have a plan.
I know it seems morbid, but you really should visualize what you would do in various situations were an active shooter to suddenly intrude upon the scene. What would your plan be if you were in the office and heard shots coming from the floor beneath you? Would you have time to run? If so, where would you go? If you heard the shots just down the hallway and there’s no place to run or hide, what would be your next step? Visualize your plan in as much detail as possible.
In an active shooter situation, seconds matter. You don’t have time to figure out what you’re going to do when a guy starts spraying a building full of gunfire. By having a general preconceived plan, you give yourself a head start. This all goes back to our article on the OODA Loop. Remember, in any conflict there are multiple loops going on. It’s your loop versus the shooter’s, and the first to complete their respective decision-making cycle usually wins the fight.
OODA Loops can begin way before an actual encounter starts. By coming up with a plan of what you would do in an active shooter situation before one ever happens, you’re already engaged in the second step: Orienting. Should you encounter a shooter, you can act immediately because you’ve already begun the cycle and already have a plan in place. Remember, ABO: Always Be Orienting.

Maintain Situational Awareness Wherever You Go

Besides having a general idea of what you’d do in an active shooter situation, another thing you must do to increase your chances of surviving is constantly maintaining situational awareness.
We’ve written in detail about situational awareness before, so rather than getting into the nitty gritty here, let’s review a few important principles as they apply to shootings:
Stay in condition yellow. Condition Yellow is best described as “relaxed alert.”There’s no specific threat situation, but you have your head up and you’re taking in your surroundings with all your senses. Most people associate situational awareness with just visual stimulation, but you can also learn a lot about a particular scenario from sounds. This is especially true for active shootings. If you hear gunshots — or something that sounds an awful lot like gunshots — that should be a sign that you need to start immediately preparing to take action. 
Though your senses are slightly heightened in Condition Yellow, it’s also important to stay relaxed. Staying relaxed ensures that you maintain an open focus, which allows you to take in more information about what’s going on around you. Research shows that when we get nervous or stressed, our attention narrows, causing us to concentrate on just a few things at a time. A narrow focus can therefore cause us to miss important details in our environment.
Bottom line: Don’t have your nose constantly in your smartphone and don’t zone out; rather, you should open your eyes, ears, and nose, and calmly and constantly scan your environment to take in what’s going on.
Establish baselines and look for anomalies. As Patrick Van Horne notes in his book Left of Bang, a key component of situational awareness is establishing baselines and looking for anomalies. A baseline is what’s “normal” in a given situation, and it will differ from person to person and environment to environment. A baseline in an office would be people working at their desks or chatting in a lobby. A baseline at a restaurant would be people in uniforms coming in and out of the kitchen and customers entering and exiting the restaurant through the front door.
We establish baselines so that we can look for anomalies. Hearing gunshots at a college campus is definitely out of the ordinary, and should immediately trigger your active shooter plan of action. But let’s take a look at a subtler anomaly. If you’re at a movie theater and you see a guy entering the theater from the exit near the screen, that should definitely put you on alert. It could just be a guy sneaking in for a free movie, but it could also be a gunman. You don’t need to go and immediately tackle the guy, but you’d certainly want to keep your eye on him and make sure you’re prepared to quickly move out.
man looking at exit sign knowing environment active shooter
Know where all your exits are. If there’s one actionable takeaway you get from this article, let it be this. Wherever you are, always know the locations of the nearest exits. As we’ll see in a moment, running should be your first line of action in an active shooter situation. You want to get as far away from the gunman as possible and that often means getting out of the building where he’s shooting. So whenever you enter a building, the first thing you should do is look for exit signs and make mental notes of them.
You also need to consider not-so-visible exits. For example, most grocery stores will have an exit door in the very back in the “employee only” section. If you’re near the back of the store and you hear gunshots from the front, you’ll want to head directly to this rear exit. Another example of not-so-obvious exits is in restaurants. Most restaurants will have an exit in the back of the kitchen. If you’re near the kitchen and you hear gunshots near the front of the place, you’d want to hightail it to this back door. Because these exits are in places considered “employee only,” people have been conditioned not to even consider using them. But in an active shooter situation, these kinds of norms obviously go out the window, and preparing yourself to disregard them is a must.

Your Active Shooter Triage: Run, Hide, Fight

So you’ve heard shots and screams. There’s an active shooting happening. What should you do? All the experts agree that you have three possible actions: run, hide, and fight.

Run

man running for exit active shooter situation illustration
Running away should always be your first line of action. As soon as you hear gunfire, leave the premises immediately using your preconceived escape plan and get as far away from the shooter as possible. Ideally, you’ll be able to escape without having to cross the shooter’s path.
Keep in mind that in an active shooter situation, most people won’t want to leave because 1) they’re cowed in fear, 2) they’ve let the normalcy bias take over, or 3) they think hiding should be their first recourse. But you need to run, regardless of what others are doing. Do all you can to convince them to come with you, but if they don’t comply, leave them, and get out of the building or danger area as soon as possible.
Don’t try to gather your belongings. You can replace your laptop; you can’t replace your life.
As you make your exit, tell others to come along with you. Once you’re out of the danger area, prevent others (except for law enforcement) from entering the premises.
When you’re running, keep your hands visible. Law enforcement will be checking you to decide if you’re a threat.
This may go against every humane compulsion you have, but don’t try to move or assist the wounded while you’re making your exit. It leaves you vulnerable to attack; turning one casualty into two won’t ultimately help things. Even the first law enforcement officers to arrive at the scene will initially ignore the wounded so they can take out the shooter. Just as their top priority is to stop the gunman, your top priority is to get to safety.
If you’re in an open area and there’s distance between you and the shooter, run as fast as you can in a zig-zag pattern. Shooting a moving target is hard even for experienced marksman, and many mass shooters have little or no experience with firearms. So move as much as possible and take cover behind barriers that can stop bullets (cement pillars, vending machines, etc.).
As soon as you get to safety, call 911. Don’t assume someone already has.

Hide

man hiding in dark room active shooter illustration
Sometimes running isn’t an option. Maybe the shooter is in front of the only exit and you can’t jump out the window because you’re on the fourth floor. If you can’t make an escape, the next best thing to do is to hide in a secure location.
You want to hide in a place that’s out of the shooter’s view and that can provide protection if shots are fired in your direction. If you’re in an office or school building, find a room that has a lockable door. If you can’t lock the door of the room you’re in, barricade it with a table and chairs. You want to make it as hard as possible for the shooter to enter; he’s often looking for easy victims, and will move on rather than bother pushing through the barrier.
Turn off the lights in the room and be as quiet as possible. Be sure to put your cell phone on silent. You don’t even want it on vibrate.
Stay away from the door and crouch behind items that could offer protection from bullets like cabinets or desks. Hide in a bathroom or closet if you can.
If possible, dial 911 and let the authorities know there’s an active shooter in your building. If you can’t speak because the shooter is nearby, leave the line open so the dispatcher can hear what’s going on.
Don’t open the door unless absolutely necessary or if you can confirm it’s the authorities who are knocking. According to Clint Emerson, Navy SEAL and author of the book 100 Deadly Skills, shooters will often knock on doors or yell for help in the hopes of convincing people who are hiding to show themselves.
If you can’t find a room in which to secure yourself, hide in a location that offers cover and concealment from the shooter, but still allows you to see him. If the shooter passes you, you can make a run for it. If he doesn’t, it puts you in a position to attack if necessary.

Fight!

men with weapons ready to fight shooter illustration
When running or hiding have failed or aren’t viable options, it’s time to resort to plan C: Fight!
Most civilians don’t think they can take on an active shooter because, well, the shooter has a gun and they likely do not. But here’s the thing: it is possible for unarmed individuals to subdue or chase away an armed shooter. Anthony Sadler, Spencer Stone, and Alek Skarlatos — the 3 friends who rushed a terrorist aboard a train to Paris — did it, saving dozens of lives. So did Frank Hall, a football coach who ran down a shooter and chased him out of a high school in Ohio before he could wreak massive carnage.
Yes, some studies have suggested that armed civilians can reduce the number of fatalities in an active shooter situation compared to situations where there were no armed civilians. But what these same studies suggest is that just having civilians — armed or not — quickly take action against a shooter can reduce the number of victims too. So even if you don’t plan on carrying a firearm yourself, commit to the idea that if you absolutely have to (and, again, we’re talking last resort here), you’ll attack an active shooter quickly and devastatingly.
Will you get shot? Possibly. But it’s possible to survive multiple gunshot wounds, and doing nothing will probably get you killed anyway. Sadly, history has shown that many active shooters will unflinchingly shoot people begging for their lives while they’re curled up in the fetal position. As Chris Norman, a Briton who assisted the 3 Americans in their attack of the train terrorist described his reason for taking action:

“My thought was, ‘OK, I’m probably going to die anyway, so let’s go.’ I’d rather die being active, trying to get him down, than simply sit in the corner and be shot. Either you sit down and you die or you get up and you die. It was really nothing more than that.”

How to Fight an Active Shooter

So you’ve made the decision that running and hiding are no longer options and that fighting is your last recourse. What’s the best way to fight an active shooter?
If you’re armed yourself, there are certain techniques you should employ in returning fire. A tutorial on how to take down a gunman lies outside the purview of this post, and must be practiced in the real world.
If you’re not armed, real world practice in hand-to-hand fighting will be an enormous asset, not only in giving you concrete skills to employ, but in offering you a greater comfort level with violence and a confidence in taking action. It’s not a coincidence that Spencer Stone — a U.S. Airman who was the first of the 3 Americans to rush the train-bound terrorist and choked him out while his buddies gave him a beat down — was trained in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Stone unequivocally attributed his training in martial arts to his survival, adding that even a cursory knowledge of self-defense is highly beneficial: “I 100% believe that Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu saved my life at that moment. Every move I used on him was very, very basic — you can learn in five minutes. If we had a course like that in the Air Force for people to learn basic moves, it could help anyone in a situation like that.”
But even if you’re the most average of average joes — you’ve got neither a gun nor a black belt — you should still attempt to take on a gunman as a last resort, keeping these principles in mind:
Understand your advantages. Most violent gunmen work under the assumption that because they have a gun, people will do what they want or just hide. They don’t expect someone to come charging after them. As we discussed in our article on the OODA Loop, an important part of winning any fight is resetting or disrupting your opponent’s loop. As former US Air Marshal Curtis Sprague told me, you want your opponent to have an “uhhhh…” moment. By doing the unexpected (attacking), Sprague argues that “you’re disrupting the gunman’s OODA Loop which slows him down — even if it’s just a few seconds — and gives you more time to complete your OODA Loop and win the battle.”
So simply charging your gunman puts you at an advantage because he’s definitely not expecting it.
In 100 Deadly Skills, Emerson notes another advantage to keep in mind: “a gun can only be shot in one direction at any one time.” If you approach the shooter from behind or from the side, it’s going to be very hard for him to shoot you. What’s more, if you attack the shooter as a team (which you should), he can’t shoot everyone at the same time. An attack by multiple people, from multiple angles, will be difficult for a lone gunman to fend off.
Be aggressive and violent. This isn’t the time for pussy footing. Once you decide to fight, attack with violence and aggression. Alek Skarlatos grabbed the train-bound terrorist’s rifle and pounded him repeatedly in the head with its muzzle. This kind of violence may not be pleasant to contemplate, but remember, old ingrained norms like never hurting others go out the window in a crisis; victory will go to the swift and relentless. Use lethal force, and don’t stop fighting until you’re dead or the shooter stops moving.
Control the weapon and then control the shooter. The sooner you can get the weapon out of the shooter’s hands, without endangering others, the better. Without his gun, he can’t shoot anymore. Once the weapon has been secured, turn your attention to completely containing the perpetrator. Keep in mind every fight is different. Sometimes you’re not going to be in a position to secure the weapon first, so your priority would be to inflict as much violence as possible on the shooter until you can get the gun away from him.
Even if you can’t get the gun completely out of the attacker’s hands, do what you can to control it. Grab the gun so that you can exercise some influence over where it’s pointed. If the shooter has a semi-automatic pistol, use this tip I picked up from UFC fighter and Army Ranger Tim Kennedy at the Atomic Athlete Vanguard. Grab the barrel as hard as you can. First, this allows you to control where the gun is pointed. And second, if the gun does fire, it will prevent the slide from going back and chambering another round, thus preventing the shooter from re-firing.
Use improvised weapons. Just because you don’t have a gun, doesn’t mean you don’t have a weapon. A weapon can multiply force and almost anything in your environment can be turned into one: chairs, fire extinguishers, umbrellas, belts, coffee mugs. Heck, even a pen can be used as an improvised weapon.
Throw stuff at the shooter. Even if it doesn’t disable him, you’re creating hesitation which will give you more time to get closer to end the fight. Remember, disrupt that loop!
If it’s available, use items that can blind the shooter: flash a high-beam tactical flashlight in his eyes, spray a fire extinguisher or chemicals in his face, or throw a pot of scalding hot coffee his way. Be creative! Once the shooter is disoriented, rush him and take him down.
Work as a team. The more people you can get to help you in attacking the shooter, the better your chances of ending the ordeal with fewer casualties. But remember, most people’s natural reaction in these sorts of situations is to not do anything. You’ll need to be assertive and take the lead. Courage is contagious.

Conclusion

While active shootings are increasing, they’re still rare. We shouldn’t be cowered in our homes in fear. But there’s no downside to being prepared. Sometimes there’s nothing you can do to survive a shooting; you’re in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and you’re killed without warning. But you may get a chance to act, and will only have seconds to figure out what to do. Your stress will be through the roof and the situation will be utter chaos. If you hope in that moment to be able to protect your life and the lives of others, ready yourself now and have a plan of action wherever you go.
_____________________
Sources:
100 Deadly Skills by Clint Emerson
Left of Bang by Patrick van Horne
How to Survive the Most Critical 5 Seconds of Your Life by Tim Larkin
Active Shooter: How to Respond by The Department of Homeland Security

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Dear Grumpy Advice on Teaching in Today's Classroom

New Teacher Advice from a Burned out Veteran

Related imageRelated image DO NOT even get me started about Consultants and their Snake Oil ideas about teaching ! As usually they are friends of somebody in the District and the Taxpayers usually get raped by them.
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Dear Grumpy Advice on Teaching in Today's Classroom

A couple of things that helped me a lot in the Classroom-New Teacher Advice from a Burned out Veteran

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Remember that this is just a Job! Too many folks think that its some Holy Crusade. It isn’t!
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Make sure that your finances and your home life are squared away. Too many Teachers do not have a safety net like this and suffer for it!Related image
DO NOT BE A STUDENTS FRIEND! The road to hell is paved with good intentions. There are a lot of ex Teachers in Prison.
BE ORGANIZED – Use the Folder system! I use to go out and buy some folders with pockets in them. My Student had to keep them with all their work in it.
I also wrote their weekly GPA on the back of it. Also any extra credit points on it. That and a student contract. Funny as it sounds but it worked for me.
Try and keep your after school work low. Use pop quizzes, student oral presentations etc. It will help keep your grading work down a bit.
 
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All About Guns Dear Grumpy Advice on Teaching in Today's Classroom

The AK-47 and the Rookie


It is just a good thing that somebody’s Guardian Angel was wide awake there!

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Dear Grumpy Advice on Teaching in Today's Classroom

New Teacher Advice from a Burned out Veteran

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Yep Teenage Boys! All they can think about is Sex and how they do not have any. Just remember that it is not their fault as they are suffering though a massive chemical overhaul at this stage of life.
Mom Nature can be mighty cruel at times!

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Dear Grumpy Advice on Teaching in Today's Classroom

New Teacher Advice from a Burned out Veteran

Teaching is 24/7
Yep and you will also have Teacher Dreams even after retiring like I did. Like the one when I am looking for my classroom and cannot find it.
Grumpy