When you’ve got a large organization, it’s important that everyone knows what they’re expected to do. It’s too difficult to tell people on the fly and hope it filters to everyone who needs to know in time for them to do what they’re supposed to do. In the military, we largely knew our roles in day-to-day operations, so there was no need to get direction beyond the broader strokes. In corporations, they have SOPs and training on how to do various things as well.
And like it or not, active shooter training is a thing.
While my generation had fire drills all the time, even though there hadn’t been a major school fire in decades so far as we could tell, today’s generation gets active shooter drills and training.
Or, more accurately, they probably should.
However, at UCLA, it seems most students haven’t got the foggiest idea what they’re supposed to do if the worst happens on campus.
Children from grades K-12 practice where they would hide, how they would barricade the classroom door or what they would tell their parents if an armed assailant entered their school. Yet, at the university level, students are often left unaware of protocols and resources for gun violence.
This threat is not isolated from UCLA. In February 2022, Matthew Harris, a former philosophy lecturer, was taken into custody after sending implied shooting threats to students and staff via email. The community’s concern soared following Harris’ arrest, particularly about if UCLA was doing enough to ensure safety.
To increase education and encourage preparedness, UCLA must widely promote its life-saving resources rather than relying on students to seek them out. Additionally, the university should increase transparency around the safety measures it takes to protect students on its open campus.
UCLA’s active shooter safety protocol is to run from the situation, hide from the shooter or fight them if they come face-to-face.
An Office of Campus and Community Safety spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement that the university provides virtual safety trainings through UCPD, offline emergency procedures, and real-time safety resources through the Bruin Safe App, Bruins Safe Online and more resources across multiple other platforms.
But students are not always aware these trainings and resources exist.
“Nobody has a specific plan. It’s going to cause more chaos, which would cause more issues if it happens,” said Vincent Davis, a first-year applied mathematics student.
This is unfortunately a common experience. Davis, along with several other students, said they had never heard of UCLA’s active shooter policies.
Now, the author immediately jumps to talking about gun control, and is generally clueless, as most college students opining on the subject seem to be, but this whole thing bothers me.
Especially as Adam Winkler, who we’ve talked about more than a few times, is a law professor at UCLA. While he is beating the gun control drum in the pages of the Los Angeles Times, why isn’t he also pressuring his university to make sure students know how to react in the event of an active shooter?
Yeah, the threat is grossly overstated, but for some school out there, the odds of this happening are one. It’s going to happen again, no matter what you try to do, so it makes sense for all schools to be prepared. Just like we were prepared for a fire at my schools growing up.
Even if you think that gun control is the answer, why aren’t you also pushing for the school you work at to make damn sure the students know what they’re expected to do, just in case the laws you think are the answer don’t get put in place in time?
Unless, I suppose, you’re hoping to use those deaths to further your message. That would explain why there’s no evidence that people like Winkler have been pushing UCLA to step up with what they’re doing to keep students informed.
We can argue about gun rights versus gun laws until we’re blue in the face, but if making sure university students know what the hell is going on and how to react appropriately isn’t common ground, what is?
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