In the past two months, we have had three high profile mass killings. Charleston, Chattanooga, and now Lafayette. It’s still early on Lafayette to have any real facts other than some people are dead, some are injured, and the news media is ecstatic with another bloody story to sell to the public. Yeah, I guess I’m getting a bit cynical. Expect the same byplay on the gun control stage with Bloomberg’s minions telling us that restricting guns in some way would have prevented this and our side saying if someone in the theater had been armed, it would have been over sooner. Facts tend to support the latter, but we’ll still have to play that dance out once again.

What do these incidents tell me? No where is safe. Have a plan. Expect to have to put that plan into effect in the worst possible conditions. Carry your damn guns. Carry your damn flashlights. 

My girlfriend showed me a prank video where people were in an elevator car. The lights would go out and this kid would climb out of a secret panel and act like a horror movie ghost. None of those people had even a pen light on them for when the lights went out. None of them had a plan for reacting when fecal matter impacts turbine. You could see the sheer panic in their reactions. 

We live in a dangerous world. An infinitely better world than that of our ancestors, but still a dangerous world. Not just from crime, but disease, injury, and failures in the complex systems that work in our lives. 

Please plan accordingly.

Edit: My brother has informed me that this post caused him to pick up a pocket flashlight. My work here is done.