Houston, Texas. The city of six million has its quiet and peaceful a business district as anyone could imagine. But people know that could be shattered at any moment.
TRAINING VIDEO: If you were ever to find yourself in the middle of an active shooter event, your survival may depend on whether or not you have a plan.
This training video is designed to help people survive what is known here as an ‘Active Shooter Event’.
TRAINING VIDEO: Do your best to remain quiet and calm.
The city of Houston was so concerned about the possibility of a mass shooting, it spent $200,000 on the training video.
TRAINING VIDEO: As a last resort, if your life is at risk, whether you're alone or working together as a group – fight, disarm him and commit to taking the shooter down - No matter what.
DENNIS STOREMSKI: So we did some research and we thought it was important to maybe come up with a catchy phrase that people could remember which is why we came up with 'run, hide, fight'.
Dennis Storemski is Houston's public director of Safety and Homeland Security.
DENNIS STOREMSKI: The last I heard, we probably had half a million hits on YouTube. We've had literally hundreds and hundreds of requests through our website for copies of the video.
REPORTER: What do you think that says about the level of concern the general public are feeling?
DENNIS STOREMSKI: I think it makes a lot of sense, you never know when these type of events occur so it can happen anywhere, any time.
As it happened, a shooting was under way as we spoke. In the town of College Station, less than two hours up the highway.
POLICE OFFICER: Officer Bachmann was shot by the resident Thomas Caffall in the front yard of that residence. Caffall then began shooting at other victims in the area and at College Station police officers as they were approaching the scene.
When the gunfire stopped, three people lay dead and another four were injured. The shoot-out took place just two blocks from Texas A&M, one of the country's largest universities. And as night fell, students gathered for a candlelight vigil. In the crowd, I find Caitlin, one of the men killed today was a friend of her fathers and it's left her understandably uneasy.
CAITLIN: I guess for the most part, I feel like it's going to happen anywhere. You just have to be prepared.
REPORTER: For you, what does being prepared mean?
CAITLIN: A concealed carry.
REPORTER: do you?
CAITLIN: Yeah.
REPORTER: Really?
CAITLIN: Yeah, yes sir.
REPORTER: Wow!
CAITLIN: I mean –
REPORTER: Are you armed right now?
CAITLIN: No, Sir. Not on campus. They don't allow it on campus
REPORTER: But you have a conceal carry licence. What age can you have one?
CAITLIN: 21. I turned 21 a month ago.
REPORTER: So, one of the first things you did?
CAITLIN: Yes.
The urge to take up firearms to defend oneself appears to be taking hold across the country. In Colorado, gun sales have soared since 12 died in the movie theatre massacre and nationally the sales are up 20% on last year. Almost everyone here it seems has grown up around guns and many say they need them to feel safe.
SHARON CUNDIFF: And then I - most of the time I carry this Springfield XD nine millimetre. It's a smaller firearm.
At her home on the outskirts of Austin, Sharon Cundiff shows me the collection of small handguns that she and her husband are likely to carry, concealed under her clothes.
SHARON CUNDIFF: I use this one for dresses.
Sharon grew up around hunting and guns and describes herself as a shooting mum, rather than a soccer mum.
SHARON CUNDIFF: Concealed carries, amongst each other we say, "Always carry, never tell 24/7." Two things – One - You never know when a bad guy is going to show up. And, two, it's my way of supporting the Second Amendment. It's my way of saying, "This is my right. I'm going to practice it."
As the former education director here at the Austin Rifle Club and as a certified trainer, she loves to pass on her passion for gun powder.
SHARON CUNDIFF: I call it my gospel of shooting sports. I preach and teach it. Hallelujah. So I love to teach and I love it when they take that first shot and it's beautiful. I get such a high off of that.
Sharon says events like the movie theatre shooting in Colorado never cause her to doubt whether America's striking the right balance on gun control.
SHARON CUNDIFF: Not a minute. Not a minute. As the story was unfolding, I kept praying and praying and praying, "Please tell me there was somebody there that had a concealed handgun licence and was able to take him out." When I heard it wasn't and it got so bad, it just broke my heart.
Currently around 3% of Americans are licensed to carry a concealed handgun in public places with one of the biggest exceptions being university campuses. So-called campus carry is a highly politicised issue. University shootings have a long history here. The nation's first was carried out from this clock tower at the University of Texas at Austin back in 1966 - it left 13 people dead. John Woods is a PhD student here.
JOHN WOODS, PHD STUDENT: The vast majority of students don't want guns in classrooms.
John was a student at Virginia Tech five years ago when a lone gunman stalked the campus, killing 32 people. When the shooting stopped, John's girlfriend was among the missing.
JOHN WOODS: You find ways to convince yourself that something else has happened. Maybe she's being questioned by the police or something. Anything - maybe she's in a hospital and they got her confused with somebody else. But later that night we got the call and the news wasn't good.
John lost four other friends that same day.
JOHN WOODS: She and I dated.
Three weeks later he graduated from college and headed to Austin to begin his PhD.
JOHN WOODS: A few months after I moved here law-makers here in Texas started saying, "We want to prevent another Virginia tech by forcing colleges and universities to allow guns in classrooms."
Twice now Republicans have tried to repeal the State's ban on campus carry. John Woods has been part of the lobbying effort that's defeated the measure both times.
JOHN WOODS: With law-makers, it's just about, honestly, it's about marketing. If you can market guns as firearm manufacture and sell more guns to college students, then that's good for your bottom line and firearms manufacturers dominate the NRA board.
STEVE HALL, DIRECTOR, TEXAS STATE RIFLE ASSOCIATEION: Most students because of what they perceive from television or whatever, they perceive a firearm as a dangerous implement or a tool. Those that know how of course to use firearms responsibly, they see them as just another tool.
Steve Hall is executive director of the Texas State Rifle Association which has been lobbying for campus carry. Steve insists that civilians pulling out weapons would not increase the danger in an active shooter event.
STEVE HALL: In fact it's just the opposite. Data would support the fact that if in many cases where you have a situation of threat, it could have been disarmed had somebody had been carrying a concealed handgun licence and knew how to use it.
JOHN WOODS: I spent a really long time after the shooting studying it, talking to people who survived, to people who had been there. None of them thought guns belonged in classrooms. None of them thought that if they'd had guns, that things would have been any different. Some of them thought that if they'd had guns, things could have been worse.
The gun debate it seems is locked in its usual stalemate but there might be one glimmer of hope that doesn't rely on new legislation. I'm headed north in to the Texas pan handle to the town of Lubbock to meet a police officer who is taking a new approach to the problem of mass shootings.
OFFICER CHRIS PAINE: I honestly believe that this type of training program could mark the beginning of the end of this type of crime.
Today Officer Chris Paine is on his way to a local private school, in preparation for a teacher training session the next day. Along with the principal, Chris Paine does a walkthrough of the school, assessing how a mass shooting here might unfold.
OFFICER CHRIS PAINE: Look at all these exits - which is nice or entrances. And these don't have the connector?
Chris is a member of the police SWAT team and their lead instructor for active shooter events.
OFFICER CHRIS PAINE: In all these events, we've noticed the shooter is not willing to chase for one and he's also not willing to go seek and find, open up closet doors. He's looking for the most accessible victims that are stationary or in plain view and that are just available to be a victim. It is all just things to think about.
It's certainly a sobering talk for Principal Mike Bennett.
OFFICER CHRIS PAINE: People welcome the training because we're answering questions that they were eager to have answered and didn't know who to ask.
Interest in the training has been almost overwhelming, not just from the people of Lubbock, but from other police departments across the nation eager to replicate the program. The next day the school staff gather for the training session.
OFFICER CHRIS PAINE: An active shooter begins with if first shots being fired, right. That's the nature of the call.
Chris estimates police response teams in Lubbock to be three to 12 minutes and it's this crucial time before help arrives that he's focused on.
OFFICER CHRIS PAINE: If that's the case, the first victim or first couple of victims have no say in the matter. But everybody else does, right? Everybody else does. What we're trying to do is tell you, look, you can survive. Each and every one of us can and we're going to teach you how.
To set the scene, Chris plays a re-creation of the shooting at Columbine High based on real-life CCTV footage.
CCTV FOOTAGE: Rapid fire. Oh, my God.
OFFICER CHRIS PAINE: Who do we know out of that video survived? The ones that were running, right? So what we do is identify at least two locations to evacuate. When you walk in to a place, you go, "There is the exit. There is the exit."
The main aim of Chris's training is to get people to think about options when faced with a gunman.
OFFICER CHRIS PAINE: When you can't run, you go to deny. It turns the game in to a game of hide and seek, okay. Worst-case scenario, we go to defend. We're just asking you to fight long enough, long enough for what - For help to arrive or long enough….?
By the time Chris wraps up, the teachers seem buoyant about their chances of surviving a mass shooting.
TEACHER: I always thought that I would sit there and lay on the floor and play dead. But now I realise maybe that's not the best solution and go.
TEACHER 2: I feel like I have more options than just hiding in a corner and I guess I had never thought about how our rooms were made to get out. We could run through there and run low that door and get 3-year-olds out of there quick.
Officer Chris Paine's hope is if nationwide training can reduce the number of victims from active shooter events, it will become far less attractive as a crime. Eliminating the copycats until it eventually falls out of favour, just like hijackings.
OFFICER CHRIS PAINE: I believe and I honestly do in what we're providing in our training that the goal is not just to nurse the problem, but to actually to solve the problem.
MARK DAVIS: Might take a bit more than training to solve that problem. Aaron Thomas in Texas. For your enjoyment or otherwise, we put that video on how to avoid being shot on our website, for good or for ill. Tell us what you make of it.
TRAINING VIDEO: If you were ever to find yourself in the middle of an active shooter event, your survival may depend on whether or not you have a plan.
This training video is designed to help people survive what is known here as an ‘Active Shooter Event’.
TRAINING VIDEO: Do your best to remain quiet and calm.
The city of Houston was so concerned about the possibility of a mass shooting, it spent $200,000 on the training video.
TRAINING VIDEO: As a last resort, if your life is at risk, whether you're alone or working together as a group – fight, disarm him and commit to taking the shooter down - No matter what.
DENNIS STOREMSKI: So we did some research and we thought it was important to maybe come up with a catchy phrase that people could remember which is why we came up with 'run, hide, fight'.
Dennis Storemski is Houston's public director of Safety and Homeland Security.
DENNIS STOREMSKI: The last I heard, we probably had half a million hits on YouTube. We've had literally hundreds and hundreds of requests through our website for copies of the video.
REPORTER: What do you think that says about the level of concern the general public are feeling?
DENNIS STOREMSKI: I think it makes a lot of sense, you never know when these type of events occur so it can happen anywhere, any time.
As it happened, a shooting was under way as we spoke. In the town of College Station, less than two hours up the highway.
POLICE OFFICER: Officer Bachmann was shot by the resident Thomas Caffall in the front yard of that residence. Caffall then began shooting at other victims in the area and at College Station police officers as they were approaching the scene.
When the gunfire stopped, three people lay dead and another four were injured. The shoot-out took place just two blocks from Texas A&M, one of the country's largest universities. And as night fell, students gathered for a candlelight vigil. In the crowd, I find Caitlin, one of the men killed today was a friend of her fathers and it's left her understandably uneasy.
CAITLIN: I guess for the most part, I feel like it's going to happen anywhere. You just have to be prepared.
REPORTER: For you, what does being prepared mean?
CAITLIN: A concealed carry.
REPORTER: do you?
CAITLIN: Yeah.
REPORTER: Really?
CAITLIN: Yeah, yes sir.
REPORTER: Wow!
CAITLIN: I mean –
REPORTER: Are you armed right now?
CAITLIN: No, Sir. Not on campus. They don't allow it on campus
REPORTER: But you have a conceal carry licence. What age can you have one?
CAITLIN: 21. I turned 21 a month ago.
REPORTER: So, one of the first things you did?
CAITLIN: Yes.
The urge to take up firearms to defend oneself appears to be taking hold across the country. In Colorado, gun sales have soared since 12 died in the movie theatre massacre and nationally the sales are up 20% on last year. Almost everyone here it seems has grown up around guns and many say they need them to feel safe.
SHARON CUNDIFF: And then I - most of the time I carry this Springfield XD nine millimetre. It's a smaller firearm.
At her home on the outskirts of Austin, Sharon Cundiff shows me the collection of small handguns that she and her husband are likely to carry, concealed under her clothes.
SHARON CUNDIFF: I use this one for dresses.
Sharon grew up around hunting and guns and describes herself as a shooting mum, rather than a soccer mum.
SHARON CUNDIFF: Concealed carries, amongst each other we say, "Always carry, never tell 24/7." Two things – One - You never know when a bad guy is going to show up. And, two, it's my way of supporting the Second Amendment. It's my way of saying, "This is my right. I'm going to practice it."
As the former education director here at the Austin Rifle Club and as a certified trainer, she loves to pass on her passion for gun powder.
SHARON CUNDIFF: I call it my gospel of shooting sports. I preach and teach it. Hallelujah. So I love to teach and I love it when they take that first shot and it's beautiful. I get such a high off of that.
Sharon says events like the movie theatre shooting in Colorado never cause her to doubt whether America's striking the right balance on gun control.
SHARON CUNDIFF: Not a minute. Not a minute. As the story was unfolding, I kept praying and praying and praying, "Please tell me there was somebody there that had a concealed handgun licence and was able to take him out." When I heard it wasn't and it got so bad, it just broke my heart.
Currently around 3% of Americans are licensed to carry a concealed handgun in public places with one of the biggest exceptions being university campuses. So-called campus carry is a highly politicised issue. University shootings have a long history here. The nation's first was carried out from this clock tower at the University of Texas at Austin back in 1966 - it left 13 people dead. John Woods is a PhD student here.
JOHN WOODS, PHD STUDENT: The vast majority of students don't want guns in classrooms.
John was a student at Virginia Tech five years ago when a lone gunman stalked the campus, killing 32 people. When the shooting stopped, John's girlfriend was among the missing.
JOHN WOODS: You find ways to convince yourself that something else has happened. Maybe she's being questioned by the police or something. Anything - maybe she's in a hospital and they got her confused with somebody else. But later that night we got the call and the news wasn't good.
John lost four other friends that same day.
JOHN WOODS: She and I dated.
Three weeks later he graduated from college and headed to Austin to begin his PhD.
JOHN WOODS: A few months after I moved here law-makers here in Texas started saying, "We want to prevent another Virginia tech by forcing colleges and universities to allow guns in classrooms."
Twice now Republicans have tried to repeal the State's ban on campus carry. John Woods has been part of the lobbying effort that's defeated the measure both times.
JOHN WOODS: With law-makers, it's just about, honestly, it's about marketing. If you can market guns as firearm manufacture and sell more guns to college students, then that's good for your bottom line and firearms manufacturers dominate the NRA board.
STEVE HALL, DIRECTOR, TEXAS STATE RIFLE ASSOCIATEION: Most students because of what they perceive from television or whatever, they perceive a firearm as a dangerous implement or a tool. Those that know how of course to use firearms responsibly, they see them as just another tool.
Steve Hall is executive director of the Texas State Rifle Association which has been lobbying for campus carry. Steve insists that civilians pulling out weapons would not increase the danger in an active shooter event.
STEVE HALL: In fact it's just the opposite. Data would support the fact that if in many cases where you have a situation of threat, it could have been disarmed had somebody had been carrying a concealed handgun licence and knew how to use it.
JOHN WOODS: I spent a really long time after the shooting studying it, talking to people who survived, to people who had been there. None of them thought guns belonged in classrooms. None of them thought that if they'd had guns, that things would have been any different. Some of them thought that if they'd had guns, things could have been worse.
The gun debate it seems is locked in its usual stalemate but there might be one glimmer of hope that doesn't rely on new legislation. I'm headed north in to the Texas pan handle to the town of Lubbock to meet a police officer who is taking a new approach to the problem of mass shootings.
OFFICER CHRIS PAINE: I honestly believe that this type of training program could mark the beginning of the end of this type of crime.
Today Officer Chris Paine is on his way to a local private school, in preparation for a teacher training session the next day. Along with the principal, Chris Paine does a walkthrough of the school, assessing how a mass shooting here might unfold.
OFFICER CHRIS PAINE: Look at all these exits - which is nice or entrances. And these don't have the connector?
Chris is a member of the police SWAT team and their lead instructor for active shooter events.
OFFICER CHRIS PAINE: In all these events, we've noticed the shooter is not willing to chase for one and he's also not willing to go seek and find, open up closet doors. He's looking for the most accessible victims that are stationary or in plain view and that are just available to be a victim. It is all just things to think about.
It's certainly a sobering talk for Principal Mike Bennett.
OFFICER CHRIS PAINE: People welcome the training because we're answering questions that they were eager to have answered and didn't know who to ask.
Interest in the training has been almost overwhelming, not just from the people of Lubbock, but from other police departments across the nation eager to replicate the program. The next day the school staff gather for the training session.
OFFICER CHRIS PAINE: An active shooter begins with if first shots being fired, right. That's the nature of the call.
Chris estimates police response teams in Lubbock to be three to 12 minutes and it's this crucial time before help arrives that he's focused on.
OFFICER CHRIS PAINE: If that's the case, the first victim or first couple of victims have no say in the matter. But everybody else does, right? Everybody else does. What we're trying to do is tell you, look, you can survive. Each and every one of us can and we're going to teach you how.
To set the scene, Chris plays a re-creation of the shooting at Columbine High based on real-life CCTV footage.
CCTV FOOTAGE: Rapid fire. Oh, my God.
OFFICER CHRIS PAINE: Who do we know out of that video survived? The ones that were running, right? So what we do is identify at least two locations to evacuate. When you walk in to a place, you go, "There is the exit. There is the exit."
The main aim of Chris's training is to get people to think about options when faced with a gunman.
OFFICER CHRIS PAINE: When you can't run, you go to deny. It turns the game in to a game of hide and seek, okay. Worst-case scenario, we go to defend. We're just asking you to fight long enough, long enough for what - For help to arrive or long enough….?
By the time Chris wraps up, the teachers seem buoyant about their chances of surviving a mass shooting.
TEACHER: I always thought that I would sit there and lay on the floor and play dead. But now I realise maybe that's not the best solution and go.
TEACHER 2: I feel like I have more options than just hiding in a corner and I guess I had never thought about how our rooms were made to get out. We could run through there and run low that door and get 3-year-olds out of there quick.
Officer Chris Paine's hope is if nationwide training can reduce the number of victims from active shooter events, it will become far less attractive as a crime. Eliminating the copycats until it eventually falls out of favour, just like hijackings.
OFFICER CHRIS PAINE: I believe and I honestly do in what we're providing in our training that the goal is not just to nurse the problem, but to actually to solve the problem.
MARK DAVIS: Might take a bit more than training to solve that problem. Aaron Thomas in Texas. For your enjoyment or otherwise, we put that video on how to avoid being shot on our website, for good or for ill. Tell us what you make of it.