So Clark County deputies will undergo remedial active shooter training to prepare, Kelly told his staff Thursday after watching coverage of the California mass shooting.
“Training is what you do to prepare and I think that their training out there in California yesterday was a big factor,” Kelly said.
A married couple identified as Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 27, shot and killed 14 people and injured 21 others at a social services center in San Bernadino, Calif. in the nation’s deadliest mass shooting since the assault on an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., nearly three years ago.
The suspects died hours later in an exchange of gunfire with the police on a residential street.
The California shooting and Paris terrorist attacks last month have both been cited in a spike in questions about personal safety that had one weapons instructor’s phone “ringing off the hook” Thursday.
Increased interest “typically” follows acts of mass fatalities, said Jeff Pedro, a former police officer and owner of SimTrainer Indoor Range and Firearms Training Center in Moraine.
“What’s happened in the past when things like this — tragic incidents where people feel vulnerable — (happen), they flock to gun stores,” he said.
Black Friday this year set a record for the number of people applying for FBI background checks to purchase firearms.
More than 185,000 background checks — the most reliable barometer for gun sales — were sought on Nov. 27, FBI records show. That’s the highest day for gun sales since Dec. 21, 2012 — days after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings.
Background checks spiked last month in Ohio to 81,616. In Clark County nearly 400 people have received concealed carry permits in Clark County through September this year.
But high gun sales bring with them their own hazards, according to Jennifer Thorne, executive director of the Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence.
People buy weapons for self-defense, she said, but guns in the home are far more likely to be used in a suicide, accident or homicide committed by someone they know than for self-defense.
“I think people are afraid. We are living in the culture of fear,” she said, but while mass shootings are horribly frequent, “that kind of gun violence is much more rare than we feel that it is.”
“You are more likely to be killed by someone that knows you than by someone committing one of these acts of terror, and we need to be careful when we consider our personal responses to something like this and not go overboard and do things that are going to put us more at risk.”
The rifles involved in the California shooting were .223-caliber and are said to be powerful enough to pierce some protective vests worn by police officers, and some types of ammo can even plow through walls, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives officials said Thursday.
Kelly believes armor piercing ammo shouldn’t be sold to the public.
“Law enforcement today, security officers today are trying to keep their communities safe and armor-piercing ammo at the street and local level, as evidenced again in California, those bullets could have gone through houses, through walls and put citizens at risk,” Kelly said.
The mass shooting illustrates why law enforcement officials need military equipment, Kelly believes, such as armored vehicles that his department uses.
“These are government surplus items, but I think yesterday shows the importance of these vehicles and we need them readily available in our community,” Kelly said.
The county used two armored vehicles for cover in 2011 when a man shot and killed Clark County Sheriff’s Deputy Suzanne Hopper at Enon Beach, Kelly said.
The sheriff said he plans to contact lawmakers to stress the importance of allowing law enforcement locally and throughout the the United States access to such equipment.
About 300 officers from local, county and state agencies responded to the California shooting. Urbana Police Chief Matt Lingrell said he was proud of what he called the courageous efforts by those first responders.
Police must train daily to be “mentally, physically and tactically prepared” for mass shootings and other tragic events, Lingrell said.
“For police officers it’s important for officers’ mindset to be programmed to plan every single day for when an evil event occurs and not if one occurs,” Lingrell said
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