AST Magazine February 2018 final-feb-2018 | Page 32

Volume 20
February 2018 Edition
Sunday, November 5, 2017, gunman, Devin Kelley, dressed all in black wearing tactical gear, entered the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs,Texas,
and began firing resulting in 26 deaths and 20 more injured in this small, rural Texas town. (Image courtesy of Twitter and YouTube)
NFPA Fast-Tracks Unified Response
for Active Shooter & Hostile Events
A rise in active shooter incidents and the escalating
impact of hostile events has prompted the National Fire
Protection Association (NFPA) to process NFPA 3000,
Standard for Preparedness and Response to Active Shoot-
er and/or Hostile Events as a provisional standard, which
means it would be available for use as early as April,
2018.
The typical standards cadence is condensed so that a stan-
dard can be issued in a shorter time period in the interest of
the public; and in this case, first responder safety.
The tragic trend of hostile events in the United States
prompted the NFPA’s Standards Council to authorize
processing of the provisional standard.
As part of the standards process, NFPA 3000 is now open for
input until February 23, 2018. Although this standard will benefit authorities around the world,
mass killings are largely a United States phenomenon accordingly
to a recent CNN article.
This marks only the second time in NFPA’s 121-year his-
tory that provisional standard status has been authorized
by the NFPA Standards Council. With just five percent of the world’s population, the U.S. holds the
unfortunate title to 31 percent of all public mass shootings.
Provisional standards are developed when there is a serious life
safety concern that warrants an abbreviated standards develop-
ment process.
Over the course of nearly 17 months from June of 2016 until early
November 2017, a trio of domestic perpetrators inflicted nearly
half the casualties that the nation witnessed during the course of a
thirteen year period from 2000 through 2013.
30