{"id":10615,"date":"2015-12-20T19:39:27","date_gmt":"2015-12-21T00:39:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/?p=10615"},"modified":"2015-12-20T19:41:36","modified_gmt":"2015-12-21T00:41:36","slug":"a-christmas-concert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/?p=10615","title":{"rendered":"A Christmas Concert"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"image\"My daughter’s college held a Christmas Gala last week where she was a member of the chorus. It was a beautiful show celebrating the season’s good will toward men (and women). The audience was filled with festively-dressed folks, many of them smiling seniors. Was it wrong for me to be thinking about radicalized violence?<\/p>\n

A Christian event drawing over a thousand people could be a prime target in these particular times. Once seated, I discreetly checked out the tactical options. Should something go down, where were the exits people would attempt to funnel through? What would constitute cover and\/or concealment? How could an attack unfold, given the layout of the venue?<\/p>\n

I dare not get into the Christmas spirit until I had all the angles worked out in my head. It is an occupational habit to assess for a potential critical incident, even when off duty. Decades of SWAT have corrupted my focus. Sometimes I wish I were a normal person.<\/p>\n

My concealed carry was a Kahr PM9 and spare mag. The thought, “Battlefield pickup,” came to mind. In short order, I was able to enjoy the musical. I was surrounded by people who should not have to worry about their safety at a concert event. Most didn’t, I’ll wager.<\/p>\n

Yes, the show went off without conflict. My concerns for the day were, fortunately, unfounded. But I cursed my professional paranoia, while simultaneously acknowledging its modern practicality. Were there other white hats in the audience who were also armed and observant? I hope so, but I’ll never know for sure.<\/p>\n

The kids’ performance was wonderful. Once I had contingencies committed in my head, I thoroughly enjoyed the night’s songs and skits. A few moments of sober assessment followed by a couple hours of holiday spirit. Yeah, it was good.<\/p>\n

Randall<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My daughter’s college held a Christmas Gala last week where she was a member of the chorus. It was a beautiful show celebrating the season’s good will toward men (and women). The audience was filled with festively-dressed folks, many of them smiling seniors. Was it wrong for me to be thinking about radicalized violence? A Christian event drawing over a thousand people could be a prime target in these particular times. Once seated, I discreetly checked out the tactical options. Should something go down, where were the exits people would attempt to funnel through? What would constitute cover and\/or concealment? How could an attack unfold, given the layout of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,33,227],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc","category-off-duty","category-tactics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p28xkp-2Ld","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10615"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10627,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10615\/revisions\/10627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}