Including ...Responses to Mass Shooting Attacks • President’s Message • Attorney Question • Book Review • Editor's Notebook • About this Journal
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Responses to Mass Shooting Attacks
An Interview with Ed Monk
Today, we’re joined by Retired U.S. Army Lt. Colonel Ed Monk who has agreed to address questions about surviving a mass shooting event.
Ed is a retired Army officer, former schoolteacher, current law enforcement officer and firearms trainer. For 16 years, he has researched the active shooter problem and provided training to law enforcement agencies, schools, churches, and businesses nationwide, and has been a featured speaker at the police, tactical, and faith-based security conferences for several years. He has been hosted by training facilities coast to coast and offers classes for unarmed and armed responders and for instructors. His formal education includes a BS from West Point, an MS from Kansas State University, and he’s a graduate of the Army’s Command and General Staff college.
You can also watch the longer, more casual video version of our interview with Ed Monk at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMm-cjzg82k
eJournal: Ed, I am grateful to have the chance to learn from you today. Thank you for being here. Your bio shows what a broad demographic you reach when you teach active shooter response and tactics classes. What motivates your students? Have they experienced a critical incident or has there been a shooting at venues to which they go?
Monk: It’s not that something happened to them personally or someone close to them–which is often how you get people in classes who want a gun in their home or to carry for personal defense against a mugger. For the presentations that I do, I’ve found both general interest and frustration on the topic. Why do they keep happening? Why can we not respond any better? Over the last 21 months we’ve had roughly one shooting a month. It is so frustrating that we refuse to do anything about it!
President’s Message
by Marty Hayes, J.D.
This is a message I had hoped not to have to write. You see, the Network has lost its fight against the WA Office of Insurance Commissioner (OIC) with whom we have been battling since 2020 for the right to enroll new Network members who reside in Washington. At the beginning, after unsuccessfully appealing to the state insurance commissioner’s hearing officer, we appealed to the Lewis County Superior Court, which deferred to the government bureaucracy on the issue and affirmed their order. We next appealed to the Washington Court of Appeals, which ruled against us. Finally, we filed for discretionary review with the State Supreme Court.
Attorney Question of the Month
In December, several Network members used their firearms to defend themselves. One incident took place in a large city where our member was robbed, shot at, and aggressively pursued by his attacker. He returned gunfire, killing the attacker. Responding police took our member into custody over night, but no criminal charges were filed and he was released the next day.
Video and Book Review
The Fall of Minneapolis
Reviewed by Gila Hayes
Have you watched the documentary from Alpha News about the death of George Floyd and subsequent destruction? I viewed it several months ago, on Thanksgiving as a matter of fact, while I was dicing the celery, carrots and onions and doing other food prep. Did the onions bring the tears to my eyes? Probably not, but some of the documentary does make the watcher want to weep.
Editor’s Notebook
by Gila Hayes
A second degree murder conviction has been returned against the upstate New Yorker who last April, hearing several cars and a motorcycle coming up his driveway, stepped out with a shotgun and fired twice, killing a passenger in one of the cars. His defense, according to news from the trial, claimed that the first shot was loosed intentionally to discourage advancing farther, but he blamed the second on his shotgun, which he testified “went off” when he tripped and dropped it.
About this Journal
The eJournal of the Armed Citizens’ Legal Defense Network, Inc. is published monthly on the Network’s website at http://armedcitizensnetwork.org/our-journal. Content is copyrighted by the Armed Citizens’ Legal Defense Network, Inc.
Do not mistake information presented in this online publication for legal advice; it is not. The Network strives to assure that information published in this journal is both accurate and useful. Reader, it is your responsibility to consult your own attorney to receive professional assurance that this information and your interpretation or understanding of it is accurate, complete and appropriate with respect to your particular situation.