Wallet, keys, phone — that’s the standard check we all make before walking out our front door each day. It’s the minimum we need to have on our person to get through the day. For years, I followed that same protocol. Check my pockets, make sure I have my three necessities and head out into the world for whatever the day has in store for me.
That changed in May 2022 after a self-declared white supremacist drove three hours to shoot 13 people in a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, injuring three and killing 10 of them. I remember calling my mom on the East Coast, asking her if she had an IFAK and if she had completed the STOP THE BLEED training. She didn’t know what an IFAK was, nor did she think she needed to get one. She was interested in getting the training, but she didn’t have any sense of urgency about it.
An IFAK is an Individual First Aid Kit. Seems simple enough, right? But an IFAK is not your average Joe’s first aid kit from the pharmacy shelf and forgotten about in the cabinet under your sink. Traditionally, military and individuals affiliated with law enforcement have been the people to utilize one. An IFAK is a life-saving resource designed for a very specific purpose: for someone else to use on you if you get shot.
I was less than eight miles from Sandy Hook Elementary School when 26 people — 20 students and six adults — were killed during an on-campus shooting on Dec. 14, 2012. I didn’t have the training or resources then that I have now. I couldn’t have helped, and it was a terrible feeling.
A few years later, the Obama administration and the American College of Surgeons (ACS) launched the STOP THE BLEED campaign, which made training for treating major bleeds more accessible to the public. The coalition of organizations behind the campaign worked to update national policies on the way law enforcement and EMS engaged in active shooter situations. A national poll the coalition conducted found that 92% of respondents would be willing to try to stop a major bleed for someone they didn’t know. Additionally, 94% of respondents would do so in a mass shooting if it was safe, with 84% saying they would need training to do it.
According to the ACS, more than 3 million people have taken STOP THE BLEED courses.
I’m planning to take one of the courses they offer for free in Everett this spring. I’ve been trained in treating major bleeds for a long time, but most of what I’ve learned has been in the field. This formal training can fill in gaps in how to apply the knowledge in different settings — not every space needs to be treated as a battlefield. I can’t speak to the quality of the course compared to other programs that offer major bleed training, but it is a starting point that is fairly accessible.
For a long time, I only carried my IFAK at protests. Any other time, it sat idly on my bookshelf at home. That seems to be a fairly standard practice for people who have IFAKs. I could consider myself lucky that I haven’t been present for half as many active shooter situations as some of my friends. Many of them don’t carry their IFAKs on a daily basis, either.
Mainstream media has played a role in how we continue to become desensitized to mass gun violence. The narratives are almost always concerned with the background, justification and alleged mental health issues of the people who commit acts of violence. The focus is rarely on the victims, and the result is that people develop a lack of empathy toward these situations. The way in which gun violence has been broadcasted has distanced its real-life impact, contributing to this wild and abstract concept of gun culture that we have in the U.S.
I’m not someone who is inherently anti-gun. It is certainly not my first choice of weapon in any self-defense situation, but I do think the circumstances are more complex. My opinion on guns is generally that access to them is too easy, training for people in how to use them properly and safely is not regulated, and in a perfect world, no one would have them. They are a weapon of finality, and no matter what situation they are used in, they cause life-changing harm.
I do not think gun control laws are the answer, for two reasons. Historically, gun control laws have been used to restrict marginalized communities from accessing them. The last time we saw substantial gun control law changes on a federal level was in response to the Black Panther Party defending their own communities and neighborhoods.
Second, a decade after Sandy Hook, weak laws were passed that closed some loopholes but did nothing to fundamentally change the ways Americans buy guns. At the state level, more lax gun laws have been introduced to expand gun ownership in many states. Conversely, a small number of states have introduced legislation requiring training in order to purchase a gun.
Now, it feels almost laughable to suggest that meaningful or substantial laws regulating guns could ever come to pass. This is largely because the U.S. is the biggest supplier of guns internationally, and people in positions of power in the U.S. government reap the rewards of those contracts and lobbyists. Elected officials have not demonstrated that they represent the will of any voters — they represent the will of their purses. There are literally more guns than people in the U.S.; who could fathom what a shift in gun culture could look like when this is the current state of the culture?
Almost every day, we hear about another mass shooting. We hear about more and more people dying from gunshot wounds. Only 1% of the civilian population has training to help people survive. Even fewer have the supplies they need to treat gunshot wounds. They rely on businesses, schools or individuals to have their own kits.
We are unprepared to exist safely here.
Every day, as I prepare to leave my house and grab my phone, keys and wallet, I wonder if the 10 people who died in that Buffalo grocery store might have survived if they had the materials on their person to treat a gunshot wound. I no longer leave my house without my IFAK.
What will it take for more people to do the same?
ZigZag is a Seattle-based mutual aid volunteer and street medic trained in various areas of emergent care.
Read more of the March 13–19, 2024 issue.