Higher Line Podcast The Answer to Active Shooters is Violence | Higher Line Podcast #265
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Jan 12, 2026 
Ed Monk, a retired U.S. Army colonel and active-shooter trainer, shares his journey from military service to education and his mission to improve school safety through realistic training. He emphasizes the uncomfortable truth about violence and critiques ineffective security measures in schools, stressing the need for proactive responses. Monk discusses the importance of training for unarmed resistance and the psychological elements that contribute to successful outcomes in crisis situations, advocating for community accountability and urgent action in the face of potential threats.
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Lockdowns Create A Dangerous Delay
- Schools often default to nonviolent lockdown policies because they want easy, non-emotional solutions.
- Ed Monk realized those policies increase victim counts because time-to-stop is the key variable.
Stop The Shooter Fast
- Stop the shooter as fast as possible because casualties scale with elapsed time.
- Treat active shootings like fires: immediate action massively reduces damage.
Hardening Isn’t A Panacea
- Hardening doors and entry points helps perception but often fails practical tests.
- In many high-school attacks the shooter is already inside, so hardening delays responders and evacuees too.
