What does an active shooter training course for security guards entail? Typically, case studies will shed some light on how guards in the past have handled active shooter situations— so other guards can learn from them— what they did right, and what they did wrong in their specific situations. After all, you can learn a lot from others and their experiences, right?

Ideally, active shooter training course work involves hearing from/speaking to those who were present at an active shooting situation. Hearing them recall what happened can give unique insights to guards. Furthermore, hearing from law enforcement officers who responded to the scene is also a way guards can better understand what actually happens in real-life active shooter situations, and how these situations are best handled by those involved before, during and after the attacks.

Training should help guards be prepared to respond to an active shooter. Training should help build a guard’s confidence, empowering them to take control of the dangerous situations they could find themselves in while on the job.

Specifically, some of the topics that a course would cover include fire safety, disaster medical operations, light search and rescue, weather/scene safety, identifying hazardous materials, working with first responders, evacuation and shelter-in-place, and learning about the Incident Command System. Also, what are essential items a guard needs for an effective response?

Guards in training may discuss topics at tables, and be given scenarios where they’d have to work through a simulated incident— getting guidance from an instructor. An instructor can help build a mindset so that a guard knows what to expect in a combat situation, and how to handle it rather than run away scared.

In today’s increasingly combative society, where active shooters are more of a problem than ever before, it behooves security guards to be trained in this area. Guards need to be able to detect, deter and defend. When should weapons be used? How should panic and confusion be handled during a hostile incident? What about crowd control?

At Security Training center of Chicago, we utilize virtual reality technology to help train the guards enrolled in our courses. Our guards are put in live active shooting and decision making scenarios to closely simulate what the experience would be like. There are many advantages to using virtual reality training, including the fact it’s terrific method for all learning styles, it provides realistic scenarios albeit in a safe environment, and helps improve decision making and recall in the unfortunate event that a guard is ever in a real active shooter situation.

For more information about our active shooter courses, please call us at 773-445-4413 and ask about upcoming classes. Security Training Center is located at 10922 S. Western Ave. in Chicago.