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S-U-I-T-E H-O-P dot com. It's more than just a ticket. In the wake of the Las Vegas shooting here on October 1, 2017, I'd like to use a few minutes of your attention to share some suggestions and thoughts that I hope will be helpful to you. This is Radical Personal Finance, and I try to keep my commentary and discussion on the show focused on personal finance.

Today's conversation will be tangentially related to personal finance. Not talking about any personal finance techniques or specific financial planning discussions, but I do think that the comments I have to share with you are appropriate because they are practical and related to real life. In the same way that I consider a discussion of home security, how to protect your items against theft, to be an entirely valid aspect of personal finance, I consider a discussion of personal safety and security to keep you, when possible, from being killed, thus leaving your family without you and without your income, or to keep you from being injured, thus leaving you and your family without income.

I consider these topics of personal safety to be important in the context of personal finance discussions. Everything I have to share with you in today's show will be very practical and I believe will be very useful to you. Whenever we have events like this, I always try to analyze them and learn any lessons that I can apply to my own life.

I'll share just simply my lesson that I have learned from this event and some of the specific actions that I'm going to take as a result of this particular Las Vegas event. I think this is a very practical way to approach analysis of events that other people face, is to always look for the practical lesson, not to look for the thing to get mad about or the thing to get upset about, but look for the practical lesson, the thing that you can practically do.

This is very important to me, that we always focus on what we can do and focus on the things that we can control and ignore most of the things that we can't control for our own mental health. And so I've been doing that with regard to this particular crime in Las Vegas.

When analyzing an event like this, I think it's important to stay focused on the fact that you can't build your day-to-day life on black swan events. It's important to consider an event like this, but not to overreact. When there's an event that has heavy emotional weight, it's easy to allow the event to take on an outsized influence in our thinking and not to analyze it rationally and logically.

So I recommend that you study the event carefully, learn the lessons that you can apply to your own life, but not let a very statistically improbable event deeply control your actions and your behaviors. Be careful to respond appropriately, but not to overreact. Speaking broadly and statistically, the likelihood of your ever being involved in an active shooter event, such as the Las Vegas massacre, is extremely, extremely small.

The likelihood is increasing, and I think it's worth your taking seriously, but it is extremely small. You are far more likely to die from a heart attack due to poor health than from an active shooter targeting you when you're attending some sort of outdoor music concert. So if your heart health is not in tune or not on track, it's better for you to spend more time focusing on increasing the health of your heart than preparing for an active shooter scenario.

Another reason why the Las Vegas event is very difficult to use as a model is it's an event that is unlike any other active shooter scenario that I've personally studied. It was a unique event with an impossible tactical layout from the perspective of any kind of defense or any kind of – well, defense.

So in this situation, all of the old discussions about, "Well, if you had a handgun on your hip, you could defend yourself," none of that applies in this situation. I'm convinced that given the particular unique situation of this specific event, you could put three or four squads of Marines armed with heavy machine guns in the middle of that crowd and they would have been in every bit as much danger as everyone else who was unarmed.

This was a unique event with an awful tactical situation. It's a miracle that the event was resolved as quickly as it was and with as little loss of life as it had. Now that's my analysis just simply from an external untrained perspective, just simply looking at it and considering the tactical situation of – it's incredible.

Now time will tell when the full after-action reports are done by the appropriate police departments, et cetera. More details will emerge in time. So let's talk about what you can do. I'll just lead with what makes sense to me and then I'll give you some other suggestions of things that I have changed in the past when it comes to events like these.

For me, this particular event has spurred and kind of pushed me forward to recognize the value of taking some medical training. I've generally ignored medical training. I've never had any formal medical training as have most of us. Perhaps we know some basics of how to put a band-aid on and how to keep a cut clean in hopes of avoiding infection.

Perhaps we've practiced the Heimlich maneuver or we've had a simple CPR class somewhere. But I've never really done much beyond that when it comes to medical training. Looking at the scenario there in Las Vegas, it really brought home to me how valuable it would be for me to have some more basic – some more understanding of how to deal with a disaster, a disaster zone like that.

Now from all of my understanding, it seems like dealing with bleeding, especially with gunshot wounds, things like that, that dealing with that is largely a matter of stop the bleeding, which the primary tool in my understanding of stopping the bleeding is to use pressure to do anything you can to stop the bleeding.

But still, I've recognized, you know what? I'd like to be a little bit more competent when it comes to medical training. When I put myself in that situation as a victim and I imagine myself there with maybe my wife or my children or some friends that we were with at a concert got shot and I think how utterly helpless I would feel if I had nothing, if I had no tools, nothing associated with that, no training to deal with that and I'm just sitting there as a sitting duck watching one of my family members bleed out, then I don't want to be in that situation.

So for me, I'm going to personally investigate taking advantage of some medical training and I'm also going to personally consider and try to see – assess the viability of carrying some basic medical equipment. For example, a lot of people will carry a tourniquet with them whenever possible. A tourniquet in my understanding can make a huge difference when somebody has been shot, when there's major blood loss, a tourniquet can potentially be a life-saving device.

Now that's me. That may ring true with you. Maybe you want to consider doing that as well. I think it raises – I can see the approach and I can see the value of having some additional medical training and perhaps having some better medical supplies to help sustain life until a paramedic can arrive in a situation like that.

But here are a few other things that I've focused a lot on over the years that I hope will be practical to you. The biggest thing that makes a difference in my study and analysis of these types of events is paying attention, having good awareness of the situation that's happening around you.

In our modern world, it's my observation that very few of us spend time paying attention to the things that are around us. There has been an increase in people being hit by cars over the past years as people have become engrossed in their cell phones and people just wander out in the street and get hit by cars.

I think we could all relate to that. It's common that sometimes I'll be doing something on my phone and I'll completely just miss out on what's going on if somebody is speaking to me or if I'm involved in something else and I'll just blank out on the circumstances that are happening around.

We all know the impact of texting and driving or doing something on our phone while driving and how dangerous that is and what a major impact that can make and can shorten your life. Hopefully, you've taken steps to avoid texting and driving or avoid Facebooking and driving or avoid surfing the web and driving, avoiding all of those kinds of things.

Hopefully, you've taken steps to control that. That's a major risk factor in your life and it's stupid to be committed to something like, "I don't drink and drive," but then to allow yourself to text and drive. It's dumb. Hopefully, you've done that. Frequently, when you're out and about in a public situation, if you just pay attention, oftentimes a few extra seconds of reaction time can make a difference.

It's a good idea. Don't have the earbuds in your ears or if you're going to be listening to something, don't listen in both ears. Keep your head up when you're out in public. Look around. There are old tricks, of course, things that I do and I hope that I think are simple.

I always try, for example, when I go in a restaurant, I always try to sit with my back to the wall so I can see what's going on in the restaurant and not be taken by surprise by something. Those are simple things that you can do that don't cost anything financially.

They don't cost anything in terms of lifestyle, just simple tricks that you can do and take advantage of so that you pay attention. Oftentimes, if you can pay attention in a situation, then you can have a little bit of advance notice. So train yourself and be diligent about paying attention to the circumstances that are around you.

Now, this wouldn't, of course, apply to the Las Vegas scenario, but many times you can sense when trouble is starting to brew. If you think about a riot or a political rally that's going to turn violent, etc., you can start to sense a change in the crowd. When that happens, leave.

If you sense trouble or if the hackles on the back of your neck go up and you start to sense that you might be in a dangerous situation, people are looking sideways at you and you start to feel uncomfortable, leave. Pay attention to that sense that you have and get out of the situation.

Now, in just a moment, we'll talk about paying attention in the context of the Las Vegas event and possibly how that could have helped. Another suggestion I have for you, something that I have made the change in in past years is when you're out and about and you're in a circumstance where you may wind up involved in something like this, you're out at a market, you're at a concert, etc., make sure that you always wear good footwear.

I became convinced of this. Now, maybe you don't think about this, but in Florida, I've practically lived in flip-flops for the last decade. I've worn flip-flops constantly. It's kind of just part of the normal thing. I've gone out and I'll go out and walk miles in flip-flops. I've climbed up mountains in flip-flops.

So I'm just accustomed to wearing flip-flops. And flip-flops work really well when you just need to walk, but they don't necessarily work all that well when you need to do something other than walk. Last year, last July, just over a year ago, when terrorists drove a truck into crowds of people at the Bastille Day celebration in Nice, France, I really paid attention to that one.

That guy killed 86 people and injured 458 other people in addition to the 86 who died. So he killed 86 people and injured 458 people before he was shot by the police. Just incredible damage and incredible havoc. When I looked at that and analyzed that situation for myself, I realized that I wouldn't want to be caught in that type of situation and not be able to run, not be able to move.

And for me, my life has changed. When I was single, I always considered that it was relatively simple and easy for me to move and to run. I could probably run and get away in flip-flops. But then I recognized that now I have the charge of three small children and my wife, and I have a responsibility to protect them.

And if I need to scoop up three children and move because there's a truck barreling through a crowd at me and I'm desperate to get out of the way, I don't want to be wearing flip-flops in that circumstance. And when I looked at the video and watched the video from the Las Vegas shooting, I had kind of a similar response.

If you're ever facing somebody who's shooting at you, your most effective defense is almost always going to be to run, to run and get away from there. There's this popular mythology that you're guaranteed to be shot if you're confronted by somebody with a gun and people tend to wilt and melt down in fear with somebody with a gun.

But if you actually start studying gunfights, you find out that it's incredible oftentimes in a gunfight how few bullets actually land on a person's body during a gunfight. You can study the police statistics of how many rounds a police officer commonly will fire in a gunfight and how few will actually connect with the person they're shooting at.

Now when you take that and you add additional stress and additional problems and additional energy, if you run, you can be pretty confident of your being able to get away or at least sustain less of a serious mortal wound if you're facing a gunfight. There's a popular shirt in the military community that snipers like – or a slogan, "If you run, you'll only die tired." Well, that may be true if you're facing a professional, calm, cool, collected military sniper.

But we're not talking about that. Most of the time when you're dealing with an active shooter, you're dealing with somebody who is obviously a criminal but you're dealing with somebody who isn't – is probably not going to be trained and is probably not going to be all that effective.

Many people who are trained and experienced with guns can't effectively hit a moving target and many criminals, most criminals are terrible gun handlers who are unused to handling their weapons, who are terrible at – terrible shots. If you are running and if you're moving, it's very hard to hit a moving target with a firearm.

But it's hard to run if you don't have decent shoes. Now, when you think back to the video of the Las Vegas event, my observation about the only thing I could think of to do tactically in that situation is to run and figure out – it's hard to know what direction to run in but you want to do everything you can to run.

The only two solutions if you're being fired at is to find cover, something that would adequately stop bullets that are coming at you. That was hard to do, not a whole lot of cover when you're in a crowd of people in an open scenario or to run. Of course, running is hard.

Best if you can find some kind of back exit or something away from the crowds. But at least if you're moving, there's less of a chance of your being shot. It's easy to overestimate the risk if you're in a situation like this. Remember this. In a crowd of – my understanding, a crowd of about – of over 20,000 people, some say 22,000 people at a concert, horrifically, 58 people are dead.

You run the math on 58 people out of 22,000, you got a pretty decent chance of survival there. 58 people out of 22,000 is like 0.0026 percent. That's – I think if I can do my conversions right from decimal to fractions, that's about a quarter of 1 percent chance of dying from a gunshot wound.

Now notice another 400 or 450 people were shot. But so far, there have been significant numbers of survivors. People often overestimate the chances of dying when it comes to a gunshot wound. There are case after case after case after case of people receiving multiple gunshot wounds and living. So just simply being shot is not a death sentence.

Now if you're shot in certain places or in certain ways, of course it is. Tragically, there are obviously 58 people that are dead at this point in time. But being shot, it's in and of itself is not a death sentence. So you want to do anything you can to minimize the chance of getting hit or if you are going to get a hit, you want to do anything you can to minimize the chance of it being an easy shot or of taking multiple shots.

Your best solution is to run. It's hard to run if you're not wearing good shoes. So I know one of the changes that I've made in my life is I've determined that when I go out in public, I'm going to wear decent shoes. Again, I felt the responsibility of protecting my family pretty heavily.

That's a big one for me. That may or may not apply to you. But consider especially if you're going to a place where there are crowds of people, crowds of people who have been disarmed, then it's a higher risk profile, higher target and you should pay attention to that.

Next practical suggestion, something that I have also changed over the years is I think it's a good idea to always carry a flashlight. This wouldn't have made much of a difference in Las Vegas in terms of you're not going to flash a light at somebody's eyes who's 32 stories up.

But a lot of times in other scenarios, this does make a difference. In Las Vegas, perhaps it would have made a difference if you're trying to escape that you can get out and there's a dark hallway or something like that and you have a flashlight so you can point it down the hallway to be able to see out.

Or perhaps it would have made a difference if you were trying to care for a friend or just someone else who had gotten shot that you had a light that you could actually see so you could see where they were bleeding and see to try to apply pressure and stop the bleeding, something like that.

I think it's a good idea to carry a flashlight and there are many tactical situations in which a flashlight can make a big, big difference. You're crossing a dark parking lot, leaving your office late at night, somebody comes up to see you, a strong bright blinding flashlight can incapacitate somebody for enough time for you to turn and run and get away.

A strong bright blinding flashlight can make a major difference in some kind of active shooter scenario. Think back to the guy that shot up the movie theater in Colorado a few years ago. A strong flashlight to be able to shine their eyes and hopefully have a weapon as well.

But a strong flashlight to shine an eyes can make a big difference. I think back to the Pulse nightclub shooting when there's confusion all around and chaos all around, the flashlight to be able to see what's going on and get you and some other people out as long as you're not targeted can make a big, big difference.

There are so many great flashlights now that are small, that are bright, that are easy to carry. I recommend it. I think one of the things that you find is if you actually carry a flashlight, is you find it useful in more circumstances than not. I think most of us have gotten so used to frequently using the flashlights on our phone.

Now that the phones are built where we can just basically automatically turn on the light on the back, we find how useful that is. Well, they are useful, but an actual standalone proper flashlight is many times far more useful. One that I carry is a tiny little light called a 4/7 Mini Mark II.

This is a neat little flashlight. It's about the size of my thumb. A little bit smaller, a little bit shorter than my thumb. So just a tiny little thing, but it's got multiple modes. It's got a turbo mode, which is unbelievably powerful for a tiny little flashlight. It's incredibly powerful, incredibly bright.

That can be useful in a scenario that you need a really bright flashlight. But then it's also got, of course, a high, medium, low, but then it's got this tiny little, they call it a moonlight mode, that's very, very dim. I find that I use that all the time.

I go into my children's rooms to look at them at night before I go to bed and check on them, make sure everything's good. I use that little just very dim flashlight constantly. So I think a flashlight is a very useful thing for you to consider having. Always take a few minutes when you're in a scenario, when you're in a concert, church building, movie theater, etc.

Always take a few minutes when you sit down to do the same thing you do on an airplane. Look around and try to figure out where your closest exits are and think through, "Okay, if I need to get out of here, if there's a fire, if there's a shooter, if there's a violent incident, if I need to get out of here, where is my closest exit?" And keep in mind that the closest exit may be behind you.

So when you sit down on an airplane, you always take a moment and look around, find out where the exits are. Make that a regular practice for yourself. If you sit down in a restaurant, if you sit down in a movie theater, look around and look for the exits.

We have kind of a common tendency often to just think about one way. We think about the way that we came in and it takes a little bit of training, a little bit of practice to think about looking around for other exits. But that can be very, very helpful if there's a scenario you need to get out.

And then my final comment I guess would be in most situations, if you have an opportunity, if you can't run or if running doesn't seem like the right move, fight like crazy. To be very clear, this doesn't apply to the Las Vegas scenario. That was shooting fish in a barrel.

The guy had an incredible tactical position, high ground, no cover for the people down below. There was no way to fight him from down below. Nothing, nothing, no fighting whatsoever. But remember, that is not normal. A much more normal incident, much more normal incident with a shooter is probably more like that guy who attacked the church in Antioch, Tennessee last week.

The guy goes in, starts shooting in the church, shoots a woman in the parking lot, starts shooting other people in the building and then was attacked. And it seems to be – although we're still waiting on details from the investigation – it seems to be that when the guy was attacked, he wound up shooting himself.

Now whether it was intentional or unintentional, meaning whether he intended to take his own life or whether it was an unintentional shot where he shot himself due to the surprise of being attacked is unknown. But it wouldn't surprise me if he shot himself simply because he was attacked. Many of these shooters have no training, no training with a firearm.

And if you can do something to disrupt their ability to shoot, disrupt their – just their flow, their rhythm, you may have a chance. Many of these guys are cowards. They're planning to shoot themselves and as soon as there's a little bit of resistance and somebody able to fight back, then they shoot themselves.

So you can't overestimate – don't underestimate the power of fighting back. Fight back. If you can't run, if you can't get out of there, fight back and fight like crazy with anything that you can. If you need to throw a chair or throw – what was it? Beer steins like the guy in London when the terrorists attacked there recently.

If you need to throw beer glasses at a guy, throw beer glasses. Hopefully have a gun. Shoot back if you can. Figure out a way to fight back. Whatever tools you have, use them. So these are just a few ideas that occurred to me, some changes that I've made in past years.

Every time there's been an event, I've tried to look at it, think about it practically, not overreact. Not overreact to a small incident. Again, remember not to diminish the value of the people who are dead. But statistically speaking, very, very unlikely that you'll be involved in a scenario like this.

Even if you're one of the 22,000 people, statistically you have a very high chance of survival. So don't overreact. But do consider how you can respond. If there's anything in what I have shared with you that sparked something for you, just wearing decent footwear, paying attention when you're out and about, these things are simple.

It's not as sexy as talking about, "Listen, here's the latest, greatest way that you can carry a firearm into a concert." In this round, all that stuff rings hollow in this particular event because none of it would have helped. But perhaps these other things would have. I don't know.

I'm guessing just as you are. But think it through and do your best to learn from the event. I guess my closing comments on this would be simple. Use the reminder to make sure that you are buying up the time that you have today. None of us knows our last day on earth.

None of us know. Personally, as this particular event was horrific, I'm thankful it wasn't worse. When I look at the pictures of the situation, I'm thankful it wasn't worse. And it's not the worst that we'll see in the future. I've thought through some of the different – if I were a terrorist and I wanted to inflict terror upon the US American people, I've thought through some of the different things that could be done.

And it's the kind of thing that I'll never say any of those things out loud. You don't want to give people ideas. But when smart people want to inflict terror on other people, there are – there is an incredible number of ways in which we individually are vulnerable, in which we collectively as a society are vulnerable.

And a mass shooting is just the tip of the iceberg. Who knows what the future holds? I'm thankful the police were able to respond as quickly as they did. I think in the final analysis, the Las Vegas SWAT teams are going to really be worthy of strong commendation for their response.

Considering the situation, I think it's remarkable that more people weren't killed. I think we can all be thankful for that. We've been praying for the families of those who were killed here in my family, which is heartbreaking. When you come face to face with pure evil, it makes me very thankful that God is a God of justice and that he has promised to take vengeance on all evil.

And I shudder to think of the circumstances that this particular killer is facing. Jesus said in preaching to the people in the book of Matthew, Jesus said, "Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell." I think much of the time we shrink from wanting to think or talk about hell and the many people who will spend eternity in hell.

But I think it touches our emotions where when we look at pure evil and pure horror on a mass scale, I think those times we're thankful that there's a God of justice who is the final arbiter of right and wrong. And I think in those circumstances, I'm always thankful that I don't have to be the one to sentence someone to eternal damnation, but that God does.

Hope these thoughts are useful for you and we're back with more regular personal finance content soon. This show is part of the Radical Life Media network of podcasts and resources. Find out more at RadicalLifeMedia.com. Hey there, treasure hunters and bargain seekers. Are you on the lookout for a local thrift store that has it all?

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