Media Matters
A Fox & Friends demonstration where children neutralized a gunman during an active shooter situation offered dubious advice to parents, as experts emphasize that confronting the gunman should be "a last resort." The Fox News segment never explained that in an active shooter situation people should prioritize escaping and hiding over physically confronting the gunman -- only mentioning the first two actions in passing -- and instead emphasized engaging the gunman in a physical confrontation. The December 8 broadcast of Fox & Friends featured two krav maga instructors and three children who demonstrated martial arts techniques that could be used to disarm an active shooter. Co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck introduced the segment saying, "In an active shooter situation five seconds can mean the difference between life and death. But there are some things that you can do, and your children can do, to make a difference" before asking the instructor to "display for us and exemplify what would happen in an armed shooter situation." The instructor then used a stapler as a prop while his co-instructor demonstrated how to disarm a gunman from behind.
