The recent shootings, by the mentally ill, terrorists and criminals, have changed the threat matrix most of us face.

By targeting innocent civilians, police and every day “soft” targets, instead of government, military, and iconoclastic targets, the ball has moved to include us all as possible victims; here is what you need to know if faced with that horrible scenario.

Run

Most people will hide as their first course of action. You, however, should run away from the direction of gunfire immediately, leaving through those exits you’ve been mentally marking. This will make it less likely you and the shooter will cross paths. Forget about collecting your stuff, it will only slow you down and, let’s face it, it’s just stuff.

A kind of paralysis may occur when you first realize what’s happening. This is normal, but running away from the shooter increases your distance from them, and makes it difficult for them to hit a moving target.

(One very important note: If you see law enforcement, don’t run up and hug them. Get your hands in the air, fingers spread, where officers can see them. They need to know you’re not the threat. Follow any instructions given and leave in the directions the officer came from.)

Once you’re in a safe area, call 911 if rescuers have not yet arrived.

Hide

If there’s only one exit and the shooter is standing in front of it, running might not be an option. Your next choice is hiding.

You have to get out of the shooter’s line of sight, but hiding under a table in the same room as the shooter is a very bad idea. Get into another room, preferably one with a door you can lock. If there is no lock, put together a barrier with desks and chairs. Turn off the lights, silence your cell phone, and stay quiet behind an additional barrier like a table or in a closet. If you can quietly alert authorities, do so.

By accomplishing the above, you’ve just made yourself a harder target to acquire for the shooter, and he wants to do his damage as fast as possible. He’ll likely pass you by to find easier targets.

Fight

What if you can’t run, and there is no reasonable hiding place? You just might have to fight your way out of there. This strategy isn’t always doomed to failure.

You still might be able to drop an attacker even if unarmed. Three unarmed men were able to do it to a shooter on a train in Paris.

If you don’t fight, the shooter will have a clear shot to your head and death is likely. If you fight, you’ll be harder to hit with a fatal shot. Any type of aggression against the gunman would disrupt their “flow” and possibly put you at an advantage. If you can, approach him from the side or rear, and go for his weapon.

If you have help, all should attack at the same time from different directions while hurling objects that he has to dodge. At the PULSE nightclub, there were probably drinking glasses and bottles handy, not to mention hundreds of cell phones. The gunman is probably not James Bond: he’ll duck or flinch and not be able to handle multiple threats at once.

If you’ve disrupted the shooter or, better, gotten the weapon out of his hands, inflict damage on him until he is out of the fight. Tough, I’ll admit, but these are tough times; commit to your actions.

The Run, Hide, Fight equation is obviously situational driven – if there are multiple attackers your strategy will alter, the same applies if one of the potential victims is armed.

Situational awareness before an attack, however, is also as important as any strategy before an incident happens; anticipating a threat gives you the advantage of already having weighed your options and made strategic and tactical decisions to increase your odds of survival.

To learn more on how to respond to an active shooter threat, please visit Doom and Bloom.