To Big Wing, or Not to Big Wing, Now an Answer

Beyond first-person shooter video games: Using computational modeling and simulation of mass violence for threat assessment and management.

“…Spatial models can explicitly model the complexity of many actors (e.g., pedestrians, law enforcement officers, vehicles) interacting simultaneously and with each reacting to the behaviors of other actors in the model. This type of modeling has been used successfully for modeling pedestrians, traffic, and other spatial phenomena (Crooks, Malleson, Manley, & Heppenstall, 2018; Heppenstall, Crooks, See, & Batty, 2011) and to answer questions about historical military battles (Oldham, 2017). For the purpose of TA and TM, spatial “tactical” models have an obvious applicability and, indeed, have begun to appear in various journals.…”

“…The reprinted article (Briggs & Kennedy, 2016) that follows is intended to serve as one such example: a computational agent-based model was used to simulate an outdoor active shooter scenario to investigate potential outcomes on casualties should unarmed individuals resist an active shooter. A prior spatial model (Hayes & Hayes, 2014) replicated and explored a historical mass shooting—the 2012 Aurora, CO movie theater shooting—in the same manner that Oldham (2017) used agent-based modeling to explore dynamics of the historical Battle of Britain. Stewart (2017) wrote a master’s thesis extending the Briggs and Kennedy (2017) active shooter model, which highlights another benefit of computational modeling not yet mentioned: the ability for other researchers and practitioners to reuse, extend, and improve upon existing models.…”