UK police are urging the public to run, hide, and call police during armed attacks

A British counterterrorism public service announcement telling people to run, hide, and call police during a firearms or weapons attack has drawn sharp criticism from gun rights activist Colion Noir, who argues that the guidance exposes what he sees as the central weakness of a heavily restricted self-defense system.

The official message is brief: run if it is safe, hide if escape is impossible, and contact police once it is safe to do so.

Noir agreed that leaving a dangerous scene can be the correct choice, but said the problem is that British citizens have few lawful alternatives if escape fails and an attacker reaches them before officers arrive.

“Running is not bad advice if running is actually available,” he said. “The difference is between running being one option and running being the whole menu.”

His response turned the safety video into a broader argument about gun laws, police response times, knife restrictions, and the belief that ordinary people should be able to defend themselves during the minutes before help arrives.

Official Advice Focuses on Escape and Concealment

The counterterrorism announcement shown in Noir’s video advised the public to run during a firearms or weapons attack when it is safe to do so.

“If you cannot run, please hide and tell the police by calling 999 when it’s safe to do so,” the announcement said.

Noir summarized the guidance as a three-step plan: run, hide, and call for help.

He acknowledged that this advice is not inherently unreasonable. Escaping an attacker is usually safer than entering a confrontation, even for a person who is armed.

The criticism, in his view, begins when the guidance offers no meaningful plan for someone who is trapped, physically unable to flee, responsible for a child or disabled relative, or cornered before police arrive.

No public safety video can cover every possible emergency, and official guidance is designed to give frightened people simple instructions they can remember under stress.

Still, a plan built entirely around distance and delay becomes much less useful when neither is available.

Noir Argues Citizens Have Been Left Defenseless

Noir said British firearms restrictions mean most civilians cannot legally carry guns for personal protection.

He also noted that many British police officers do not routinely carry firearms, although armed units operate in the country and can be dispatched to serious incidents.

That arrangement led him to frame the announcement as an unarmed government advising unarmed citizens to escape an armed criminal.

“Nobody in this equation has a weapon except the man trying to kill you,” Noir said.

He contrasted that situation with parts of the United States, where a lawful gun owner may have the option to flee, hide, or defend against an immediate deadly threat.

His argument was not that every armed person should confront an attacker or ignore the chance to escape.

Instead, he said running should remain one possible response rather than the only realistic response available under the law.

That distinction is important because even supporters of armed self-defense generally agree that avoiding a violent encounter is preferable when it can be done safely.

The disagreement concerns what a person should legally be allowed to do when avoidance is no longer possible.

British Commenters Mock the Government’s Plan

Noir read several comments posted beneath the government video, presenting them as evidence that some British viewers did not feel reassured by the announcement.

One commenter asked whether authorities truly expected the public to trust police protection and called the video another joke.

Another criticized the guidance as the full extent of the protection offered by the government.

A third person said unarmed civilians were being expected to face armed attackers with no advice beyond running, while another called for citizens to be armed before they became victims.

Noir described the responses as the sound of people who had already accepted their helplessness and could do little more than make jokes beneath an official warning.

“Do you think we trust the police to protect us? Give us another joke,” he quoted one commenter as saying.

Online comments cannot establish what the entire British public believes, and people angry enough to respond are not necessarily representative of the wider population.

However, the reactions do reveal a real problem for public safety agencies: advice is less likely to be trusted when the audience believes authorities cannot arrive quickly enough to make it useful.

A Fatal Stabbing Becomes Part of the Argument

Noir also used the case of Henry Novak to illustrate his concerns about relying completely on emergency response.

A news report included in the video described Novak leaving student housing to meet his football team, stopping at an off-license and a pub, and later walking home while using Snapchat.

The report said Novak crossed paths with Vikrum Digwa, who was carrying two knives, including a ceremonial blade and a larger knife.

Footage played in court reportedly showed Novak asking the stranger whether he was a “bad man.”

Digwa answered that he was and took Novak’s phone, according to the report.

The precise events that followed were known only to Digwa, the news narrator said, but Novak was stabbed and later handcuffed while he was dying.

Noir said officers arrived around seven minutes after the attack and encountered a chaotic scene without immediately knowing who was the victim and who was responsible.

He did not claim that the responding officers intentionally mistreated Novak and acknowledged that they arrived without full information.

“I wasn’t there,” Noir said. “Those officers walked into chaos with no idea who was who.”

For him, that uncertainty supported the larger point: during the critical seconds of an attack, the victim may be the only person who fully understands what is happening.

Using one tragic case to prove the failure of an entire national policy would be too broad, but the incident does show why emergency response cannot replace immediate survival decisions.

Police can stop an ongoing threat and investigate afterward, but they cannot be present before every unpredictable attack begins.

Guns, Knives, and the Limits of Restriction

Noir argued that the British government first treated guns as the main threat and then increasingly restricted knives as violent offenders continued carrying weapons.

In his account, each new rule limited compliant citizens more effectively than criminals willing to ignore the law.

He said an attacker carrying two knives could move through existing restrictions while remaining the most powerful person on the street until police arrived.

That is a familiar gun rights argument: restrictions primarily shape the conduct of people inclined to obey them, while violent offenders may remain willing to possess prohibited weapons.

Supporters of stricter laws would respond that regulations can still reduce the overall availability of deadly weapons and make some attacks less lethal, even if they cannot prevent every offender from obtaining one.

Noir’s criticism focused on what happens after prevention has failed.

Once an armed attacker is already present, he said, the person under attack has little use for policies that were supposed to keep the weapon out of the criminal’s hands.

That is where the British PSA and Noir’s American gun rights position separate most clearly.

The announcement is built around avoiding contact until trained responders arrive. Noir believes citizens should also retain the lawful ability to meet deadly force with force when escape and concealment fail.

“You Are Your Own First Responder”

Noir ended his commentary by connecting the British announcement with the Second Amendment in the United States.

He described the right to keep and bear arms as the barrier preventing Americans from receiving the same limited message during an attack.

“You are your own first responder,” he said.

That phrase does not mean police have no role or that civilians should recklessly pursue criminals.

It means that a person at the scene must make the first survival decision because even a fast police response still takes time.

The most sensible part of the government advice remains its opening instruction: when a safe exit exists, use it.

A firearm does not make someone immune to injury, and carrying one does not create a duty to chase an attacker when escape is possible.

However, Noir’s criticism becomes more persuasive when considering the person who cannot run, cannot remain hidden, and cannot count on an officer arriving before the attacker reaches the room.

For that person, “call the police” describes how to summon help, not how to survive the next few seconds.

A Debate Over What Citizens Should Be Allowed to Do

The British safety video offers simple emergency guidance intended to reduce casualties during an armed attack.

Noir sees the same video as proof that a government can restrict self-defense so thoroughly that officials are left advising people to be faster or better hidden than the person trying to harm them.

Both sides would likely agree that running is often the safest response and that police should be called as soon as circumstances allow.

The deeper disagreement is whether law-abiding citizens should have another option when running and hiding are no longer possible.

Noir’s answer is firmly rooted in the American gun rights tradition.

He believes self-defense cannot depend entirely on the arrival of another person, particularly when an attack may be decided within seconds.

The UK announcement does not explicitly tell citizens to “hope,” but that is how Noir interprets the time between calling police and their arrival.

For people who trust armed response units, restrictive weapons laws, and centralized public protection, that delay is an unavoidable part of keeping society safer overall.

For Noir, it represents a period in which the state has removed the citizen’s strongest defensive option while guaranteeing nothing in return.

That tension is why such a short public service message produced such a large political argument.

Running, hiding, and calling police may all save lives, but the controversy begins with the question the video does not answer: what is a trapped person legally supposed to do when the attacker finds them first?