N.Z. Bear is talking about ‘pack vs. herd’ mentality (hint: packs can protect themselves, herds can’t). His comments are general – the points he covers are:

First Aid training: Do you know how to deal with severe burns? How to stop major bleeding? Your local Red Cross most likely offers both introductory and advanced training in first aid . It is a near certainty that in future terrorist attacks, the first assistance available to victims will come from fellow citizens, not EMS. And of course, while the absolute probability that you will be on the scene at an attack is tiny, training in emergency medical techniques is a skill that would certainly be good to have even in a world totally lacking in terrorists.
Self-Defense: Being able to defend yourself doesn’t necessarily mean carrying a weapon. From women’s self-defense courses to full-blown martial arts studies, the options here are near limitless.
Firearms training: And yes, if guns don’t bother you, by all means, get trained on their proper use and (if your state permits it) obtain a concealed carry permit.

Now, here at Casa de Armed Liberal, we’re certainly not going to argue against first-aid or self-defense. But I think there are a few things to put into the hierarchy before we get there.
I’ll suggest that the most important civil-defense tool any of us can have, we already have…a cell phone.
What’s missing is two things: some work to help educate us what to look for; and someone on the other end who can answer the phone, filter and integrate the information into data and figure out how to act on the data.
Now this doesn’t preclude personal action – where sensible, or where there are few alternatives.
Had the Beltway shooters been discovered by an armed Gunsite grad who was out jogging, there would have possibly been a more positive end to the whole tragedy.
And the passengers on Flight 93 certainly had few options.
But there’s an old phrase in the self-defense business, which says that in most cases, vigilantism isn’t the answer…the answer is to retreat to safety and “be a good witness”.
We need more good witnesses, and systems to allow what they see to be used effectively.
I know this sounds suspiciously like operation TIPS. And while I had issues with this, I always felt stronger about the way this was being sold than what it was. I think that basic training in some things to look out for (I’ve always noted places near my kids’ schools where a shooter would logically be…and if I see someone hanging out there, I pay very careful attention…); and someone on the other end of the phone who can filter, understand, and act on the calls (note that if I saw someone with a gun covering one of my kids’ schools, my reactions might diverge from ‘being a good witness’…but not everyone has the tools and training that I do) would be damn useful.
Some obvious starters: Sadly, most of the ‘casual terrorists’ – the LAX and Beltway shooters included – have given plenty of warning of their attitudes and intentions.
Maybe if someone had called them in? Maybe if someone had taken the call, and done some preliminary investigation?
Gavin de Becker’s book The Gift of Fear points out that while the stunned neighbors interviewed after a spree killing almost always say “He was such a quiet guy…who knew?” But on investigation, there were a lot of reasons someone should have known.
The places we are vulnerable ought to be obvious.
The characteristic behavior of people we ought to be scared of ought to be obvious.
All we need to do is learn to look.
[Addendum: Just did a bit more surfing (between reading “The Phantom Tollbooth” with the Littlest Guy), and have to point to a few more posts: Patrick Nielsen Hayden, who says:

As Jim Henley has remarked, one wonders why, in urgent cases like this, the authorities don’t help us be — not a herd, but a pack.
The answer, of course, is that doing so goes against the institutional DNA of most law-enforcement operations and “security” professionals. Success, to their way of thinking, comes from having information that other people don’t. Of course, in the real world, success also often comes from adding your information to other people’s information. But when the chips are down, this idea doesn’t stick in the minds of law enforcemeent types, unless repeatedly administered with a very large bat.

Well…yes…but it’s not just here. We’ve ceded vast parts of our lives to professionals…we have trainers at the gym, career counselors, marriage counselors, social workers, etc. etc. The veneer of ‘professionalism’ hides some serious rot, and it’s a topic for a later discussion.
Jim Henley launched the metaphor, and takes it a few steps further down the road. A sample:

I see two problems that we need to think about. The first, obvious one, is vigilantism. Now, call me a fire-breathing right-winger (please!) but I’m not convinced that vigilantism is the unalloyed calamity Progressive Humanity considers it to be. At which point the reader demands, But what about the whole, abominable history of lynching in the Jim Crow South? What about mobs with pitchforks shouting “She’s a witch!” What about avengers gunning down acquitted molestation defendents on their front lawns?

And Instapundit takes off on it in a TechCentralStation column:

Regardless of whether or not the D.C. snipers count as “terrorists” under your particular definition (they do under mine, but the authorities seem to be shooting for a much narrower standard) there seems little question that in coming weeks, months, and years we’re going to be dealing with a lot of fast-moving, dispersed threats of the sort that bureaucracies don’t handle very well. (Every domestic-terrorism victory so far, from Flight 93 to bringing down the LAX shooter to spotting the D.C. killers was accomplished by non-law-enforcement individuals, after all). Rather than creating new bureaucracies, we need to be looking at ways of promoting fast-moving, dispersed responses, responses that will involve members of the public as a pack, not a herd. Even if doing so reduces the career satisfaction of shepherds.

Obviously, this calls for a more thoughtful expansion, but in the chance you haven’t read these, read them, and let’s see if I can’t add something to the mix later tonight or tomorrow.]