Hope you're sitting down....

The Department of Homeland Security has distributed this pamphlet to its employees, including armed Border Patrol Agents, and backed it up with a lengthy, mandatory on-line tutorial. In a nutshell, DHS is telling armed, highly trained agents to "run and hide" if a deranged gunman starts shooting up an office building or shopping center or other public place.

The full story broke Friday at foxnews.com and already has generated more than a half-million views. Take a look for yourself and ponder the future safety of yourself and your family. I'm guessing that DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano's bodyguards were not issued the same instructions.

Regardless of political leaning, any and every American should see the potentially fatal - to countless innocent people - flaw in telling Border Patrol agents to run past, over and through civilians if some nut pulls a gun and starts shooting. Run and hide? As producer Alex Middleton asked, "Isn't their motto, 'Protect and Serve?'"

All the worse, henceforth, if a BP agent reacts as trained and saves lives by dropping the gunman in his tracks, he or she may get fired or even face a civil lawsuit from the shooter's family - because according to DHS policy, that agent should have tucked tail and run...while the bad guy emptied his gun(s) on our friends and loved ones.

I can see where this might come in handy for the men and women at the airport who check your boarding pass and rummage your carry-ons, but Border Patrol agents should have been excluded from the directive. There were not. That was a deliberate - and poor - decision made somewhere up the ladder.

Share this. Quickly.