What would you do?

[asterroc]

You're at work or at school, a normal boring day, and you hear gunshots in the hallway outside the door. What would you do?

The gunman in the VA Tech shooting was ID'd as a student from South Korea, an English major. One student in a room he was shooting in survived by playing dead, so he didn't shoot her. She and others in the room then barricaded the door with themselves so he couldn't push through, but he shot through the door. In another classroom they shoved the teacher's desk against the door to block it closed.

What would you do?

Comments

[kadath.livejournal.com]

It depends what caliber weapon he's carrying.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

You'd do something different depending on the gun? Care to clarify? Not that I have any ability to ID weapons other than "shoots" or "sharp," but I'm curious.

[kadath.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah. Pistols are not half as dangerous as the TV tells you they are. They're hard to aim properly, especially if your target is moving, and they don't do nearly as much damage as you'd think from popular culture (especially the calibers the VT gunman was carrying.) One or two determined people could take out someone carrying a pistol, with nothing more serious than a textbook or a ballpoint. They might get hit, but they'll probably live.

That's assuming that the gunman is in the room with you. Otherwise, I'd lock/barricade the door and have the students line up along the hallway side of the room. A pistol round can't go through the cinderblock construction of most school buildings, and the gunman wouldn't have line of sight on any of the students.

Hunting/assault rifles are worse. Their rounds have a chance of going through walls, will definitely go through doors, and they are much more accurate because of the longer barrel. Additionally, assault weapons have a burst setting, and can be modified for full automatic.

If the gunman was outside and hadn't gotten to the room yet, I would kill the lights and have the students collect their belongings and hide against the hall side of the room, so that they couldn't be seen from the door (if that were possible in the room), hoping the gunman would pass by.

I would position the students so that they were somewhat protected by the swing of the door, and myself (or a beefy student volunteer, if there were someone with more emergency response experience than I have) on the open side up against the wall, so that I would have one good swing at the gunman with the nastiest thing in the room before he saw me. If that didn't take him out, the students could swarm him after he swung around to attack me. In that instance, I would have to accept the fact that it was very likely I'd die.

[kadath.livejournal.com]

Upon further consideration, it would probably be better to blind the attacker and foul his weapon with an overcoat (or windbreaker or suit jacket--whatever large piece of cloth is handy), in either situation.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Ah, good point. Throw something at his face to start to reduce your chance of him targetting you.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

In that instance, I would have to accept the fact that it was very likely I'd die.

Yeah, that's one of my thoughts too, that if I did respond like that, there's a good chance I wouldn't make it, but that it's what I would do anyway. I think guns feel to me less fight-able than many other situations, due to their long-range capability. If it was a knife I have no doubt that I'd convince the burlier students we should mob him when he enters the room and I'd lead the charge. It's the throwing away my life to attack him with no hope that the students would take him down after that worries me. I know you're right that handguns aren't as bad as we think, but still, they'll hit you when you're at close range.

[kadath.livejournal.com]

Knives are way more likely to kill you than guns. I would much rather face someone who had a gun than someone with a knife.

I am a bundle of cheer today.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Meh, this whole shooting thing's a great way to start a week. And the weather really adds to the whole ambiance.

[iresprite.livejournal.com]

You know, planning for a zombie invasion is much less sobering.

It's weird. For a while now, I've assumed that high schools were the unsafe places. The setting where some imbalanced psyche might finally tip over and pick up a gun.

But college? Heck, other than the clock tower incident (and that wasn't even a student), that imbalanced psyche usually hurts one, maybe two people in the process-- and one of them is almost always the person who's imbalanced in the first place.

So, yeah. What would I do? Assuming I'm not one of the first people the gunman pops, I find cover and whip out the cellphone and stay on 911 until I hear sirens.

The barricading students were smart.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

I was trying to figure out how I could barricade my classrooms. Some I have desks big enough, some I do not. Some the doors open out into the hallway. Some the windows are big enough to jump out and only one story up, or are above another part of the building so can jump to that. I guess the key is just to take action if a shooter is coming for you, and not just sit there; but if he's left you alone, then you do just sit there.

[rumorofrain.livejournal.com]

As someone who works at a college, that question really hits home. I could certainly lock myself in my office and hide behind the cinderblock walls, or I could climb out my window and run for help, but how could I in good conscience leave my student workers and the other folks in the building out there to be slaughtered?

If I wasn't curled up in my closet in terror, I would probably find the most weapon-like thing I could get my hands on and try to get behind the shooter and hit him in the head. I've done self-defense training, but the thought of facing a gun (particularly when wielded by a mentally unstable, suicidal gunman) scares the living bejeezus out of me.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

If I were in my office and no students nearby I'd lock my office door and climb out the window. No question there. It's what if I was in a classroom full of students that gets me. My lab doors swing out so simple barricades would be useless, and it'd take a long time to fully block the door.

It wasn't until this afternoon that the President and others sent an email to campus regarding the event, and what our higher-ups are doing to consider a preparedness plan.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, and I took some Karate in college.

I watched a belt test (orange belt to green belt I think) where one of the scenarios involved a gunman. The gunman pointed the gun at the student and said "give me your money." The student said some patter like "keep cool man," and casually walked close enough to grab the gun and twist the man's hand until he dropped it. The sensei said "do it again." This time the student threw the gunman over his shoulder onto the mat. The sensei said "do it again," and the student twisted the gunman's arm behind his back. Yet again the sensei said "do it again," and the student said "wait" to the gunman and thought for a while, and then came up with a fourth way to disarm him. And again the sensei said "do it again," and finally the student said "here you go" and handed the gunman his wallet and passed the belt test.

The sensei then explained to us watching that one last solution would be to patter "keep cool" and such while backing away. At 10 feet the gunman's unlikely to hit you anywhere vital, and at 40 he's unlikely to hit you at all. As implied by kadath's comments above, guns aren't quite as bad as we think. But I'm still not going to throw myself at a gunman if I have any other choice, but in many cases there really isn't any other choice.

[rumorofrain.livejournal.com]

Yep, I had a very similar experience in my Kung Fu class. We learned various gun disarms for both pistols and long-barreled guns, but the teachers always cautioned that those were to be used as a last resort, if trying to calm the gunman down didn't work and running wasn't a good option.

[spazzy444.livejournal.com]

I'd like to say I would do something heroic or even intelligent, but to be honest...

If I was in a classroom - hide & play dead. My University did not have openable windows and I'm not strong enough to bust one open.

In the hall - run around like chicken w/ his head cut off - finding the nearest hidey spot/ exit/ elevator (and then pulling the stop knob).

[tiurin.livejournal.com]

You know what I would do. But then, I'm paranoid.

[sclerotic-rings.livejournal.com]

Just because he was an English major, I would have started flinging everything I could grab at him (considering that those damn pistols suck at accuracy), starting with loaded fire extinguishers and finishing with rocks, jumped him, and beaten the fuck out of him. And yes, I know he was armed: I wouldn't have cared. Right now, I have a serious death wish going on, and I figure that barring a head shot, I probably would have killed him before he would have been able to kill me...and I would have taken a trophy.

(Bloodthirsty, me? Nearly suicidal with rage at the incident? You betcha.)

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

I'm not strong enough to throw a fire extinguisher. I'd probably go for books or clothing, or else *use* the fire extinguisher on him. Maybe have one student point it at him while I rushed him. I doubt I could do much by myself, but I'd have to try.

Meanwhile, you all right? Anything else got you so pissed off? Are there people you know at VT? If you want to email me off-blog it's zandperl-AT-gmail-dot-com and I'd be glad to listen.

[gemini6ice.livejournal.com]

I'd hope I'd try to disarm him in a way that I wouldn't be fatally shot, just mildly wounded.

Playing dead is no good with most nutjobs. They shoot "dead bodies" just for kicks sometimes, if they run out of live victims. If there were a hiding spot available, I'd go for it.

[sammka.livejournal.com]

Yeah, apparently all of this guy's victims had three or more bullets in them. Although apparently at least one person managed to escape by playing dead.