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

[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.