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.

[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.

[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.

[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.)

[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.