One man two guns VS. 1000s of people?

Question

OK-i know in the heat of the moment nobody is expecting it, and i probably would panic as well myself. But wouldnt the right thing to do if you are in a crowd-classroom or whatever and a gunman busts in shooting-wouldnt the smart thing to do be for everyone to charge him together, tackle him and take him down? Running away is only going to get you shot. Sitting there is only going to get you shot. Yeah, if everyone does fight back 2-3 might get shot, but it would have never been 30 something getting shot.
My advice....if by chance you are ever in a situation like this go down fighting. The first time a group fights back against a school or workplace shooter and takes the guns away from him just might make the next nut think twice about trying it.
I understand its easy for me to sit here and say all of this, but just think about it-the first room Cho went in-had 20 people charged him instantly he wouldnt have made it out. He might have killed a few people, but not 32.
Fight back!

As i said-i know i the heat of the moment the first thing you think of is to duck. All im saying is that if we could "program" ourselves not to do that-but to fight back instead it would be a better option.
And to the person who mentioned 911, actually the people did fight back on one of the planes, and that stopped alot of others on the ground from dying that day.

Helly-no offense but these werent kids. I dont consider 20 year olds kids. I dont know why the media does. These werent Kids, they were young adults.

This is no different than a woman getting cornered in a parking lot by a gunman. If she co-operates, gets in the car with him she is most certainly going to be raped and murdered. If instead she yells and fights back on the spot he might leave-then again he might shoot her on the spot. Even if he shoots her there, she might get medical help and survive. Then again she might die. Regardless, i think most women would rather die that way than to be raped in the woods, shot and left to die there.
Im getting way off topic here. All im saying is sometimes maybe we should fight back even if the person is armed. I know its easy to say that and a whole different thing when you are in that situation, but fighting back might save others.

Answer 1

I don't know what kind of clip he was using with either the Glock or the Walther, but certain clips can carry quite a few rounds. Even if they both only had 10 rounds each, 20 people could have gone down before one got through (assuming that 21 people would all rush at the same time). Now imagine if he had a 20 round clip. What you propose is quite a bit more ludicrous than you think.

Answer 2

There is a physiological reaction that goes through all human bodies known as the fight-or-flight response. In a crisis, blood retracts from the extremities of the body (including the brain, inhibiting rational thought) and retreats to the trunk, increasing heart rate and priming the body for the production of adrenaline. Your body and the primal centers of your brain, not the higher-thinking parts, make a snap decision to either fight or to run. Often, if retreat is possible, that is the first reaction; however, if there is nowhere to run, the fight impulse takes over.

In a situation such as the passengers of 9/11 Flight 93, there was nowhere to hide, and so they had to fight, and fight they did. In the VT tragedy, with no available weapons and a shooter who is standing too far to reach without physically moving forward, the victims had no choice but to run, which is the first response anyway.

We all have the privilege and luxury of hindsight. These people did only what was natural. To have the physical and mental discipline to override the fight-or-flight response and make the conscious decision to fight back in such overstacked odds (gun+lots of bullets vs. bare fists) with no chance to prepare or think ahead, someone would have to be quite literally superhuman. To make your proposal viable, there would have had to be at least dozens of superhuman individuals in that building all at once.

My condolences to those who suffered or continue to suffer throughout this ordeal.

Answer 3

What you're saying is absurd. If someone started firing a gun, you would actually run towards them, just so you could die? It's human instinct to run from death. A plan to charge a shooter wouldn't be devised until the fear had settled down and everyone had reached a calm, collected state, which probably takes a while. You have good intentions, but passengers on the planes that crashed on 9-11 didn't automatically charge the hijackers, did they? And no, there weren't thousands of people in that one school building at that time, and the doors to it were chained shut. The entire student body of a college doesn't meet at one building at the same time, so it's not like there were 32,000 kids ready to charge him, it was more along the lines of a couple hundred.

Answer 4

you have a point their but their are many factors that play into it. Even though you say you might respond in this way, no one really has a way of knowing if they would until they are in fact in that position. Also what about the women? I know that women should be considered the same as men but the women in those classrooms would be less likely to be able to fight back and therefore most likely to get shot. Some could probably fight back but you never know.

Answer 5

That's a great idea. Unfortunately, this was not so simple. I read that Cho stood a few feet back from the doorway. This gave him a great advantage as there was only a narrow passage to get to him. He could easily pick off anyone who came close enough to reach him. If he had entered the room and stood in the middle of the class, they may have been able to attack him from all sides and succeed.

Besides, things like this happen so fast. The students were in class paying attention to their studies; they weren't sitting around waiting to jump out of their seats.

Answer 6

Y ou may have some good points. The people on the flight headed toward the Whitehouse fought back though in the end they diid lose their life. (911) That was a confined area though.
This man as you said was a "nut case", there were so many red flags sent up. I think someone needs to look in to laws that can protect the people, the potential victims instead of Well he didn't do anything illegal, so we can't do anything. There's got to be a way.!!!!!!!!!

Answer 7

This has been debated many times. The facts are:

1. These were kids, most of whom naturally looked to the teachers for protection
2. This was not a movie.
3. The instinct for self-preservation when faced with a threat is strong. Fight or flight? Well, he has 2 guns, you don't - uneven fight, so you run, hide, or play dead. Did anyone have time to plan a mob attack?
4. The effects of shock are strong - many will have been literally frozen by fear and in disbelief.
5. We don't act in real life the way we imagine we will in a situation.

The kids who tried to barricade the doors did a pretty brave thing. He managed to break through the barricade, and the ones at the front were shot.

It's too easy to judge. Be grateful you were not in that situation. Chances are, you would have done exactly as they did.

Answer 8

This would just be silly you’d be killed he had an automatic weapon. At most if someone could have snuck up behind him and hit him over the head with something to knock him out. But most people aren’t going to be thinking about that, they are going to be thinking about escaping themselves, saving their life. People can say they would have done this, they would have done that., baloney people unless your put into this type of situation you don’t know what you're going to do, and even then it be a fast automatic decision where you’d have no time to even think about it , just do.

Answer 9

I completely agree...biggest problem with America is we have lost our lets get involved...instead now days politics are are sending messages to citizens to stay back don't get involved. I say bullshit. Get involved people stop this from happening. 9/11 would have never happened if the people would not allow it. I would have picked up a desk and charged him with it I would have gotten shot anyway so hell at least I'm gonna try to take him with me.
game over nuff said.

Answer 10

Can you imagine being in the middle of that? You arent thinking about taking that guy down you are just thinking about surviving. Obviously in retrospect there are some things you would have rather done, but in a condensed class room the best thing you can do is just pretend to be dead.