Safety and anger.

[azurelunatic]

I hope I am never in a room with a crazed shooter, because I am likely to do something very stupid that will probably get me killed. In all the emergency/urgent situations I've been in (except for the AK-47 guy), my usual response has been to run *towards* the problem, and when it's someone trying to cause problems, I get *mad*. When I get mad, I get stupid.

No one in their right mind hops into the back of a moving pick-up truck and sticks their head through the back window and takes back the poppyseed muffins that the trolls just stole from your party. Me = not in my right mind. That was at Shawn's bachelor party.

That time when stuff caught on fire at school, I was the one running towards it, not away from it like almost everyone else. Geoff and I were running towards it; I held back when I saw that he had it under control.

When people do crazy stuff at work, like when that lady started throwing chairs, I run over. I do have the sense to back off once the professionals get on the scene, if same happens, but my instinct is to run in the direction of the problem so I can make the problem stop. I seem to be in the front lines for weird medical problems at work, too, like when that girl had the asthma attack, or when that lady went into shock from nearly having been hit by bricks some hours previously.

We were all so stunned by the AK-47 guy that only hcolleen registered him as a potential threat. She got us out of there, still giggling.

That time that teenagewitch was staying with us, and her mother tried to break in, I was in line behind Sis with something or other in my hand, trying to get the door closed again.

I call 911 about situations in/around my apartment complex every now and then, and I have the fire and police non-emergency numbers in my cellphone's memory. If I'm not close enough to have to directly respond first to something, then I'd rather leave it up to the trained professionals.

If I'm in a situation where it's hunker down and entirely possibly die anyway, or have a chance at stopping a crazed shooter, I still don't know what I'd do, because I've never been face-to-face with a crazed shooter. The odds are against me surviving the situation in the first place, and how exactly it went would really depend on whether I was too scared to be angry, or too angry to be smart. Somebody's got to be wired in favor of breed survival vs. personal survival, and I might be one of them.

Comments

[smmc.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine who originally comes from virginia wrote a little about this yesterday. And included a snippet a friend of hers from seattle wrote about this. It's rather along the same lines of thought you just had here.

http://danyea.livejournal.com/84051.html

[lacey]

I think about this kind of stuff all the time. I also get stupid when I get mad... so much so that it's probably best to just stand back and let me do my thing, because usually i'm not capable of coherence and it might get worse quickly.

That said: not many times have I ever been in a situation of this caliber, and never have I been in a crazy shooter situation. I was once in a potential shooter situation, and I exposed myself to possible gunfire to save myself, my brother, and his friend when they wouldn't.

I often wonder what I would do. I like to think i'd rush the nut and either put him down or stop him from killing others, but I don't know, and I can't even begin to say for sure. My mother and others were saying that someone should've rushed him while he was reloading all those times, but things are a lot different when loaded weapons pointed at you are involved.

[lacey]

Re: my 2nd paragraph, it turned out that weapons were likely involved not at all, but in the heat of the moment, and given that there were people trying to enter my home, truly anything was possible.

[azurelunatic]

Yeah. None of us can tell for sure until we really have to know.

[lacey]

I'll never forget how that felt, or that I was the only one who would. Maybe they were smarter.

[kdorian.livejournal.com]

We need more people who move to take action. I'm not so much the "run toward the problem" type - and definitely not in a situation where someone was shooting at me - but picking up the phone and calling 911 is something that not enough people do, or do fast enough. God knows how many people have died because everyone in a crowd of people assumed someone else had called 911.

On the other hand... I suspect danyea doesn't have much experience with guns. "He had to pull the trigger each time" does not mean he was firing slowly. I've emptied a 10 round magazine in about 15 seconds, and I'm not experienced with guns. Pulling the trigger means he could fire quickly and selectively, picking his targets and conserving his ammo.

[azurelunatic]

That one time with the car accident, one of the first things I did was hung up on my friend, called 911, and bellowed off the balcony to the gathering crowd, "I'm on the phone with 911!" That way there wasn't a flood, and everyone knew that 911 had been called.

Pulling the trigger does mean that there's less ability to hose, though.

[kdorian.livejournal.com]

Less ability to hose=less ability to conserve ammo. Barring his walking into a full classroom that had no warning he was coming, which I don't believe happened (though don't quote me), hosing is of limited use and uses up ammo at an incredible rate, meaning he wouldn't have been able to go as long.

[kdorian.livejournal.com]

Also: The yelling about 911 is a GREAT idea. I'll try to remember that!

[azurelunatic]

And it gives people a sense that emergency vehicles just showing up doesn't happen, that 911 has to be called, and plants the possibility for them to be the one to call 911 next time.

[kdorian.livejournal.com]

Seriously fabulous.

[torrilin.livejournal.com]

This reaction set suggests "get EMT certified" to me, not that you're stupid. Then you've got some of the training needed to back up your instincts.

[azurelunatic]

That would probably be a good idea. I had basic CPR training when I was 10 or so, but that's not half enough and too long ago.

[selenite.livejournal.com]

only hcolleen registered him as a potential threat

Been there--I was singing away some Goths at Ren Faire and one pulled a knife on me. I just couldn't take it seriously. Heck, there were 15 Scots with unblooded claymores within a keg's throw. But it would've been more sensible to have a block ready in case the boy really was stupider than he looked.

As for shooters--the taxpayers paid for me to take action in emergencies. So they'll get their money's worth, whether it works or not. "Works" in that case would probably be "distract him long enough for someone else to tackle/hit with thrown book/escape." Matthew La Porte (http://starbulletin.com/2007/04/18/news/story01.html) may have not succeeded, but at least he tried.

[azurelunatic]

At the time, we were more amused that because the fellow was visibly freaked out about man-cooties, he dove into the hall closet. You really don't get much more symbolic than that.

And a wholehearted try with the best judgment available to one in the emergency state is really all anyone can ask for.