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

[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.