A Few Shiny Pebbles

A few days ago I read a brilliant essay at the American Thinker about what to do when you’re caught near a terrorist or other nut who is shooting at people. Please go and read the whole essay, because it sets forth the best lifesaving tactics I’ve ever seen for everyone, in whatever group situation you find yourself in, who is near a “shooter”.

William R. Hartman starts out his essay by asking the same questions I think most of us had at the Virginia Tech classroom murders:

Ever since hearing of the tragic deaths at Virginia Tech last April, I have been deeply troubled by the number of people killed by a lone gunman wielding two hand guns in the midst of dozens of people.

Why was Seing-Hui Cho able to methodically move from classroom to classroom—four in total—killing 29 people and wounding at least 26 more, with so little effort to stop or to disarm him?

Why was the kill rate so high?

Why was there no offensive response by the overwhelming numbers being attacked?

Why was 76-year-old Professor Liviu Librescu one of the very few willing to take an offensive posture, and sacrificing his own life, to save students in his class?

And most important of all: What can I do for my family and friends to give them a better chance of survival when something like this happens again?

He gives an important description of what can be done by any of us in such circumstances. Everyone possible needs to read it and to tell his or her friends about it. Talk about it to your family members and encourage them to tell others.

I was forcefully reminded of it yesterday when I saw a video on the Fox News Channel about how students reacted in Cleveland when a student came into a school and started shooting people. First, it surprised me that there was no panic. In fact, the students acted as though they heard something happening, but that it didn’t involve them, even as a threat. They would have been easy targets had the shooter come into their room right then.

It then took a couple of minutes for them to decide to get under their desks, and even then some students kept standing—and I saw at least one kid climb onto a desk and stand on it. I thought that if the kid with the gun had come into their room at that moment he could have shot them all, the standing ones first and then, methodically, those under the desks. (Going under your desk helps in an earthquake and tornado when unaimed things fall from the ceiling, but it won’t protect you from a person walking around the room with a gun.)

I was surprised at what I saw in the video because it had never occurred to me that students wouldn’t immediately react, even if that reaction had turned out to be useless. Hey, I grew up and live in the Los Angeles area, and I have been in at least six instances when I heard nearby gunfire, and my experience was that when they hear shots fired, people immediately get low and try to hide.

Okay, both my personal experience and the video I saw would have meant that thre would be a lot more dead and injured if the shooter had come near us or into the classroom of the video-maker. So it means that I know why so many people died at the Virginia Tech site, because I’ve seen for myself the lack of defensive actions taken by those who hear gunfire. (And it’s one of the reasons I was so moved by the professor, Liviu Librescu, who blocked the door to his classroom with his body and saved the lives of all the students in his class. I posted the poem I wrote about Librescu on this blog as soon as I heard of his actions.)

Hartman was moved by Librescu’s valorous, lifesaving actions, too, and that was what drove him to come up with his solution—and it is, as I said, brilliant. He concludes his essay by saying:

If this makes sense to you, and especially to those of you who lead groups of people, you can unilaterally respond right now. Share these thoughts with others. Get the dialogue and debate started. You can arm your people, not with guns but with the knowledge and training that will provide the best possible chance for survival.

This is big, folks. Please go learn what can be done, and tell everyone you know about it.

And remember that old saying, “The life you save may be your own.”

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