All day I've been hearing "experts" give "insight" into what went wrong
at VA-Tech. All sorts of blame pointing - at the school administration,
police, gun-laws, at psychologists... Everyone wants to blame someone in
"authority" - someone "should have known", "the signs were all there,
someone failed". Then I hear the usual empty statement "... he was a
cold blooded murderer, a coward". At that moment the two statements
came together.

Who failed? You and I failed.

In the sense, that nobody, NOBODY got up to take this guy down on his
rampage. Everyone was, understandably, hiding for their very lives. But,
in the course of 2 hours, 30+ ppl died, and nobody stopped this guy. How
can a campus filled with hundreds of ppl, NOT have a single person who
would rush this guy, even if it meant dying in the process?

Why? Because we are a nation of selfish cowards. Understandably, nobody
wanted to die being a hero, but, selfishly, and cruely, everyone thought
that their lives were more valuable than someone elses. How else can you
explain the failure to act - THIRTY+ ppl had to die, and out of the
campus with hundreds of ppl directly involved, nobody stopped him? He
even had time to go mail a letter. Reload his guns. Check out the
campus. Walk around some. Still, nobody acted. Sure, LOTS of ppl called
the police, but at some level its a deflection of responsibility to act.

Yes, let me say it directly. If you (a complete stranger to me), and I
were in a room, and a gunman came into the room, I'm gonna hide. I'm
gonna cower. I'm gonna save my skin. And I'm going to do what I can to
save YOUR life too. And when the moment is available, I'm going to rush
the guy, and if I get shot doing it, at least YOU will have the chance
to finish the rush. At least YOU will have 1 less bullet to worry about.
I only hope and pray, that if I'm in such a situation, that more than
one person thinks like me - and that mindset will save dozens of other
potential killings. Isnt it better that me & a like-minded person take
the bullet and end the gunman, rather than letting him rampage for 30+
more killings? Who is with me? Who values their neighbor's life as much
as their own?

This is precisely the reason why 9/11 succeeded - not enough ppl stood
up to this. Same thing with that nutcase in the Utah shopping mall last
x-mas... [Incidently, all 3 involved muslims] Over and over, these
gunmen succeed because everyone thinks that THEIR own life is more
valuable than any potential strangers - they feel its better to let
someone else take the risk.

The failure to act, is a kind of implicit-complicity to the crime.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do
nothing"
Edmund Burke (1729-1797)

</rant>

USA - a nation of selfish cowards?

what are you talking about?
none of this could've been prevented.
not if someone stood in the way,
not if no one tried to stop it.
yeah,
he had time to mail a letter.
but is someone honestly going to approach this guy?
NO.
if an insane man with a gun wants to mail a letter,
i think i'd let him mail whatever he wanted.
nine eleven couldn't have been stopped,
no one knew it was about to happen.
you're complaining that we're all trying to blame each other,
but guess what.
you're blaming the world.
it's going to be the way it is.
if this problem you're complaining about was solved,
you'd just go right on complaining about something else.
life is the way it is.
deal with it.

killxherxoff,

"none of this could've been prevented.
not if someone stood in the way,
not if no one tried to stop it."

Absolutely this could have been prevented. Thats my point, if I were
there I woulda rushed teh guy. Even if it meant me being shot, he woulda
been knocked down. Other ppl could have jumped on him once I knocked him
down. It was directly preventable. I could have done it, you could have
done it (but I dont think you would have).

brave man

and risk a life?
they don't do things like that.
there is a higher chance of someone dying if they try to knock the guy
down than if they try to figure out a better way to do things before he
kills again.
besides,
they had no proof that the earlier killings were related to him.
few authorities even saw him.

now, why the school wasn't put on lock down after the first shooting is
a good question.
the students had no idea what hit them.
if someone had just been smart enough to inform people,
this wouldn't have happened.
it has nothing to do with cowardice.
it's just natural-born idiocy.

I'm with killxherxoff on this one. There's a bunch anyone COULD have
done, of course, but all-in-all, who wants to put their life at risk? I
was going over this exact thing in my head today. "If I was there, would
I have the balls to take this guy, even if it meant being shot?" I can
only, humanely answer, yes I would have enough balls to WANT to. Moving
the body in such a stressful situation is another story however. You
have to act at just the right moment, and in the right spot too. I mean,
most of the shootings were probably taken place in areas where it was
nearly impossible to bum rush the guy. Guns stop people quicker than
people stop guns. Selfish cowards? I think not so much. Most scared to
death. You can't tell me your so hard that you would not be affected by
a gun MikeMontana.

besides,
there's no telling what could've happened.
what if it only hindered him slightly?
then he would've killed another person,
and just be even more aggravated.

How do you know that no one rushed him? I thought they said that some
of the instructors did rush him only to be shot down.

I think you’re wrong about the timeline. My impression is that he shot
two people in a dorm and then 2 hours later he stormed the place where
he killed the rest of the people in a matter of a few minutes (I could
be wrong).

People probably didn’t have time to think. It’s not cowardly to
instinctively run away from someone who’s shooting at you with a gun.
That would be most people’s first instantaneous reaction. Anyone who
did storm him was probably shot instantly.

Its so sad that it happened.

MM>

Yeah...

I have been wondering the same thing myself.

If in doing something it cut the body count by just one it would have
been worth it.

I saw over and over people stating 'i did not see anything I was to busy
jumping out the window.'

so there might have been people doing just what you said we just don't
know it cause they were not able to be interviewed.

Didn't he mail the letter after his first attack, before he killed
plenty of people? I mean, if that was the case, then he had time to mail
the letter because that was before he went on his deadlier rampage.

As for the subject of people needing to stop him, people helped each
other out, but that guy was spraying bullets, he could have easily
killed a lot of people either way as of someone trying to take him down.

I'm just not sure that anyone can say that as many lives were taken
wouldn't have happened had someone tackled him. But like another poster
suggested, someone else might have tried to tackle him.

I'm certain that if the opportunity had presented itself, a person would
have lunged at him in a means to knock him to the floor, and get the
guns out of his hands. But while the guy is spraying bullets is not a
good opportunity to do so. Hmm, when he was reloding? Maybe fear, seeing
him reload his guns so fast kept that option closed as well.

~Forbes~

There were a lot of selfless acts that day such as the professer who
held the door shut to buy time for his students.
I think its easy to arm chair quarterback when you were not there and
have no idea what oppurtunities were there to tackle him or if someone
actually did try only to be blown away.
Hindsight is 20/20 .

Thanks jax you are so right..

How does this get debated when we were not there!

????????

My heart goes out to the family and victims, friends.etc


prayer may help the next god awful attack though.

Just a thought.

My daughter has a spooky creepy kid in school people have reported him,
saying he would shoot people if he had a gun.

so they just try to keep him in in school counciling.....ugh


PS her school is a great school...Their hands are tied.

cuz he hasn't done anything>>>>>> that is the reality of these
crimes. For now!

Wow. I am surprised by the replies. I don't fault anyone for being
scared sh1tless, I would have peed my pants. I might even have been
paralyzed with fear.

I am bothered by the overall sense that we are, as a people, "helpless"
to nut cases like this. If only 1 person had tangled with him, if only 1
person had lunged at him, then he couldnt have killed 30+ people. He
killed 30 ppl in cold blood - probably most were begging for their
lives. And yet, nobody else could think beyond themselves to really do
something.

Until we take individual responsibility to "do all that we can" when
faced with a true "Life or Death" situation, then more heinous acts like
this will happen - more frequently, more deadly.

I had this conversation earlier with someone...

It blows my mind that out of hundreds of students that day, that a group
of them didn't tackle this kid to the ground.

I don't agree we are a nation of cowards and frankly that's where I
stopped reading your post but in a very loose sense, I agree with you.

I heard this jock talking today about how he just was on his knees
trying to hide, I don't get it. There were masses of people that could
of ran up on this guy from behind but everyone chose to cower instead
and the result was 30+ dead.

If I hadn't been faced with death in my own life and rose to he occasion
I don't feel I'd have any ground to stand on this and would feel out of
place saying these things but I have and I have seen many brave men do
what was needed in the face of fear. I find it inexcusable that no one
that day had enough courage to take this kid down.

Some of you act like this point of view is a knock against those that
died and there families....it not. Of course, all of our hearts and
prayers go out to them. My point is it could of been less families
needing prayer.

Of course that professor that jumped in front of a student was bravery
but why did it have to come to that? Why didn't a group rush this kid
and take him down?

This isn't armchair quarterbacking, I'd like to think of it as an after
action review. And as I said in my previous post, if I hadn't been faced
with such fear myself, I wouldn't feel qualified to comment on the
subject.

Who took the wackjobs dollars and so few for his stunt..The AMERICAN
goverment

the last few posts are sad ,and what ifs, will go on for days for the
real victims..............A

merican government!


Sorry that is just ridiculous!

As I stated before, and someone else stated, anyone who would have tried
to tackle him wouldn't have had the chance to succeed in that tackle
while he's spraying bullets everywhere.

A poster above me mentioned that he thought that he heard of people who
did try and tackle this guy, but that they got shot down.

Furthermore, concerning the idea that a group should have tackled
him...I'm just not sure how realistic it is that a group of young people
(or even a group of middle-aged people, or old people) would all run at
the guy while he's shooting everywhere. I get the notion that "Oh, they
could have charged at him from behind"...but we're not certain that they
had a good chance to do that.

It isn't new in school shootings, and bank robberies, or any instance
where a person or people that are being held hostage to not all form a
group and rush at a deadly person sporting a gun, no matter what part of
the world something like that happens in. This has been an interesting
thread though. Thanks for the discussion, MikeMontana.


~Forbes~