Tuesday, April 17, 2007

VA Tech Massacre - a good question

It's hard to say how much aggressive self defense was possible but John Derbyshire (at The Corner) asks a good question:

Where was the spirit of self-defense here? Setting aside the ludicrous
campus ban on licensed conceals, why didn't anyone rush the guy?

[...]

As the cliche goes—and like most cliches. It's true—none of us knows what he'd do in a dire situation like that. I hope, however, that if I thought I was going to die anyway, I'd at least take a run at the guy.

Update - last word: Mark Steyn's take.

3 comments:

scalefree said...

This is not a good question, because in fact two of his victims did attempt to stop him. Both failed & both died.

Flognuts said...

The Canadian way now is for the cop on the scene to go in and shoot the shooter...
Clearly just watching, the Americans are so intent on waiting for SWAT and waiting for the dog handler and waiting for Guidot .. they failed to prevent some of those killings.

The cops were dancing up and down the steps of the building ..and we not going into it ... they should have sucked it up and done what the Cop did in Montreal at Dawson ..followed the shooter in and aggressively nailed him, whereupon the perp plugged hisself.

JR said...

If tim's assertion of 'fact' were true he might have a point. However, I've seen no reporting which confirms it. The one standout act of courage was Prof. Librescu's blocking his classrom door, buying (with his life) time for his students to escape out a window.

flognuts does have a point.