If you had a gun at VT, would you have used it on the killer? (nt)

[SteveM]

[gravity]

1. Loaded question

but hell yeah

[LoZoccolo]

2. Yes. n/t

[DemoTex]

3. Buh bye.

Jackass question.

[SteveM]

33. Unanswered, nevertheless. (nt)

[Stargleamer]

4. Only if I had a clear shot n/t

[Lex]

5. If he hadn't had a gun, no I wouldn't have.

nt

[Poll_Blind]

6. Yes. Personally, though it would scar me for life to kill another, I could....

...not live with the knowledge that I escaped that grief at the price of such horror visitied on others.

PB

[Edweird]

7. Yes. Even if I didn't have a weapon I would have taken a run at him.

I'm not going down without a fight.

[BreweryYardRat]

19. What you said.

[rateyes]

8. I wouldn't have had a gun at Virginia Tech...

but, if I had, of course I would have used it if I had a clear shot at the killer. To do otherwise would be criminal.

[donheld]

9. Without hesitation

:nuke:

[flvegan]

10. Stupid question.

"Would you have used it" is a stupid fucking thing to ask people that have a gun(s).

It's easy to have a gun, it's another thing altogether to pull it...loaded.

On top of that, it's another thing altogether to actully pull that trigger and take a life.

This gets my vote as the be-all end-all dumbest fucking question on DU in the last several days.

Sorry.

[SteveM]

34. No need to apologize. What would you have done?

[flvegan]

39. Be specific, please.

What would I have done...when/how??

Background...I do own guns. Colt .45 Officers Compact with Black Talons, Mossberg 500 with XX Slugs...and another, a .22 long semi auto...

This will be a tough answer I think, regardless.

[SteveM]

46. Name your terms. It is a tough question. (nt)

[cboy4]

11. Nope. I would have allowed him to kill myself and my fellow

classmates. :eyes:

[davepc]

12. If you had a gun on the Va Tech campus you would be BREAKING THE LAW

[JVS]

25. breakin the law, breakin the law!!

:headbang:

[Edweird]

44. I'll take my chances with a jury then.

How does that bumper sticker go....? "I'd rather be judged by twelve than carried by six" or something to that effect.

[JLRosensteel]

61. Only trespassing laws. Guns are banned by university policy, not by law. n/t

[reformed_military]

67. Not too fast on breaking the law

The VA "No weapons on School Grounds" law stops at High School.

VT (and I think all of the other colleges in VA) has a rule that you would be expelled or fired (in the case of a teacher) for violating their "Gun Safe Zone" policy.

You willing to toss the semester's tuition, etc to carry? Then you can legally carry.

[uppityperson]

13. Would I have been able to keep my cool and rightfully appraise the situation also?

Hard as hell to know as I wasn't there, don't know what all was going on.

[jobycom]

14. If you'd had surface to air missiles on 9-11 would you have used them?

The cops had guns, they got there quickly. Not quickly enough. Unless someone was arguing that the students or profs should have been packing, I don't see how guns at VT would have done much. Aside from the guns the killer had, I mean.

My sister's ex-boyfriend had a gun at our college. Used it to kill himself.

[Ignacio Upton]

15. Yes, without a question

n/t.

[WinkyDink]

16. "Yeah, I would've been Wyatt Earp." Whatever.

And as I reached for my gun---where? In my VT School Colors Shoulder Holster?---I would have had my ignorant brains blown out.

[SteveM]

38. Then, what would you have done?

[brooklynite]

17. Far too abstract...

This question is always framed as "would you"...e.g. the individual. You can't think of individuals in a vaccuum. Imagine instead that all gun regulations are lifted (the ideal of the 2nd Amendment absolutists), and that hundreds of people are carrying weapons. Are you better off in a firefight where you think the guy down the hall is the gunman, and he thinks the same of you?

[SteveM]

31. Abstract? I am asking YOU.

[brooklynite]

41. And I'm replying...

How do I know if the person with a gun is the killer, or someone else like me?

[SteveM]

47. By seeing if that person is shooting unsuspecting people.

[AZBlue]

18. Yes, if I could have a clear shot of only him.

Someone like that will wind up dead anyway, most likely at his own hands, so I'd be only saving lives, not destroying any that would have been saved anyway.

[OnceUponTimeOnTheNet]

20. If I had a shotgun, Yes,

Better chance of a hit with a shotgun, if at close range.
~second thought, I'd have shot that fucker with anything available to my hands.

[johnaries]

21. I dunno. I've never shot at a human being, only plastic silhouettes. nt

[BuyingThyme]

22. If it had gotten to the point where I was carrying a gun,

I don't suspect Virginia Tech would have still been around.

[El Supremo]

23. Sure. I would have shot his gun out of his hand.

Just like Matt Dillon.

Keep your fantasies to yourself.

[SteveM]

36. When finished with YOUR fantasy, what would you have done?

[qdemn7]

64. He Had Two Hands and He Had Two Guns

Suppose he has one in each hand, what are you going to do then? Firing a gun is deadly force. If you are not prepared to take human life, then you have no business picking up a gun.

Remember this:

You do not shoot to warn.
You do not shoot to wound.
You do not shoot to kill.
You shoot to stop.

[JVS]

24. Duh, yes.

[karlrschneider]

26. No, I would sit there and wait my turn to be massacred.

:sarcasm:

[JVS]

27. Fuck that, I'd join in on the massacre!

:sarcasm:

[FastHorizon]

28. 0f course..

What a ridiculous question.

[Maddy McCall]

29. No one knows how they would have reacted.

Stupid hypothetical question that's irrelevent. Any person can say what they would have done, but no one can know for certain how they would have reacted.

[uppityperson]

37. Exactly. Who can really know.

Hi Maddy, think I'm done on DU tonight. Off to check lounge then off, heavy hearted.

[karlrschneider]

40. That is true for people with no training. Here's a short vignette:

I was in college in Tulsa and my family ran short on funds. Long story. I applied for and got a job with the police dep't to pay my way. Had of course to go through the police academy (took off a semester to do it) - I knew many Tulsa cops well (yet another story) and knew something about the training program which included a session where a "ringer" would burst into the classroom and accuse one of the trainees of having a dalliance with his wife then fire off a couple of blanks at the guy (who was in on the scheme) then run out the door. The object was of course to elicit physical descriptions of the "assailant" and demonstrate how unreliable they can be. But Chief Riggs, the instructor (who incidentally invented the 'Yield' sign) knew that I had previously gotten a bonded sheriff's commission and carried
a gun occasionally called me out of the class before the 'demonstration' because he thought I might shoot the actor.

I wouldn't have because I knew about the stunt but I -might not- have known and I surely would have popped the guy in that case.

[SteveM]

52. My father was a prof at U of Fla. He pulled the same stunt and survived!

[SteveM]

51. "...no one can know for certain..." Even myself. The question is relevant...

Some day, some where, with or without a gun, all of us will be attacked. It is important to ponder these questions, even if we choose to duck & cover and hope we are the lucky few to survive. I noted that some folks opined they would try to stop the attacker, even if unarmed. Self-defense is a quite natural right but not necessarily a compelling instinct.

[liberal N proud]

30. Would shooting one save 30? - YES

But only if nothing else would work.

[Frank Cannon]

32. If I had a phaser, I would shoot him using the "stun" setting

WTF kind of question is that?

[BlooInBloo]

35. Nope - I would've travelled FURTHER back in time and killed Hitler, Idi Amin...

... Pol Pot, Stalin, and then turned my magic time-travelling gun into a make-people-happy-stick, which makes everybody SO HAPPY!

[frogcycle]

42. I'd have walked right up to him

and pissed on his leg

my gun is in my left hand/my weapon is in my right
my gun is in my left hand/my weapon is in my right
my gun is in my left hand/my weapon is in my right
my gun is in my left hand/my weapon is in my right

[GirlinContempt]

43. I don't think this is a question most people can answer.

I've never been in a situation even resembling that one, and I don't think most people have either. I'd love to think I'd try to do something, either armed or unarmed, but I'm not so deluded as to believe I actually know what would happen. In our imaginations we can all be gunslinging heros, in reality, we're all human.

[SteveM]

48. Good post. Does it take heroism to defend ourselves?

[GirlinContempt]

50. I don't know.

[Christian30]

45. No doubt

I'm a native Brooklynite. We generally return fire.

I think the school was horribly negligent about this incident and I hope they're held accountable.

[Irreverend IX]

49. Interesting question.

If I could go back in time to the crime scene and know what was going to happen, I would do whatever I could to take the shooter out. But if that wasn't the case and I was in public with a concealed gun and I heard shots start to go off nearby, I would probably just book it. CCW holders are not supposed to act as cops, and if I heard random gunfire in public I would probably assume it was a "mundane" robbery as opposed to a spree killer.

If, by some chance, I walked in on a scene where a guy was killing people and I had the chance to get the drop on him, I would definitely fire. Ditto if a killer had me trapped and my only way out was through him. But civilian gun owners, by and large, are not supposed to behave like action heroes. If I was aware that someone was attempting mass murder near me, I would probably be willing to take some risks to eliminate them. However, it's hard for me to think of a situation where I could immediately grasp that a mass murder was going on that I could prevent; I would probably just run as soon as I heard the shots.

[TheWraith]

53. Armed or not, if I thought I had a real chance of taking him out, I'd have tried it.

Not trying to sound suicidal or heroic or anything, it's just a simple calculus. Whether it was even remotely possible would be a question you could never really answer, though.

[tofurkey]

54. This is fantasy?

Then I'd go back to whatever "metal" Age - Iron, Bronze - and stop the gun from being invented. And alter whatever genetic tendencies lead to human violence.

[SteveM]

55. Violence in the form of war came about as a result of agriculture. (nt)

[benEzra]

56. Yes. (n/t)

[jody]

57. Yes. n/t

[scrinmaster]

58. Yes. But no CCW permit for another 15 months.

Until then, get a chair leg or my pocket knife or any improvised weapon within reach, and wait until you have a chance.

[Show_Me _The_Truth]

59. The question should be

Why did one 76 yr old professor try something and no one else did? Why did the students line up to be shot?

Herosim is not found in what you have in your hand, but what you have in your heart. That professor should be buried at Arlington and revered for what he did.

I'll save comment on those that ran as that professor died.

[Vilis Veritas]

70. You can not condemn those that fled...

The professor had seen mass death up close and personal. He had already made up his mind long before that day as to what his actions would be.

The others did exactly what he wanted.

I agree that his heroism is to be commended. I disagree that the others did something wrong.

You are not the judge of them or any man for that matter.

If you think, as you posted, that the students lined up to be shot, you are wrong on so many levels it pains me to even respond.

You want truth? Look in the mirror. See the ignorance staring back and know that it is curable through knowledge.

(I edited this to postface my statement above, I do *not* mean to insult you by saying you are ignorant. I myself am ignorant and always will be :-) )

Wake up.

[piedmont]

60. Absolutely. Even if I wasn't armed, I wouldn't have lined up to be shot. nt

[iamjoy]

62. It's Why I DON'T Have a Gun

and don't WANT a gun.

I don't think I could shoot another living creature. Even if my life was in danger, I'd cower in the corner. If approached and trapped, I'd probably be shaking so hard and pissing myself I wouldn't be able to get off a good shot.

[qdemn7]

63. You Bet Your Sweet

Ass I would have. I would have shot him in the back if necessary. I decided a long time ago (30 years or so), that if I was going to have guns in my home, I would be totally mentally preprepared to take human lives if so necessary to defend myself or others. You have absolutely owning any type of gun for defense otherwise.

[Erebus67]

65. Without a doubt

I have been in a situation where my survival depended on the creep not pulling the trigger luckily, he didn't. I will do everything in my power to not have to rely on the creep's mercy again.

I find it disturbing that the only means of defense these people had was to try and hold the door shut as he fired through it.

[cgrindley]

66. D'uh (nt)

[jmg257]

68. Most assuredly. Why carry one otherwise if not prepared to use it?

You HOPE you won't ever have to - but, sadly, bad shit happens.

[slackmaster]

69. If actually presented with a situation where it could be done safely, yes

It depends on the exact situation.

[Xela]

71. Ditto. ntxt

no text
Xela

[Malidictus Maximus]

72. Unhesitatingly

And with malice afore and afterthought.

[RadiDem]

73. Yes

[Turnagain]

74. Would I have shot the lunatic killer?

Nah, I'd have gone along with him and helped him shoot more people. What's your sign?

[jard]

75. N/T

N/T

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

76. Double tap center mass at a minimum.

He may have gotten 2 extra in the chest and one in the head just to save the taxpayers of Virginia room and board.

David