What would you do during a Bad Guy Attack

[Rackhir]

good considerations.
But I like to think that all the violent movies we all watch has not placated us all into pacifistic hammer splats. Which would be really ironic that people who decry all the violent media, if our society is less capable of violence towards our fellow man because of all the violent media...

Personally, I'm good with not having a lot of experience with violence.

Bad-asses who are ready to kick people around at the drop of a hat sound great in fiction when you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are good guys doing things for the right reasons and that the people they are beating up are bad people who you also know are doing things that "justify" what happens to them.

Real life is rarely that cut and dried as are the right and wrongs of who did what. Also people who are ready to kick ass at the drop of a hat are not generally good people doing things for the right reason.

You could pull a drawer out and use it as a shield. Pick up a chair and use the legs to keep him at bay. A bunch of people doing that could overwhelm him.

The squirt gun is probably the tricky part. McHammer squirts something that burns into peoples eyes. It gives him range, and lets him take out anybody who approaches him.

I have no doubt, somebody's going to get hit by a hammer or taken out by the squirt gun. But 2-3 dudes have a better chance of tackling him.

As for intel on the attack, there was surprisingly little screaming. That should be another important thing in the training, try to scream in a shreaking fashion when you see something horrible happen in the cube farm. that way your cube mates are alert to real trouble and source. Then, the more burly of them can deal with it (and hopefully the ones who carried a gun, despite the workplace rule against it).

This is basically, RPG player character thinking. Where you just mark off HP and it can all get healed in a moment with a spell. So wounds and injuries don't hurt or cripple you for life.

In the comfort of your home with plenty of time to think over and analyze the situation it's really easy to make statements like this. It's a LOT more difficult to do in the confusion and surprise of an event like this. I've read a lot of reports of how difficult it is to get trained soldiers to react well in high stress situations like combat. A shockingly high percentage of them don't even shoot to kill when someone is shooting at them. There are numerous reports of untrained people in gun fights emptying guns at 10' or 15' and both of them missing with all their shots because of the adrenaline and excitement.

This is why combat experience is such a precious commodity in a military force. Having had someone shooting at you and trying to kill you, means you've gotten past some of the shock and grown accustomed to it to at least some degree. But, being ready for and anticipating events like this in otherwise peaceful situations, is pretty much the definition of PTSD.

In real life, I've stared death in the face twice and there is a VAST difference between knowing at an abstract level that "Everyone dies eventually" (except that never is quite real to you and who knows you might be an exception) and death shoving you down in the mud and rubbing your face in it.

Once it was all in my head, I was driving late at night, pulled off to rest for a bit. I woke up suddenly and was confused as to exactly where I was. I vaguely remembered being concerned about falling asleep, saw the guard rail in front of where I was parked and lept to the conclusion I'd fallen asleep at the wheel doing 60 mph and that I was going to die in a fraction of a second. It was all in my head, but it was no less real to me until I realized I was in fact not moving. But I basically froze up and just didn't react until after I finally became aware that I wasn't in danger.

The second time ironically, I was actually in serious danger, but was completely unaware of it. I was seriously ill a couple of yrs ago and spent the better part of a month in the hospital, including though I didn't know about it until afterwards, several days in the ICU on a breathing machine.

They basically drug you out of your skull when they do that to keep you unconscious, so that you don't do what is your first instinct is when you wake up with tubes down your throat and try to tear them out. The drugs also interfere with your memory formations, so you basically don't remember it. Which quite frankly I'm also good with.

I was lucky enough to have good health insurance. I was in a first rate hospital, with excellent doctors and all the modern medical technology you could ask for. I got into the hospital early enough and they started treating me quickly enough. So arguably I wasn't really in danger of dying, but it would not have taken a lot for things to have turned out very differently and there were times after I found out exactly what happened, when I had to just say "I'm not going to think about this right now, because I am starting to seriously freak out".

I think Clausewitz put it very well, when he said "In war all things are simple, but the simplest things are very difficult."

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

There are numerous reports of untrained people in gun fights emptying guns at 10' or 15' and both of them missing with all their shots because of the adrenaline and excitement.

There was one here a few years ago involving one carjacking robber vs several cops. 40+ rounds fired by all combatants- some from as close as opposite sides of the stolen car- and no gunshot wounds.

Portions of the running battle were caught on the dashboard cams of the cruisers and aired on the news. You could see the combatants running, ducking and firing simultaneously...often aiming a foot or more over where you'd expect them to since they were more concerned with looking where they were going rather than where they were pointing their pistols. Something about looking for cover.

In real life, I've stared death in the face twice and there is a VAST difference between knowing at an abstract level that "Everyone dies eventually" (except that never is quite real to you and who knows you might be an exception) and death shoving you down in the mud and rubbing your face in it.

I stopped counting after 6. Personal faves: staring down a pissed-off rattlesnake for several minutes at age 5; looking down the barrel of a machine gun with the safety off being wielded by a twitchy East German airport security guard (who though I had a bomb); avoiding the somersaulting logs dumped in my path by a semi going the other direction (would have been about a 120mph net collision).

Less glamorous/less fun: near-fatal allergic reactions (suffocation sucks- literally); frostbite.

 

[Rackhir]

There was one here a few years ago involving one carjacking robber vs several cops. 40+ rounds fired by all combatants- some from as close as opposite sides of the stolen car- and no gunshot wounds.

Portions of the running battle were caught on the dashboard cams of the cruisers and aired on the news. You could see the combatants running, ducking and firing simultaneously...often aiming a foot or more over where you'd expect them to since they were more concerned with looking where they were going rather than where they were pointing their pistols. Something about looking for cover.

I've always thought that "The Shootist" with John Wayne, especially the scene where he's shooting with Ron Howard's character pretty much got to the truth of such things.

 

[Falkus]

Is society so pansy arsed that we lack the testicular fortitude to take out a bad guy ourselves? Especially when the weapon set isn't extreme (a blunt object and a squirt gun, probably bleach).

Why, precisely, should I put my life at risk when I can flee and contact the appropriate authorities who are trained and equipped to resolve such a situation?

Also, I find the fact that I'm mentally incapable of harming another human being to be a rather comforting one.

 

[Umbran]

It was hydrochloric acid...which made me wonder about the composition of his squirt-gun, which appeared to be clear plastic. I don't remember my chem well enough, but I could swear you'd need a glass container for acid like that. (Of course, if the baddie works glass as a hobby...)

That would take the wind out of most people's sails.

So would the far more common household bleach, which will keep in a plastic spray bottle, and which will still destroy your eyes, and is available in convenience and grocery stores.

If you don't know, and don't have the right equipment, don't engage. Pretty simple concept.

 

[SnowleopardVK]

I would run for sure. Or maybe break down in panicked crying.

Actually yeah, I'd almost certainly break down in panicked crying. A hero I am not.

 

[Janx]

So would the far more common household bleach, which will keep in a plastic spray bottle, and which will still destroy your eyes, and is available in convenience and grocery stores.
.

thats what I assumed it was.

If you don't know, and don't have the right equipment, don't engage. Pretty simple concept.

That's still pretty good advice.

I think my desire is that per the 1st half of the second ammendment, more of us civillians should be capable of defending ourselves, rather than rely on police.

As the saying goes, it's not a crime if you don't get caught. Police effectively do not have jurisdiction where they are not present. Therefore, at the incident event, the civillians are the police and should be prepared to defend and assist their fellows.

This may be no more than mounting an orderly escape (like a fire drill), but it also means the able using force to resist an attack so more people survive.

It also sends a message to attackers that even the common citizenry is willing to resist to their dying breath.

I much prefer living in an America where the reason the Canadians don't attack is because they know every American has a gun and will defend our soil with excellent marksmanship and heroic valor.

On being incapable of violence as Falkus put it, I belive that to be a fallacy. Each human is capable of violence, despite what they believe. They may not naturally trend to it, but it is always possible an event may invoke a violent response. Too many cases exist where people said "he couldn't have done it, he's incapable of violence." and yet there we find the "peaceful" man has done it.

Personally, I've never been in a real fight (but I do have metal plates in my head from a sparring accident). I earned a black belt. My ancestors sailed down the coast and raided your ancestors. I'm more worried that I would fight stupidly in an event, than anything else because biologically, I'm wired to yell "Not in the face!" while I hulk out on the bad guy. It's is a challenge being a skinny scandinavian with Viking tendencies.

 

[Umbran]

I think my desire is that per the 1st half of the second ammendment, more of us civillians should be capable of defending ourselves, rather than rely on police.

On broad average, the violent crime rate has been decreasing both on the scale of decades and centuries. We are often fooled into thinking this is not the case, because dramatic incidents get time in the media, and we conflate that with actual risk. Statistically speaking, though, we need to defend ourselves against violent criminals less than in the past.

 

[Janx]

On broad average, the violent crime rate has been decreasing both on the scale of decades and centuries. We are often fooled into thinking this is not the case, because dramatic incidents get time in the media, and we conflate that with actual risk. Statistically speaking, though, we need to defend ourselves against violent criminals less than in the past.

Thats true. crime is down. The Freakonomics documentary had a pretty interesting segment on why that is. Sadly, some people may consider it political.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Well, nonpolitically speaking, I learned a long time ago in Econ & Law classes (at different institutions) that nonviolent crime in the USA has a FAR greater impact on society than violent crime does. It's not even close.