One person may call that imprudent...another, when you take into account that people were being killed and the guy was intent on killing more, and this man apparently is a Vietnam combat vet, could also call it couragous to try and stop a mad killer who has an asault rifle and handgun and beaucuop ammo, by taking him on without one.
At the very least his distraction would allow time for others to escape...or, as it turned out, someone with a gun to get into position to take the killer down.
My jury is still out too...but I tend towards the latter category. When a guy with a gun is attacking women, children, and men who are crowded into a large sanctuary...and the killer is headed that way...IMHO, a couragous person tries to stop them with whatever he can muster.
“you can tell the coward from the hero when you see which way they run” -Randy Travis
Just to be clear, I do not question the man's courage in the least since he chose to overlook the First Rule and do something rather than just stand there. I guess what I have a problem with is the noisy would-be hero when compared to the quiet real hero archetype (Gary Cooper in "High Noon", Alan Ladd in "Shane", The Lone Ranger - "Who was that masked man?"). Guess I watched too many Westerns, huh?
It's not so mucvh that a year's tour in Vietnam [or similar more recent duty in the sandbox] gives forth the growth of any particular seeds of courage in an individual, so much as they simply provide an instinct to do something at the first sights or sounds of impending danger, when others might freeze.
Our very unofficial motto was Do something, even if it's wrong. And indeed, a small unit that's made the wrong decision under fire may get the chance to cancil it out later when corrective steps are taken or the other guys' bad luck or supply shortages turn things around. But one that just freezes in place while bad things are happening to it goes home in rubber bags or wrapped in ponchos.