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Excellent article. You should post the whole thing. Maybe as its own thread, even.

Because the idea of not cooperating with the armed criminal may not occur to you unless you already have this knowledge in your mind somewhere.

I know that when a man pulled out a gun in the store where I used to work, demanding that I open the cash register, I turned into a statue (which is why I have a problem with people who say the girl didn't look scared; I'm sure I didn't have a dramatic expression on my face either). I literally had trouble getting my fingers to work and my only thought was that I had to hurry and get the register open, before some customer came through the door and startled the guy enough to make him start shooting at us.
He was very twitchy. It may have been an act, but there was no way I could know that.

Fortunately all he wanted was the money in the register, and I was happy enough to give him that. $600 of the corporation's money wasn't worth making a stand for (neither is $600 of your own money, for that matter). But if he'd ordered me to lock the door and go into the back with him, out of sight, or to leave with him, I hope I would have resisted. I just dont know for sure that I would have, back then.

And I was 32 years old when that happened. I don't expect more smarts from an 11-year-old than I do from myself...