Posted on 04/26/2007 11:57:24 AM PDT by Uncledave
The Virginia Tech massacre has spawned countless questions: Everything from why would student Cho Seung-hui gun down 32 fellow human beings, to why was campus security not able to prevent him from committing the deadliest mass-shooting in U.S. history.
Three of the questions – all related – posed to me have been: Why didn’t some of the students rush Cho? Why didn’t someone tackle and disarm him? Where were the likes of those brave souls of United Flight 93 who made the decision to “Let’s Roll” on September 11, 2001?
First, to the third question: The brave souls were there at Virginia Tech, and they rose to the occasion on April 16, 2007. But like those of Flight 93, bravery wasn’t enough.
Now to the first two questions: It’s easy to Monday-morning quarterback about what any one of us would have done in similar circumstances. It amazes me the number of people who have told me, they “would have rushed Cho.” And they “would not have just sat there and let him do what he did.”
But make no mistake, no one really knows what they will do under fire, until they are in fact under fire. And like all combat actions, there are tactical variables at play that often carry more weight than any combination of courage, quickness, and reason ever will. Not that C,Q, and R don’t matter: They do, and lives are nearly always saved because of them. But they are usually not enough to save everyone in the face of a determined killer or killers.
Let’s consider a few of those tactical variables in the case of the Virginia Tech massacre.
Aside from being armed with two (easily reloadable) semi-automatic pistols with plenty of ammunition, the shooter, Cho, had countless advantages as he entered each classroom:
1) Cho possessed the elements of both surprise and shock: The latter includes terror, which can in many instances physically, mentally, and emotionally paralyze the victims.
2) Cho was in close-enough quarters – with few exits – that his victims would have found it extremely difficult to escape: In fact, he was – in many cases – positioned in front of the only door in a given classroom.
3) In almost every classroom, Cho’s field of fire would have been between 45 and 90-degree angles, affording him complete coverage of every space in the room at any one moment.
4) Cho’s victims would have had no cover (physical protection from Cho’s bullets) and virtually no concealment at any time during the attack.
5) The small, terrible space between the doorway - which Cho would have entered with guns blazing – and the groupings of desks where the victims would have been sitting, would have been the deadliest space in the room. For a student to rush Cho, the student would have had to immediately overcome the shock of the attack, unhesitatingly bolt from his or her desk, and charge exposed and unarmed directly across the deadliest space in the room to the source of the killings. This would have been a wholly unnatural act for anyone (I’ll explain this in a moment), yet we may never know if one or two victims actually did do this.
6) The charging, unarmed student would have had no way of knowing whether or not there were more unseen gunmen following behind the visible shooter, Cho.
7) Cho was a fanatic, and prepared to die in his own attack.
8) Most of the victims were young, and probably none of them had any combat training, much less experience under fire: The exception being Dr. Liviu Librescu, the 76-year-old professor and Holocaust survivor who sacrificed himself for his students.
Twenty-five years ago as a Marine infantryman, I remember my squad constantly running immediate action drills: the actions taken in response to an ambush while on patrol.
We were always taught to counterattack directly in the face of the ambush, quickly closing the gap between us and the enemy, and in doing so, attempt to gain fire superiority by shooting back.
We practiced the immediate action drills over-and-over for two reasons. First, if in the event of an actual ambush we were to have sought cover or attempted to run (the natural human reaction), we would have been shot to pieces and the squad probably wiped out. Second, if we didn’t practice the immediate action drills until they became instinctive responses to an ambush, we – just like any other human beings – would instinctively run, seek cover, or hit the deck. And we were U.S. Marines, so there was never a dearth of courage or aggressiveness.
Which brings me back to the students and faculty at Virginia Tech who fell victim to Cho.
They died not because they were too afraid to act. In fact, the heroics of many of them already have been chronicled. More stories of heroism in the face of unequivocal horror will surely surface in the coming weeks and months. And most likely some of the stories of the greatest courage died with the victims before they could be told.
It’s amazing what good men and women are capable of doing in the most desperate moments of life and death. It’s even more amazing how people measure up to a task, even when they are not prepared to do so.
But the odds were against the victims at Virginia Tech. Under the circumstances, they did all they could to survive and help their fellow students and professors. But it wasn’t enough; it never will be against a determined killer like Cho.
And, as retired Navy SEAL and Medal of Honor recipient Mike Thornton told me in an interview for National Review Online’s The Tank, “Thank God, he [Cho] didn’t have guns staged all over the place. The losses would have been even higher.”
W. Thomas Smith Jr. is a former U.S. Marine infantry leader, parachutist, and shipboard counterterrorism instructor and co-author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Pirates.
Mossad are famous for using .22s.
Cho would have been deadly with the .22. Psychotics would be more deadly with a .22 than so-called normal people.
A .22 wound can be very problematic. The bullet tends to bounce around...off organs, bones and other tissue.
Do you know how many were in his class?
Now THAT's gun control.
Same thoughts I had after the DC Snipers were finally caught.
I'm still betting the jihadis have logged this in their journal of terrorism and are preparing something where multiple schools are hit at once.
Cho did not have automatic weapons. He had two semi-automatic pistols.
I’ve tested all sorts of rounds and calibers and if you are the type, and know where to aim, a .22 is an excellent shooter and carry gun.
Less recoil lets you place the rounds closer together and the lightweight gun makes it easier to aim.
The .22 is slow enough to do much more damage than the faster .25s and .32s, almost the same way that a 9 is too fast to do much damage (to what you’re aiming at, anyway).
I want people to carry guns. That's why I rarely recommend large calibers. The worst thing for someone to buy a 1911-A in the summer for their first gun and find out they can't carry it. It's too heavy to carry that long and it unbalances you. It's good for home defense, but now that they're broke from buying the big name gun, they have to scrape it up and look for a more practical one.
< / rant > Didn't meant to.
That was my point........
Molon Labe
Received and blown up.
Alrighty then..............
Okay, I'll buy that. So...enlighten us. How did they fight back and how did you find out? Or is this campus...urban legend?
Q horse?
“Maybe because he had automatic weapons”
Really? Maybe you should tell the campus police about this startling new bit of evidence.
No. I assume the info is available online.
Believe what you want to believe.
Then on this thread I've learned that three died in Professor Librescu's class. That makes eighteen. I haven't heard much about the first classroom he entered but there must have been many there and understandably since they were probably totally off guard. But if there weren't 12 dead in that class,then others must have tried unsuccessfully to disarm him in the hallway.
Just yesterday they said the entire massacre took place in just 9 minutes. When you think that several students saw him peek into their room and he went back to one room at least,twice, one should be able to understand why so few were able to take any action.
I find myself appalled at the number of Freepers who are commenting with vitriolic negativity about any of the persons who were targeted,whether they were killed,injured or escaped physically unscathed. The ease with which people are rendering opinions without any knowledge of the facts does not auger well for this country since I have heard and actually thought that people on this board were blessed with at least average intelligence. If the threads on this subject are reflective the state of mind of most average or above average Americans,we need to worry a lot and pray without ceasing.
‘soft targets’ sure are affective, and there’s nothing softer than schools. Although, nuclear attacks on cities is more effective, which they are certainly working towards as well.
Small town Oklahoma, this weekend....drunk walks into a dance in the old gymnasium, with gun and starts pointing and threatening to shoot...he was rushed and taken down....only wound was on the local deputy that was treated for injury to the webbing on his hand where the hammer(revolver) came down...unsorting the 6 man pile took a few minutes.....true story and no mention of it anywhere...just "local business"...
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