The killer of 32 people at Virginia Tech used a .22 caliber and a 9mm pistol.
Why wasn’t this guy rushed by anyone? He’s calmly picking people off. Bloodshed all around. Imagine you’re there, trapped in that classroom. You know you’re as good as dead if you just sit immobile like a juicy target, so you may as well lunge for him and drive your thumbs in his eyes. You might still die, but you’ve improved your odds dramatically, especially if you go at him during a reload. He’ll maybe get off one or two shots at you but handguns are notoriously inaccurate, especially when a person is running into your face disturbing your zen-like aiming. You’d stand a good chance of him missing or you incurring a non-fatal flesh wound.
So a rude thought intrudes. Engineering campus. Nerds. A taxonomy of guys who’ve probably run from fights their whole lives. Total inexperience with summoning the warrior animal spirits.
There are times of crisis when brainy deliberation or pavlovian avoidance response will do a man no good.
Maybe the bullets were flying so fast, the killer so accurate (from marathon sessions of video gaming I bet), the timeframe so compressed, that in the chaos no one had an opportunity to do anything. Well, except for this guy.
But if that’s not the case, then I’ll be uncharitable and ask…
did nerdiness cost lives?
[crypto-donation-box]
