‘The idea that somebody could stop a school shooting with a gun is impossible’
March 30th, 2009
John Woods 'learned pretty fast' that playing dead is the only possible defense.
So says one of the Mindless:
In April 2007, he was a student at Virginia Tech when his girlfriend and several other people he knew there were gunned down in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. Thirty-two people died, plus the gunman.
There were times when Woods thought that maybe he should get a gun.
“Then I learned pretty fast that wouldn’t solve anything,” said Woods, who is now a graduate student at UT. “The idea that somebody could stop a school shooting with a gun is impossible. It’s reactive, not preventative.”
As Rand Simberg says: Huh?
Scenario:
- Idiot with gun starts shooting students
- Teacher or student with gun shoots idiot
Call Murdoc a simpleton, but I think that my little hypothetical scenario “solved” something. Maybe Murdoc needs to “learn pretty fast” or something.
I’m all for “preventative” measures. But when (not if) they fail, you had better have a reaction ready. This mindless never explains how he learned or figured out anything. Just that he did. And he’s leading the fight against campus carry in Texas. While wearing a “Virginia Tech Class of 2007 t-shirt.”
He says that things “happen too quickly” and that “You either play dead or you are dead.”
What are they teaching kids these days?
Tags: TX
March 30th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
I wonder how he feels about “playing dead or being dead” in other aspects of real life outside of the university protective shell. Oh, wait, he’s never been outside the safety of the university umbrella, you know, like working for a living… With an attitude like that he might as well get his cardboard begging for change sign and pick out a street corner because he won’t make it in a corporate world.
March 30th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
I don’t think he’s packin’ the gear to hack it in my Corps.
March 30th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
“play dead or you are dead”? What a depressing outlook on life. Basically he’s saying don’t fight for anything, you’ll just lose. Sounds like someone needs to help this kid cope with his tragedy.
March 30th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
What a douchebag. “play dead”? Not on your life. For God’s sake, if 10 people in one classroom had rushed that asshole, they could’ve stopped the shooting. Only one Man had the balls to stand up to the guy, and that was an old jewish professor. If he’d have had some back up other than chicken-shits like this kid in his class room a lot fewer people would’ve died.
March 30th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Maybe I shouldn’t admit to this but I used to carry on my campus during my senior year. I commuted so I didn’t live on campus and I had a perfectly legal concealed weapons permit but the university’s policy strictly prohibited firearms anywhere near the campus. Even the campus security only had tasers. The parking situation was horrible so most days I’d be forced to park far away from campus and hoof it. Most days I was out of class by 4pm and this was fine but certain nights of the week I wouldn’t get out of class until 9pm and there was no way I was walking to my car unarmed and I’ll be damned if I’m calling campus security to walk or drive me to my car so I carried on those days.
My theory was it was a “concealed” weapons permit for a reason, if you knew I had it I wasn’t concealing it properly. Only a few of my classmates ever found out and that was always after the fact. “Remember that time we were in such and such’s class? Yeah well I was packing.”
March 30th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
I think this kid is probably being honest at least in regards to his own abilities. Gun or no gun, he is probably completely incapable of doing anything to stop an attack. His error is in assuming everyone else is equally frozen with feelings of inadequacy.
March 30th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
asfried1 – Exactly! He’s the cheesedick you never wanted to share a fighting hole with because you knew he wouldn’t have your back.
March 30th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
Virginia Tech – The Real Tragedy
I wrote this not long after the VT tragedy, and it is still true today…
March 30th, 2009 at 10:45 pm
I really do feel sorry for this young man. He needs some help, not criticism. I can only imagine the terrible impact of the shooting on campus, and the loss of his girl friend, must have had on him. Maybe with the right help and encouragement he will again gain some self respect, and the courage to be a man. Until then may God have mercy on anyone that may need his help in a fight for their lives.
March 30th, 2009 at 11:29 pm
Yeah Deepwoods, maybe he’ll grow a set too…
March 31st, 2009 at 7:47 am
Deepwoods – He needs the kind of help a Drill Instructor can provide. After 14 weeks or so, he would emerge a happier, more confident person.
March 31st, 2009 at 9:29 am
I linked this to my dad, and his response was a good one: the shooting in NC last weekend is the perfect counterpoint to this young man’s opinion. One man, 25 years old (in other words the same generation), took the gunman down while sustaining gunshot wounds to himself. He didn’t play dead, he fought back, without backup, and ended the rampage before it got worse. *THAT* is the guy we should be putting on a pedestal…
March 31st, 2009 at 11:25 am
Anybody remember Jeanne Assam? How many would’ve died if she had played dead instead?
March 31st, 2009 at 3:58 pm
I hope his girlfriend gave him a white feather before she dumped him.
April 1st, 2009 at 1:59 am
Some good, insightful replies here. I see his mental approach like this.
He sat there and peed himself, while doing what everyone is always taught to do by the system these days: nothing. Don’t resist the rapist, it’ll just make things worse. Just give the mugger your wallet and hopefully he won’t slice your face open, etc. And the end result was that dozens of other kids did the exact same thing. And over two dozen of them were murdered for it. In his heard, he has to know that that is not the way men are supposed to live, that we are meant to overcome fear and face danger when we have to. You are supposed to pee your pants, then suck it up and charge the cockpit, whether you go down into a smoking crater or not. Better to die trying than die a victim.
So to assuage his own deep down guilt and depression over the whole tragic mess, he is seeking to stop others from doing differently, maybe to validate himself, I don’t know. And the depressing fact is that further retreat into victim-hood will just propagate the next tragedy.
But at least none of the victims of that future mass murder will have an icky gun on them.
April 1st, 2009 at 3:18 am
Decades of leftist indoctrination, pacifist brainwashing and psychological castration have created people like John Woods.
“It’s reactive, not preventative.” Uh… and how does one prevent a crazy bugger from storming into a class with a gun? Hug him?
“Play dead” certainly helps if the shooter is a crazy nut like me, who’d go around putting headshots into the dead, just to make sure they are really dead.
That’s it. Next time I’m in Japan I’m going to pull a few strings so that the cave I’ve found some time ago is mine. Then I’m going to pull a Musashi and live in a cave for a few years.
April 1st, 2009 at 7:20 pm
Please tell me you simply posted your April fools day prank early, as a college student it deeply disturbs me that I could be spending class time with people so out of touch with the world and true common sense.