Do you seriously think that no one contemplated or tried it? The appropriate response to an armed gunman when you’re unarmed is highly dependent on the situation and I trust the judgement of the people in the situation unreservedly to decide on the most pragmatic course of action. I also respect that rational, calm, deliberative logic may go straight out the window when you’re surging with adrenaline, and given the venue, quite possibly impaired by alcohol.
I, like a lot of people who have worked at larger institutions, have received the usual now routine training on what to do in an active shooter situation. Fighting back is usually emphasized as a last resort because running out of sight of a gunman and locking doors is almost always less risky. If in the abstract we were discussing how to avoid dying in these often avoidable incidents it would be one thing to discuss this option. But bringing it up in the wake of tragedy like this, and applying an impossible standard to the victim, that should set off your conscience so hard that your visceral reaction is to shut the fuck up.
Geraldo probably isn’t the best person to give advice on what to do in a firefight:
That wasn’t the first time Rivera caused a commotion on the battlefield — in Afghanistan in 2001, he described on air an incident of friendly fire, claiming he had been on the scene. Rivera said he walked over “what I consider hallowed ground today” and had said the Lord’s Prayer on the land where three Americans soldiers had died the previous day. But the Baltimore Sun later reported that Rivera was actually 300 miles from the site he described. Rivera blamed his mistake on the “fog of war” and said he had confused the event near Kandahar with one where he actually was in Tora Bora — but the Tora Bora incident occurred three days after Rivera’s report.
I’m having a hard time digging up the video demonstrating 5.56 nato vs. various historical options using pig bones and ballistic gelatin; but “offer improved rate of fire and increased ammunition carrying capacity vs. heavier catridges while preserving stopping power at expected engagement ranges even with Geneva-convention-compliant ammunition via high muzzle velocities and unstable terminal ballistics” pretty much sums it up.
I’d bet substantial money that, even with the (more or less unavoidable) combination of advance warning and lack of mortal terror implied by training gear; Geraldo wouldn’t have anything useful if we strapped him into [MILES] (Multiple integrated laser engagement system - Wikipedia) gear and allowed him to demonstrate what his knowledge that ‘we are at war with Islamic terrorism’ could bring to the situation. He makes it sound like there was some sort of “Gosh, fighting back wouldn’t be politically correct because we definitely aren’t at war with anyone!” resolution was in force, rather than the whole ‘surprised and unarmed targets fare poorly against weapons specifically designed for high practical rates of fire in close to medium range engagements’ problem. Armchair chickenhawk.
It’s nice to hear from someone who has been in a similar situation and can share with us how he responded to a mass murderer firing a weapon at him. Tell, me, were you scared at all, or were as tough in real life as you are on the Internet?
Sigh. Geraldo seems like little more than a vacuous makeup puppet, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was trying to convey a misguided “you don’t have to be afraid” sentiment rather than “man up, pussies”. Whatever.
But if he’d mansplained this to me personally, I would say this: if I suspect another man has a bigger dick than me, rather than wanting to fight him, my reaction is to like him more. That is kind of the essence of what makes me glad to be a faggot (I’m expressing this in a saucy way for fun, but I actually mean it). It means I don’t go round expecting a fight, and I certainly wouldn’t carry a fucking gun ready to shoot people on a night out. (FYI, despite being a British gay man, I can use a gun pretty well; my school had a cache of SA80 assault rifles, no time to explain).
I wonder if it has occurred to you (I might ask) that for some of us, failing to view the world as a Chuck Norris movie is not a weakness but a valued part of who we are. If someone murders me, yes, I will be pissed off– but not because I didn’t murder them first. Christ.
So, let me get this straight… Tackle them during reloads… So more rounds in a clip means less reloads and thus, less opportunities to “fight back”? Is Geraldo making an argument for only allowing 10 round mags? Can’t believe I’m hearing a gun control argument on Fox.
