Reply #17: They did *not* fight back. [View All]

[Igel]

They took defensive measures. There's a huge difference between fighting back when you're punched and covering your face and cowering. They blocked doors and hid, letting the guy kill anybody in the hall or stairwell, or in any room he could get into. That does not make them a hero--except possibly in the case of an elderly man that managed to do a hopeless task before getting killed.

Many of the kids were courageous in their defenselessness. The NYT had an article about a kid that took three bullets (he was mostly under a desk) and managed to not let the killer know he was still alive--or at least the killer didn't try to finish him off. This takes courage, or paralysis that comes from fear. The story left me with the impression he was to be considered a hero simply for self-preservation, while kids around him were killed. It's good he lived; but there's little heroism involved.

Note that in at least one case somebody managed to hold the door closed. One kid described how the killer tried to force his way in, even getting the door part-way open before they got it closed, and the second time Cho couldn't even get it open a little. Gee.

Now, over 30 kids were killed. Nobody wanted to die; had three kids rushed him when the first one went down, maybe four kids would have died. If they rushed him when he had the ammo clip out, he'd have a semi-automatic .22, *but* it usually takes two hands to reload, so he'd have to drop the clip to use the .22. Now, you can kill with a .22, but it takes better aim.

But my third paragraph also says there was a way for nobody to die. When you're pushing with all your weight against a door and the door suddenly opens, you fall forward. If somebody has a weapon--a chair, even a French textbook--you hit him as he lurches past you. He will probably pull the trigger and fire wildly, maybe hitting someone. This takes no great courage, just the confidence that you can whack somebody that's off balance hard enough to make them fall and clobber them some more and wrest the gun away from them. Yes, you might get injured: but the alternative is that other students will certainly die. You make the decision; these kids made their decisions--self-defense is more important than altruism, true bravery is judged to consist in pretending you're dead while classmates next to you die or holding the door shut so he'll go kill somebody else. This is not laudable; I don't think they deserve condemnation, and the young men (and women) deserve scant praise--although I do think the culture that lets this pass unremarked is fit for condemnation.