A concealed firearm will usually be your best bet for surviving an encounter with a homicidal maniac. But we don’t always get dealt the best hand, or even a halfway decent one. In fact, sometimes we’ll be holding a bunch of cards that really suck. So what if the worst case scenario happens? What if between a murderous psychopath and his unwitting accomplices in the government and/or school administration, you find yourself sitting in class, unarmed, and being fired upon?
The first thing to do is drop to the ground. While desks and chairs will not stop a bullet, they will make it harder for the murderer to see you. Now you have several options: fight, flee, hide, or play dead. Hiding is probably the worst option, since the murderer already knows you’re somewhere in the room. Playing dead may work, but only if many of your classmates have already been killed (that way you can lie next to a dead classmate, maybe smear some blood on yourself, and then play dead). If you intend to flee, first sneak as close as possible to the nearest exist, staying out of the murderer’s line of sight. Make your final dash out the door when he is looking the other way, reloading, or clearing a jam. If you are fired upon, running in a zig-zag pattern makes you harder to hit. There won’t, however, be enough space to do this in most classrooms.
But before you decide on running, hiding, or playing dead, I would ask—no, beg—that you consider fighting back. Murder is tragic, but massacre is horrific. Death, after all, is part of life. But for a few to murder many with complete impunity; for the victims to not just die, but die without even trying to stop the ones who would victimize them… that is so twisted, so unnatural, so wrong that it makes me sick to my soul just to think about it.
Running away may in some circumstances be more conducive to your chances of survival. So what? You may live, but will you be able to live with yourself? Will you be able to look in the mirror again for the remainder of your life without remembering that you played dead while your friends were murdered around you? For your sake, I fervently hope that you will not.
So please, for the love of God, fight back! Of course, you may never need to. Indeed, I hope you will never need to. But if and when you need to fight back, you will not have time to ponder. Now is the time to decide. Promise yourself that if the unthinkable should happen, you will not passively watch as those around you are slaughtered. Promise yourself that you may be murdered, but you will never be massacred. Promise yourself that if you are ever faced with a homicidal maniac, you will end his rampage, even if it’s the last thing you ever do.
