Radio Host Blames Tech Victims For Not Fighting Back

[Hooper]

This is unbelievable. Like this guy wouldn't have crapped his pants.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200704180007

In the April 18 edition of his daily program notes, called Nealz Nuze and posted on his website, nationally syndicated radio host Neal Boortz asked: "How far have we advanced in the wussification of America?" Boortz was responding to criticism of comments he made on the April 17 broadcast of his radio show regarding the mass shooting at Virginia Tech. During that broadcast, Boortz asked: "How the hell do 25 students allow themselves to be lined up against the wall in a classroom and picked off one by one? How does that happen, when they could have rushed the gunman, the shooter, and most of them would have survived?" In his April 18 program notes, Boortz added: "It seems that standing in terror waiting for your turn to be executed was the right thing to do, and any questions as to why 25 students didn't try to rush and overpower Cho Seung-Hui are just examples of right wing maniacal bias. Surrender -- comply -- adjust. The doctrine of the left. ... Even the suggestion that young adults should actually engage in an act of self defense brings howls of protest."

[SkinsOrlando]

I find his point to have some merit, for those who we are told were "lined" up to be executed why didn't they fight back? Fear, maybe, mostly female, maybe. I dunno but I think it's a valid question to ask.

[Sarge]

I haven't read where students were lined up and shot one by one. If that is true, then he's right. How do you just stand there waiting your turn to be shot?

Sure everyone would be crapping their pants but you know what? At least some of you would be alive to clean them out

Now if this psycho just popped in a started shooting at a bunch of kids sitting at their desks, there's not a whole lot even Jack Bauer could have done in that situation

[JaimeDeCurry]

This has been coming up every once in a while on the news. The one that got me the most was the kid from Radford during the VERY FIRST PRESS CONFERENCE!

He asked a question like "Was there any sign of the students fighting back?" and when the police chief looked at him like 'are you a ****ing moron?' he gets all self-righteous, saying stuff like "I know if it was me, I would have at least gone down fighting, so was there any signs that the students fought back?"

**** all these ignorant morons who think it's just the easiest thing in the world to rush a man with a gun right after you see in horrible detail what that same gun did to the kid next to you.

I'm seriously losing my faith in humanity.

[Sarge]

**** all these ignorant morons who think it's just the easiest thing in the world to rush a man with a gun right after you see in horrible detail what that same gun did to the kid next to you.

I'm seriously losing my faith in humanity.

No one wold have said it would have been easy.

But you would have let yourself be lined up and shot?

If so, maybe your attitude is part of the problem that people are starting to talk about

[JaimeDeCurry]

No one wold have said it would have been easy.

But you would have let yourself be lined up and shot?

If so, maybe your attitude is part of the problem that people are starting to talk about

I haven't heard anything, anywhere, that said he lined people up and shot them. Everything I've heard has him busting into rooms, and shooting the students at close range. Nearly everyone they pulled out of those rooms had 2-3 gunshot wounds each, all over their bodies. That doesn't sound like an execution-style killing to me.

[monkforhall]

I've never been close to a situation like that, I could be just paralyzed in fear. But it seems like, doing something, instead of hoping not to be shot, would be less frightening. I think the shooter did get lucky in the class that he picked. I think there were probably a few people in that school, that really would have fought back. How about that plane the terrorists took over on Sept 11th. The guy picked the wrong plane, and some passengers took the terrorist out. I'm not blaming the kids at all, i probably wouldn't have been the guy to fight either. Who knows how anyone would react.

[Tarhog]

I agree in principle that, anytime something like this happens, the outcome would almost always be better if the victims fought back. However, this ignores the reality that when you are in the middle of this kind of surreal event, its so shocking, you can literally be frozen and find it very difficult to react. Its been proven over and over, with abductions, that the smartest thing you can do is to immediately, violently, and loudly resist - and yet almost no one does. Why? Because your mindset is 'I am alive and okay right this minute, but any action I may take puts me in jeopardy'. While its true, its a self-deception. Doing anything is almost always better than doing nothing. But when you're in that moment, its very difficult to leap off that cliff and act.

Its like being in combat. You are under fire. You know rationally that if you stay where you are, you are likely going to die. But movement puts you at even greater risk. So the decision to move forward and assault is not a natural or easy one.

Its easy to say, in the calm of your living room or office, that these folks should have immediately attacked this guy. And of course, they should have. But to be there, amidst the chaos, danger, and insanity of that moment, it truly would take an extraordinary person to muster up the will to do it.

[DjTj]

I haven't read where students were lined up and shot one by one. If that is true, then he's right. How do you just stand there waiting your turn to be shot?

Sure everyone would be crapping their pants but you know what? At least some of you would be alive to clean them out

Now if this psycho just popped in a started shooting at a bunch of kids sitting at their desks, there's not a whole lot even Jack Bauer could have done in that situation

I think early reports were that people couldn't believe that one person could have killed so many people without lining them up and killing them execution style, but the more recent reports from eyewitnesses say that he walked into classrooms, sprayed them with bullets, and then left to reload ... there was no lining up to be shot, and not a lot of time to react - maybe a minute or two in each classroom.

The students that did have time to react when they saw him coming in the hallway appeared to have fought back by barricading their doors and holding them shut even when bullets came through the doors.

Today's Post article is a pretty detailed recounting of the events: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/18/AR2007041802824.html?hpid=topnews

[JaimeDeCurry]

And of course, there were instances of people doing something. The girl who dove into a classroom and told them to get a table against the door. The professor who held off the gunman while his students fled. The cadet from my sister Corps who, instead of hiding behind a podium, decided to do something to protect his classmates. The people who spout off "how could you just let that happen without doing something?" may be the first ones to freeze up and piss themselves in a situation like that. You can talk tough all you want, but nobody knows how you'll actually react until it happens.

[Predicto]

No one wold have said it would have been easy.

But you would have let yourself be lined up and shot?

If so, maybe your attitude is part of the problem that people are starting to talk about

Yeah, I'm sure Jaime the Citadel Cadet is a pacifist-attitude kind of guy.

You are just taking random potshots at everyone today, aren't you Sarge?

[Sarge]

I think early reports were that people couldn't believe that one person could have killed so many people without lining them up and killing them execution style, but the more recent reports from eyewitnesses say that he walked into classrooms, sprayed them with bullets, and then left to reload ... there was no lining up to be shot, and not a lot of time to react - maybe a minute or two in each classroom.

The students that did have time to react when they saw him coming in the hallway appeared to have fought back by barricading their doors and holding them shut even when bullets came through the doors.

Today's Post article is a pretty detailed recounting of the events: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/18/AR2007041802824.html?hpid=topnews

Like I said, if he didn't line anyone up, then there was really nothing anyone could do. Shutting the doors would be about it.

I guess it'll all come out in the near future. But I don't think you can blame the kids in that situation. Afterall, that's what they are..............kids

[Kurd Cudins]

I guess that's the kind of rage that builds up in a person after being picked on his whole life for being named Neal Boortz. Boortz has warts.

[909997]

i agree how do u let a small asian man reload his gun and shoot you.

[Mooka]

Like I said, if he didn't line anyone up, then there was really nothing anyone could do. Shutting the doors would be about it.

People were jumping out of windows, that doesn't sound like an execution style situation. Who knows though.

[monkforhall]

I bet if he had walked in on a classroom with a majority of those Hokie football players he would have gotten his little demented ass kicked. How SWEET would that have been.

[DjTj]

i agree how do u let a small asian man reload his gun and shoot you.

Well it's hard to tell his size from the pictures, but witnesses described him as a 6-foot tall Asian male, he had two guns, and people didn't have much time to react.

Here's an excerpt from the Post article:

In Jamie Bishop's German class, they could hear the popping sounds. What was that? Some kind of joke? Construction noises? More pops. Someone suggested that Bishop should place something in front of the classroom door, just in case. The words were no sooner uttered than the door opened and a shooter stepped in. He was holding guns in both hands. Bishop was hit first, a bullet slicing into the side of his head. All the students saw it, an unbelievable horror. The gunman had a serious but calm look on his face. Almost no expression. He stood in the front and kept firing, barely moving. People scrambled out of the line of fire. Trey Perkins knocked over a couple of desks and tried to take cover. No way I can survive this, he thought. His mind raced to his mother and what she would go through when she heard he was dead. Shouts, cries, sobs, more shots, maybe 30 in all. Someone threw up. There was blood everywhere. It took about a minute and a half, and then the gunman left the room.

Perkins and two classmates, Derek O'Dell and Katelyn Carney, ran up to the door and put their feet against it to make sure he could not get back in. They would have used a heavy table, but there were none, and the desks weren't strong enough.

Soon the gunman tried to get back in. The three students pressed against the door with their arms and legs, straining with their lives at stake. Unable to budge the door, the gunman shot through it four times. Splinters flew from the thick wood. The gunman turned away, again. There were more pops, but each one a bit farther away as he moved down the hall. The scene in the classroom "was brutal," Perkins recalled. Most of the students were dead. He saw a few who were bleeding but conscious and tried to save them. He took off his gray hoodie sweat shirt and wrapped it around a male student's leg.

What would you have done?

[Bang]

I think it's easy to sit back and pretend to know what a bunch of students in class should do in a situation like this.

And I think it's even easier to pretend that you would do something different in the same situation.

~Bang

[JaimeDeCurry]

i agree how do u let a small asian man reload his gun and shoot you.

Well first, you have to wipe the blood and bits of brain and bone off your face. Then you'd probably have to push aside what 6 seconds before was your German202 study partner. Then you have to get to him before he either A) draws his second weapon, or drops the clip and slams another one home. I'm on the tactical shooting team at El Cid. People can do that and put a hole in you before you realized they're out of ammo.

Other than all that, though...yeah it's pretty simple.

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

i agree how do u let a small asian man reload his gun and shoot you.

The Post article made it pretty clear how it happened. He entered a classroom, unleashed holy hell for 30 seconds, and would leave. One prof did rush him and was killed. One tried to hold the door closed and was killed. One student did manage to hold a door closed with table.

The Derbyshires of the world are idiots. It is no one's instinct to rush across a room and accost a gunman. Maybe Sarge can explain this better, but it is my understanding that the military actually has to work to install the instinct of "charge" into soldiers, because our natural instinct is to flee from danger.

The Flight 93 guys had minutes to discuss the situation and map out a plan.

[monkforhall]

I think it's easy to sit back and pretend to know what a bunch of students in class should do in a situation like this.

And I think it's even easier to pretend that you would do something different in the same situation.

~Bang

That's true, and whats worse is, I bet the kids who were in the class that survived are going through all the scenario's of what they could have, should have done. That would be the worst part for me. I think I would have done something. But the realistically,, most likely done the exact same thing. Gun shots are pretty loud and intimidating.

[909997]

Well it's hard to tell his size from the pictures, but witnesses described him as a 6-foot tall Asian male, he had two guns, and people didn't have much time to react.

Here's an excerpt from the Post article: What would you have done?

ok answer this question

if this guy was pulling something like this in a 3rd world country u think people would just stand around doing nothing?

i dont blame the students its just how the environment in usa is everyone here is supersoft.

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

I bet if he had walked in on a classroom with a majority of those Hokie football players he would have gotten his little demented ass kicked. How SWEET would that have been.

No, they would have been dead too. It seems he was in a room for thirty seconds to a minute and by the end of the minute, most of the people in the room were dead. We are talking instinctive reactions here, and it is no one's instinct to run towards a gun.

[Tarhog]

The Post article made it pretty clear how it happened. He entered a classroom' date=' unleashed holy hell for 30 seconds, and would leave. One prof did rush him and was killed. One tried to hold the door closed and was killed. One student did manage to hold a door closed with table.

The Derbyshires of the world are idiots. It is no one's instinct to rush across a room and accost a gunman. Maybe Sarge can explain this better, but it is my understanding that the military actually has to work to install the instinct of "charge" into soldiers, because our natural instinct is to flee from danger.

The Flight 93 guys had minutes to discuss the situation and map out a plan.[/quote']

Yep. And its one thing to attack when you're armed. Rushing someone with 2 firearms blazing while you're utterly defenseless is near suicide. And you're asking people to make that decision while they're still 'okay', under enormous pressure, and in a split-second.

One thing I'd hope we'd all agree on - anyone putting the blame on anyone other than squarely on the deranged psycho-boy is an ***hole.

[monkforhall]

ok answer this question

if this guy was pulling something like this in a 3rd world country u think people would just stand around doing nothing?

i dont blame the students its just how the environment in usa is everyone here is supersoft.

No, everyone in the class would have pulled out there own guns.