what would you do if you were in the columbine library

suppose you are a student at columbine high and you are at the library on 4/20/99 and Eric and Dylan walk in

what do you do? would you try to stop them or talk them out of it?

Try to get everyone running for their lives. Pick up a chair and chuck it at them. Wait for Eric to put Arlene near me and pull it away from him maybe?

Knowing what we do now, I'd make a dash to one of the back rooms.

If that wasn't possible, I'd have no choice than to hide under a table and in absolute fear, pray to God that I wasn't going to be killed.

Twice i have thrown chairs across rooms (or thretend to), so i would have thrown chairs at The Shooters.

Depends are we speaking from knowing about after it happens or before. It's easy to say after, before you'd probably do the same as everyone else who was unaware and not prepare for what was gonna happen.

If we're talking after knowing what happened and if I could go back. I would go out into the parking lot, first i would study the spinal cord. Then I would find them in the parking lot and shot them right in the spine where they're paralyzed from the waist down and have little movement in their arms. So they're still alive but can't move. Their plan would be discovered and they'd have to speak about it and yeah.

rebels99 wrote:

suppose you are a student at columbine high and you are at the library on 4/20/99 and Eric and Dylan walk in

what do you do? would you try to stop them or talk them out of it?

I don't think they could be talked out of it, by the time they got to the library. I'd probably be already friends with them though from before, so I'd hug them goodbye sadly and then run the hell out of there....That would probably be the best I could do.

Run, when they started shooting with police. It's not so easy to shoot moving objects)

Block all entrances with sofas. Ayy

It depends on SO many factors... We really never know how we will react in any situation.

I can only hope I'd have John Savage's calmness or at least scream at those 2 idiots like Val did.

It also depends on where I was sitting and if I knew them.

Someone should do a thread on the idea of what would have happened had D&E's original plan had worked. Which was to blow up the cafeteria and drop the library down into it.

Also another thing to point out is that they had armed police security in the school. Who normally ate lunch with the students but that particular decided to eat out in his car. Had he been in the cafeteria I wonder what benefits that would have given. Consider he could identify the sounds of gunfire.

Would i have tried to stop Eric and Dylan? Probably not. I would probably be too horrified to even move a muscle. I imagine that there were people in the library who thought about stopping Eric and Dylan, but never did

What if anything I would/could have done would have all depended on if I knew E&D beforehand and how well.

If I didn't know them then I think I'd have tried my best to have gotten out, or tried to find a better hiding place then under the tables. But in all honesty who knows what you would do in that kind of situation.

If I had known either one or both well, were close friends with them, etc. then I may have possibly tried to talk them down. BUT that would have been ONLY if I knew them enough to where I thought my words would have had an impact and not just drawing attention to myself making me a target. 

Although the simple fact Eric paused long enough to ask who was under the table when he came to where John was hiding has always been strange to me. So he had to have thought he recognized John, or at least had the mind to think he might know the person. In my opinion a mere acquaintance, someone who they only knew in passing, or not very well would have had little effect or importance to them in that moment. I consider John Savage to be one very lucky man. As ScreamingO said maybe it was that he was semi calm and not crying, or screaming that made Eric and then Dylan pause long enough to remember that John had been nice to them. Otherwise Eric likely would have just shot and continued on. 

In my honest opinion John was let go because they simply didn't want to kill him, while Evan was probably let go to live with the knowledge that Dylan had let him live. If that makes sense. 

ShadowedGoddess wrote:

What if anything I would/could have done would have all depended on if I knew E&D beforehand and how well.

If I didn't know them then I think I'd have tried my best to have gotten out, or tried to find a better hiding place then under the tables. But in all honesty who knows what you would do in that kind of situation.

If I had known either one or both well, were close friends with them, etc. then I may have possibly tried to talk them down. BUT that would have been ONLY if I knew them enough to where I thought my words would have had an impact and not just drawing attention to myself making me a target. 

Although the simple fact Eric paused long enough to ask who was under the table when he came to where John was hiding has always been strange to me. So he had to have thought he recognized John, or at least had the mind to think he might know the person. In my opinion a mere acquaintance, someone who they only knew in passing, or not very well would have had little effect or importance to them in that moment. I consider John Savage to be one very lucky man. As ScreamingO said maybe it was that he was semi calm and not crying, or screaming that made Eric and then Dylan pause long enough to remember that John had been nice to them. Otherwise Eric likely would have just shot and continued on. 

In my honest opinion John was let go because they simply didn't want to kill him, while Evan was probably let go to live with the knowledge that Dylan had let him live. If that makes sense. 

I agree and that's why I get irritated when I hear old interviews with Evan Todd because he STILL had cruel things to say... like he didn't learn anything. Even Patrick Ireland forgave them and didn't carry hate. Then again another part of me can't blame him for being pissed off.

I waiver on Val sometimes, Val yelled and screamed and Dylan and Eric didn't kill her. I don't know if it is because Dylan knew her, or they were coming down from their "high" or they were realizing it wasn't a game and wasn't "fun" they were actually hurting and killing people.

I think if you engaged with Eric or Dylan that day and were kind to them at some point they didn't kill them. Which does make me wonder about Rachel, because supposedly she was at least cordial to Dylan. My thing too is, it was supposed to be a bombing then a shooting from the park/parking lot, which kind of blend in together. It wasn't supposed to be personal. They weren't supposed to be interacting with those that they killed.

Val knew Dylan and I assume, knowing me and how I was in HS I would have known Dylan. I probably would have known Devon, Rachel, Zach and Brooks through theatre and I'd hope old SO would be kind to Dylan and be a friend to him, I know myself enough to know I'd probably like both Eric and Dylan if I was in class with them.

We don't know how we'd react to this sort of thing. I've had friends swear up and down if they were mugged they'd fight back and yell but when it did happen they just stood silently.

Quote :

I waiver on Val sometimes, Val yelled and screamed and Dylan and Eric didn't kill her. I don't know if it is because Dylan knew her,

E&D did continue to fire at table 2 after Val's interaction with them though, killing Kelly Fleming and injuring Jeanna Park.

Having been in a life or death situation (house fire) I unfortunately know what I would do - I would've been a sheep and done exactly what everyone else did and duck under the table. The majority of people are lemmings and you feel there is safety in numbers so you all follow suit. As much as I would have liked to have said that I would have hurled abuse or wrestled them to the floor, I know I wouldn't.

Everyone has a plan until they're punched in the mouth. Or a watching your friend get their face shot off. You can't expect 14-17 year olds to understand what to do. They didn't have time to act and closing the doors to the library wouldn't make a difference. Probably just make them angrier. And would have lost time for the teacher to call the police.

KreSade wrote:

Everyone has a plan until they're punched in the mouth. Or a watching your friend get their face shot off. You can't expect 14-17 year olds to understand what to do. They didn't have time to act and closing the doors to the library wouldn't make a difference. Probably just make them angrier. And would have lost time for the teacher to call the police.

True. No one really knows how they would react if in a similar situation.

Everyone thinks they'd play hero...oy...

Yumeko-chan wrote:

Everyone thinks they'd play hero...oy...

I know for a fact I would clam up and do nothing. I'd be truly shocked if I could even get up to leave after the shooter was gone without help.

I always try to insert myself into these horrible situations.  I try to think on how I would react and what I would do if I were to be caught in an "active shooter" situation.  Columbine is one I always tend to think about since it's an event that I have always been invested in.  I feel that no matter what would occur, I would try to escape.  There was an exit door that students could have accessed during the shooting.  I know no matter what I wouldn't resort to hiding underneath a desk, I would high tail it out of there like there was no tomorrow

I listen to Yumeko since she was actually there.

I think it depends on many factors but there were mostly kids and 4 scared adults and kids were being killed brutally...

Honestly it depends on my mood. I'd either hide under tables/play dead or my more impulsive side would take over and I'd do something really odd. My parents told me as a child that to get others to stop screwing with you, you have to make them thing you're a nutjob and use shock as a tactic against them. I have to wonder what would happen if someone just randomly flashed the guys, or did something totally off beat, might have stunned them for enough time to bash them in the head with something?

I don't know jump out of the window, it's not that high like 20+ ft from the ground? But it would make me look silly at the time and my friends would probably talk me out of it, but when they are talking me out of it they are already inside the library because it was only 4 minutes since Patty Nielsen was storming in the library and yelling to kids to hide under the tables...

I would be confident that I can make that high of a jump because I had situations before where I needed to jump from the second-floor apartments which were around 20 ft high and I was landing on a concrete ground.

But realistically I would hide under the table and pray that I will not be the one who gets shot and try to take advantage when they are distracted (when they are having a shootout with cops) or are in the other side of the Library to take my chance and sneak my way out of the library, because when I would hear when Eric says ''You all are gonna die anyway.'' and would hear the gunshots and the people groaning near to me I would think that there is zero chance to stay alive, because if I'm staying hiding under the table I would get shot and I would die.

But one thing I'm sure I would be scared because I would need to know when to run because the alarms would be so loud and I could not hear the footsteps from them, but the gunshots I would hear at least, so I would need to be lucky too.

You, I or pretty much anyone else are most likely not going to do anything, especially if we would be in the age of the kids who were caught in the library and with similar knowledge they had. I feel like most people when presented with immediate danger they do not expect will freeze if not trained otherwise that's the first thing to realize.

Moreover, you have to realize how it went down, you are sitting in the library going on about your business, teacher runs in tells you to hide beneath the desks. She is a person of authority, especially at that age you are extremely likely to obey and do as you are told especially when you can obviously see she is distressed and she is not messing around. You probably won't run away from the library because you do not even know what is going on at this point and lets be frank even if you did, Dylan and Eric entered library shortly after Patti did so you would likely run into them on your way out or they would see you in the hall when they entered the school form the side doors that are relatively close to library.

So if you have not left you are likely to find yourself under the desk waiting and trying to comprehend what is going on, at this point you are probably not aware of the seriousness of the whole situation, that is until the shooting starts and people start dying. Now depending on where you are hiding you might not even see the people causing the carnage you just hear people scream, shots fired and the shooters cheering. If you do not know where they are because you can not see them then I feel you are even more likely to stay hidden since you do not want to risk being seen. Also you have to realize the kids there and neither you in this scenario would know motive of the shooters, if you do not see them outright kill somebody you might think this is a hostage situation just like police did and in that case trying to run or disarm the shooters would be dumb and risky thing to do. Correct me if I'm wrong but back in 90's school shootings were still relatively rare especially on the scale of Columbine. Nowadays if you see someone shooting up in the school it is safe to assume he wants to kill people not hold them hostage or anything so you might be more compelled to fight for your life, if this is not obvious to you and you think you might get away with simply not provoking the shooters you are likely to simply stay hidden and quiet. And that's probably what most people would do just stay hidden quiet until the gun is pointed at them, than you may start to bargain and beg or fight back but until then, I think it is unlikely. And even if we look at columbine that is exactly what happened, the only one who tried to "jump" them was supposedly Daniel Mauser if I recall correctly who tried to charge Eric from beneath a table. That is one person out of all who were there who tried something.

Pho3nix wrote:

I have to wonder what would happen if someone just randomly flashed the guys, or did something totally off beat, might have stunned them for enough time to bash them in the head with something?

That caught me off guard and I almost got strangled on my tea!

Also I'm pretty sure that the VERY last thing on my mind in that type of situation would be to flash my boobs.

ShadowedGoddess wrote:

Pho3nix wrote:

I have to wonder what would happen if someone just randomly flashed the guys, or did something totally off beat, might have stunned them for enough time to bash them in the head with something?

That caught me off guard and I almost got strangled on my tea!

Also I'm pretty sure that the VERY last thing on my mind in that type of situation would be to flash my boobs.

Hahah, see! It works!

In all honestly I'd probably freeze, but that tiny piece of me who is impulsive would try to shake them a little.

Pho3nix wrote:

ShadowedGoddess wrote:

Pho3nix wrote:

I have to wonder what would happen if someone just randomly flashed the guys, or did something totally off beat, might have stunned them for enough time to bash them in the head with something?

That caught me off guard and I almost got strangled on my tea!

Also I'm pretty sure that the VERY last thing on my mind in that type of situation would be to flash my boobs.

Hahah, see! It works!

In all honestly I'd probably freeze, but that tiny piece of me who is impulsive would try to shake them a little.

Your boobs OR the shooter?

ShadowedGoddess wrote:

Pho3nix wrote:

ShadowedGoddess wrote:

Pho3nix wrote:

I have to wonder what would happen if someone just randomly flashed the guys, or did something totally off beat, might have stunned them for enough time to bash them in the head with something?

That caught me off guard and I almost got strangled on my tea!

Also I'm pretty sure that the VERY last thing on my mind in that type of situation would be to flash my boobs.

Hahah, see! It works!

In all honestly I'd probably freeze, but that tiny piece of me who is impulsive would try to shake them a little.

Your boobs OR the shooter?

If there was just one shooter I might consider jumping them when reloading with the help of another person, but with two Shooters it is a different situation.

Try to reason with them to see if there was any humanity left in them.

Oh boy, THIS thread got revived

*Flirt

Oh man... I would be scared as hell. But I used to be as nerdy and awkward as they were back then in Highschool. I would probably let them see me so they can recognize me and maybe shout me to fuck off as they did with Savage. Or maybe I'll end up shot down the moment I get outside of the tables