A human response question

[dsaundry]

Ok, so my wife and I were having a discussion this morning about the horrific tragedy on the Greyhound bus the other day. There was a lot of discussion in online forums and local news about how passengers reacted. With all the people[37] on the bus nobody tried to disarm the attacker. There are a lot of people pointing fingers at them and I am curious, How does everybody else feel or think they would have reacted. It is always easy to point fingers but given the facts at hand,{ie: at night, people sleeping and dark}, did the passengers do the right thing or not{in your opinion}. I personally dont think there is a right or wrong answer as it really goes with your beliefs regarding how you feel you would or would not react.I am sure there will be a lot of bravado and lots saying they would have tried to disarm the attacker, but I want everybody to think about how you would react coming out of a sleep or whether you were awake, when you hear people screaming to get off the bus, about the human response to a situation that is putting people in harms way. Unless you are a police officer or have military training it might be very difficult for the average person to comprehend fully about what action to take. I hope I am not going against any Canreef policies with this thread...it is not intended to justify or condemn any action that was or was not taken.

[levi1803]

Personally I think they did the right thing by doing what they did, honestly how would they know this guy didn't have a gun or something as well. It's not like they even had much time to react, they weren't able to sit and think about the situation such as in the 911 flight where the passengers did fight back, they had time to think of what to do before doing it. Most of us have been on a greyhound before and honestly there is little to no room to even move around in those things, I think that alone would make it difficult to try and take down a crazy person with a knife added in the darkness and the fact that they really didn't even know exactly what was going on. It's really hard to say what a person would do in a situation like that, unless it actually happened to one of us, I honestly don't think any of us have a clue how we would handle it. just my two cents.

[Chin_Lee]

Numerous factors would dictate my actions in that situation. If I was with my family, my first priority would be their safety and getting them off that bus - even if it meant opening the window and lowering/throwing them off the bus. Which would then put me in the situation where if I was by myself. Then it really depends when I realize what is actually happening. IF I was sitting in the vicinity when Mr. Crazy started stabbing the poor victim, I would have intervened knowing that the victim would still have a good likelihood of surviving if my intervention stopped the continuation of bodily harm. However if I was a distance away from the incident and by the time I realized what was happening is beyond the point of no return, there is little sense or logic to try to disarm the suspect. At that point, you minimize the loss and isolate the danger (aka get the hell of that bus and keep the freak on the bus)
I feel so bad for the family of the victim - how do you ever prepare for something like this?

[mark]

Freak has a foot long knife, has basically already killed one guy on a dark bus, self preservation is nothing to be ashamed of.

[EmilyB]

Run.

[superduperwesman]

I think people are just wired differently. My mother runs TO danger. My father has said it numerous times... people scream or something seems suspect and my mother goes in for a closer look. "Look he has a gun" and my mother is trying to find out who.



In this instance I don't know if there was even time to stop and determine if the guy was too far gone or if stepping in would help... Some things you can't prepare for and when those things happen it's all about how your wired and instinct. There is no time to think, or break down the scenario and when it's something that serious I think most people instinctively kick into self preservation mode.Family can change your wiring like someone else also mentioned... when in prior instances people have actually ran now they frantically protect their child first.

And at the end of the day hypotheticals don't matter because they are exactly that... hypothetical. People can knock the ones on the bus all they want but they weren't there so really, they don't know and they never will until it happens to them.. and lets all hope it never ever does.

[woodcarver]

Without meaning to offend the previous posters and out of respect for the family ,who are now the true victims of this outrage ,I believe this thread should end and be removed by the moderators. At best it is speculation about the unknowable with no perceived benefit.
.................Dave

[superduperwesman]

Every question, every argument, every discussion in life either reinforces what you already know or makes you realize you were wrong. Either way you are better off. This is why I think no discussion should ever be feared.

As for the familys I'd assume they'd be happy to know that people are effected, and disgusted enough to talk about it. They day people don't talk about things like this, is the day they stop caring. That will be a sad day.

Should we also burn all the news papers?

[midgetwaiter]

The first rule of self defense is run if you can. It's even more true when you are caught unaware like that situation, nobody saw it coming.

I read a lot of the same things the OP did and it was pretty silly, trying to take a knife from somebody is hard to do. Trying to take him in a bus where there's no room to move and no advantage to be gained is insane. Those people are going to have to live with the results of their choice for the rest of their lives but they made the right one.

[bassman]

The people did what you know was the right thing to do. They joined together to form one and controlled the situation.