In spite of my oft-stated pro-2nd Ad. position, I do not carry at work, or to-and-from.
So if possible, run like hell.
If not possible, anything and everything within arm’s reach is being hurled at the gunman: coffee cup, coffee pot, stapler, multimeter, toolbag, printer, laptop, trashcan, chair, notebook, coworkers, you name it.
When I run out of stuff to throw, I’ll shit my pants and do the “Banzai!” thing.
And most likely die.
If you shit your pants you’ve not yet run out of things to throw at someone.
I can get way up under my desk and pull the clutter in around me. But if there’s any spiders under there, I’m coming back out.
You’re scary, but I like the way you think. Unless you work for me, that is. If I can Francis (he hates it when you call him Frank) tomorrow, will you take management off your list? Please?
If not, well, then, I’ll be curled into a ball, under my desk, sobbing and peeing.
I know someone this happened to. This disaffected student (who had been around at least 7 or 8 years earlier as I knew him them, came into a seminar room and started firing. Eventually he put the gun to his head and fired. One other person was killed (the thesis advisor, whom I knew vaguely) and the dept. chair lost his index finger. I asked the person who had been sitting between them what he did and he said, “I rolled up under my chair.” Of course, it is possible that the thesis advisor and dept. chair were the only targets. We’ll never know. This all happened nearly four decades ago.
This does not fit the OP since all the “action” took place in one room and no one else was threatened. By the time campus security, not to mention the police, were involved there was nothing to do but clean up the mess (literally), although the thesis advisor hung on another couple weeks, but he was effectively dead since his liver, kidneys, etc. were out of business.
Jump out of the window, as very few buildings round here are high enough for you to injure yourself if you land right, and make beelines for cover with the aim of getting the hell out of dodge. Oh, and call the po-lice at some point.
If at school, I’d follow a plan that one of my former professors suggested: If a gunman comes into the classroom, let’s be honest, you are already dead. There is little to no cover, no windows, and one way out (this is true of most of the classrooms at my university). Throw everything you’ve got on you, and encourage everyone else in the room to throw everything they have, all while making as much noise as possible (basically, make as much chaos as you possibly can). During all this, hope that the gunman has one of two reactions: gets scared/confused/whatever enough to leave the room, or gets distracted enough that someone can take him/her out. Then, run like hell and call the cops as soon as possible. This was quite possibly the oddest lecture I’ve ever had on the first day of a class, but was possibly the most useful. (This professor was a former paratrooper, played the funny old hawaiian shirt wearing grandpa to the hilt, but you could tell he had steel underneath)
If at work, I am in basically the same situation, but with less of a chance of getting help from my fellows. Thus, I hide under my desk until I am fairly certain I can make it to one of the back stairwells/tornado shelters, and try to get my tail out of the building (or maybe not. The building has floor to ceiling windows on all the exterior walls, and no real good immediate cover outside. I’d probably be opening myself up for getting shot).
In either situation, I’m fairly certain the entire thing would be accompanied by a mental litany of “Please God!” and lots of swearwords mixed together.
Light up a smoke , fire up facebook on the iPhone and update my status , point the direction the boss was last seen running.
Declan
Post to the Dope:
“Shooter at my Work. How do I stop him? Need Answers Fast!”
But then waste time wondering If I should put it in IMHO or GQ or if it’s MPSIMS or the Pit (those bastards are crazy in there, they might know what to do). In my frantic worry, I’d post it into the Game room. I’d then get 5 answers asking me what spells did I prepare that day; 10 answers telling me to use the Konami Cheat code, or just to use the BFG or start screaming for a Medic. 10 answers would tell me find the Vig, and some random idiot will blame the whole thing probably on the BCS computer server’s fault as the reason for the shooter, and someone will inevitably say Favre? Did someone mention Favre?
By the time the Mods move the thread to the correct location, it would probably already be too late…
I work on the ground floor at the back of the building near 2 emergency exits. I would HOPE I would have enough time to grab my purse and get out.
Offer to reload for him.
Why bother with the purse?
You never want to get between a woman and her purse! 
If I were at my university’s student union, I’d be on the third floor, in a relatively isolated part of the building close to an exit. I’ve also got access to wireless Internet, a phone line that isn’t tied to the university’s phone system, soundproof rooms, and a big, honkin’ metal fire door thick enough and heavy enough to stop just about anything smaller than a Howitzer shell. Oh, yeah, and a radio station that I could use to broadcast for help. If I had time, I’d put together a recorded message, set the thing to “loop” and run for the exit, or for the conveniently located concrete bunker in the far back of the station, where I’d lock the door and hide.
If I were in a common area, I’d be fucked.
Robin
Thanks for a reminder about this! I need to flesh out the details of my plan.
Part 1 – Run and escape.
Part 2 – Become a media witness/spokesperson. As the media arrives, be there to be interviewed as CNN (or a local channel) goes live from the scene. Be calm, talk about my planned escape route, talk about my work friends who I’m very concerned about, about the identity and motives of the shooter (which I won’t actually know anything about, but hey, the TV anchors don’t either and it doesn’t stop them), and end with a plea to pass more laws to make this kind of thing tougher to do in the future.
Part 3 – Profit. Become a hostage/worksite mass murder spokemodel/analyst of some kind. Every time something like this happens, they will come to me for my piercing analysis.
I’d get behind our really tall COO.
One of my friends is ex-SAS, another is ex-Special Branch. they both concur that if you have to shoot, **you aim at the torso **as it’s the largest target.
So why do you mention hitting eyes and teeth? What training have you had?
None of us want the terrorists to succeed.
However you skip over the part where you meet another armed citizen and shoot him, calling it ‘unfortunate and ironic’. If you kill an innocent person, isn’t it far more serious than that? Why would the courts find you innocent of that killing?
You misread their post, matey.
Yeah. That’s almost identical to my plan. Only I would skip that hosing part and jumped straight to caving heads.
Like some others, I work from home.
[ul][li]If I were alone in the house, as I am now, grab my cell phone and out the escape window about ten feet to my left. If my wife or daughter were at home, my son stores his shot gun in the cabinet about three feet away. Shells are in a drawer just to the right. Dial 911 on the land line. drop the phone, load and go see if I can spoil the day for anyone I don’t recognize who isn’t wearing a uniform.[/ul][/li]
Regards,
Shodan