I am horrified, like everyone else, about what's happened at VA Tech. That they haven't confirmed that there was only one gunman doesn't fill me with confidence.

They didn't lock down the campus after the first shooting because they thought the gunman had left. They assumed this without knowing who he was or where he was and without having him in custody. That decision will come back to haunt the administrators. I'm sure they would give anything to be able to go back and handle this differently, but really, it's hard to believe that they ... well.

I told R that if I was in a building where the gunman was going door-to-door killing people I would rush him, throw a chair, anything. I would assume that I was as good as dead and I would rather die fighting than lined up against the wall. I would also rather die than live the rest of my life wondering why I didn't at least try. He said he didn't know what he would do but he knew that I would do what I just said ... because, he said, I would be that p'-d off.

Edit 4/17: I realize that at least one person, and probably more, did just that; an engineering professor (and holocaust survivor) blocked the doorway with his body so that his students would have time to jump out the window. He died but all of them were saved. I'm sure more things like that happened.