[Margaret Pilkington]

I think it is worth remembering that events such as this cause such shock to the system that literally paralyses folk with fear....rational thought becomes impossible because there is a sensory overload........loud noises, horrific sights,....sights that the students wouldn't ever expect to be faced with...so they had no coping mechanisms. They were like rabbits caught in the headlights.

While I am all for standing up to aggressors.......there isn't much you can do with an armful of books against an automatic weapon and a guy bent on exacting some kind of revenge...for the perceived sins of a society that he didn't feel able to belong to.