Art,
Your post brings two different thoughts to mind, they are intertwined, but I'll address them separately.
First, you make a valid point about mass casualty events getting headlines while numerous individual fatalities are, in essence, ignored. Another example is flying. An airliner crash is a major headline event. However it's likely that more people die each year driving to and from airports than die in plane crashes. I think the difference is in being able to influence the odds.
It doesn't matter whether I'm traveling, shopping or reading a book on the sofa, I want control. I may not have control, but I want it. I want the ability to influence events. It's what equipped.org is all about. Prepare for potential circumstances and be Equipped to Survive.
If I'm traveling it means following my father's advice. During his time in the Air Force he spent some time as an aircraft crew chief in Air/Sea Rescue. He had some interesting stories to tell. He summed up his advice as "dress to walk"; meaning, be prepared for the conditions you could encounter during a trip. That meant that if I was flying I should wear and carry clothes (such as boots and a coat) sufficient to keep me alive in case the airplane went down. I spent 10 years as part of an Air Force flight crew and always tried to remember his advice.
If I'm someplace where a crazed lunatic decides to start shooting people, I don't plan to be a hero, I do plan to be a survivor. While running from a hazard has its advantages, it's not always an option. There is an old joke about 'not needing to outrun the bear, just the person you're with'. A family can only escape at the pace of its slowest member. I can walk/run far faster than my wife can, but I'd be a poor excuse for a husband if I left her behind to save myself. In a shooting such as happened at the mall, the best available option might be a cautious retreat or might be to fight back.
Paramedics and firemen do not follow me around. I carry a first aid kit and a fire extinguisher in my Jeep. In the event of a problem I need to cope long enough for help to arrive. Policemen don't follow me around either. While I could improvise a bandage or run from a fire, there is no substitute for a firearm when it is needed.
Now to my second thought. "Mall Ninja", "Armchair Commando" and other semantically loaded labels are used in arguments about the inadvisability of having private citizens carry firearms. Many (most?) states allow private citizens to legally carry concealed handguns with a permit. A small percentage of people obtain a permit, maybe 1-3%. It's statistically unlikely that unless a shooting takes place at a gun shop that more than one or two armed citizens will even be present. So much for "a half-dozen mall ninjas".
People who take the time to get a permit to carry a concealed weapon are more likely (more likely, not absolutely certain) to have taken the time to think about how they would respond in an emergency. Aside from the basic training required by Nebraska, I invested a week of vacation to spend 40 hours in a
training class.
People have been carrying legally concealed firearms in public long enough to show that armed citizens seem to be showing good judgment. I think the fear of a "shootout at the OK corral" is overblown.
Dennis
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