This is all rant:

Well reason our citizens are asked not to arm themselves is because we are not expecting full blow coastal/air invasion. If by any chance something happened it would be an action of couple of individuals whose physical characteristic and religion may be associated with and compared to similar looking law abiding citizens. You as a person, being smart would make nothing of it but people in groups have a tendency to take out their anger and frustration basing it merely on visual conformation. They have tendency to stereotype and discriminate just based on looks. It can escalate into a big problem especially in the big cities. Cops have enough to do without worrying about things like that. And to quote a conversation I had with a regular bar fly after 911.

Me: Sup Andy
Andy: Hey you made it man
Me: Yup
Andy: Man if you died I would take a gun and go by the mosque and kill
Me: Why?
Andy: They are all the same...
(at this point conversation was over since it was pointless trying to explain anything to Andy since he lives in his own little world)

Now Andy is in the wheelchair, drunk 25/7 and can't move for anything but he is a vet which gets him little bit of credibility. If Andy had a gun he still wouldn’t do anything. But substitute Andy for a semi intelligent guy whose sister/wife/mother was just killed. He watches couple of news broadcasts, maybe a war movie and out of grief can go out and do something. Yes it happened before (revenge) and temporary insanity (being unable to use logic) may be claimed. It wouldn’t be as dangerous if that was an isolated incident but when you have many people with “common” enemy it’s a very dangerous situation (Nazi Germany). Sometimes all the nation needs is a spark to turn into mob and since many loves to follow, anything is possible (remember Crown Height riots).

This brings me to the next point. I'm sick and tired of the popularity that survival is getting in the past few days. Actually it was said a bit wrong. It's good to be interested in survival but it's very bad to learn stuff from wrong sources and base your knowledge on the wrong assumptions. 2 blocks away from my work doors opened to new survival store (http://www.saferamerica.com/products.asp). It became all favorite spot for three hour lunches among executives who go there and spend easily a grand on survival supplies without any knowledge how to use them. Few of them even went as far as buying parachute escape systems. I'm just amazed how much trust they put into equipment over knowledge. I sit at my desk and look at them how after the purchase each and one of them would come with big duffel bag carrying their supplies. Guess what? It got boring after 2-3 days. So they are leaving the stuff in the car now. And there is a lot of people like that. Instead of spending time to understand the problem and learning they go out and buy the best equipment money can get in order to patch their holes in education.

Matt