Excellent comments! Spot on.

I'm not sure how far my comments can go without stepping on this forum's rules, and certainly I hope not to do that, but ...

To be honest I never thought too much about having/carrying a self-defense weapon until a few years back when I had an encounter (assault? - he grabbed me by my shirt just under my head) with an angry newspaper delivery person on the street within sight of my home. We live in a rural area - not in a city, and called the county sheriff. We went outside to wait for their arrival, and waited, and waiting. Finally I went back inside to find a voice message from the sheriff asking for directions to my home. They finally arrived.

This led me to a realization that local law enforcement (the sheriff) does NOT protect me and my family. They simply can't be there when/if something happens. Their job would be to take evidence AFTER the event and look for offenders.

Now I'm a strong believer in the need of people to be able to defend themselves and their family - to carry a weapon (a gun) to protect themselves, since law enforcement (police) simply will not and can not do it real time.

Unfortunately, I live in the ONLY state in the United States that does not allow it citizens to carry a concealed weapon. Some have told me that I can carry a weapon unconcealed, but that brings with it obvious problems.

I'm a regular person. Not a fanatic. I'm a Boy Scout Leader, a Girl Scout leader, and father of two wonderful kids. Every time I see on the news where someone or several people are killed I have to think that had the victims been able to carry a gun things could have been very different - lives could have been saved.

What can you do? A percieved "helper", a policeman, opens fire on your group.

Beat feet. Get cover/concealment between you and the shooter. Continue to move, tough to hit a running target, and move in a way it keeps you off the central line of fire of the shooter - try and stay in back of him or to the sides. I wouldn't hide and remain static if there is a chance he will find you/get to you. Lock doors behind you if in a building, slow him down. Never go up if you can help it, boxes you in. Pull a fire alarm if in a building. If low enough, 1st or second floor, break a window and get out.

Not going to get into the discussion about police being minutes away at best - not their fault they are spread thin. Nor am I going to talk about improvised weapons - the dude has a gun, he can kill you in an instant. Don't give him that instant.

Simple - Don't be there when it happens.

And if you are, and have no other response, hide as if your life depends on it.

True. I would add as a counterpoint though that firearm based homicides in countries like England (0.07 per 100,000)and Norway (0.3 per 100,000) are much lower than the USA (7 per 100,000)* and whilst tragedies like this focus the mind, overall you are safer from firearms in these countries than much of the rest of the world (and as I speak as a pro-firearms Brit)


[*Source is wikipedia - may well be more robust data elsewhere on the internet]

I am seeing a lot of victim mentality here. Why was one person able to kill 85 persons with a firearm and wound others on a small island which contained about 650 persons in the first place? I can understand the first few, depending on how quickly it took place, due to the police uniform. Run and hide and you will only die later, unless you are retreating and regrouping with a plan. Did those brave few on flight 93 run and hide or cower in the corner? Situational awareness is how you will identify the event you are part of. Next, you need a plan to remedy the threat. Every situation is different, but the death count would have been a lot lower if the folks on that island would have taken direct action to stop the gunman.

Why do these arguments always only include "firearm based homicides"? Homicides take many forms, but the anti-gun types are only concerned about the people killed by guns, as though the other victims were not relevant; who are they, chopped liver?

In this case one camper who happened to have brought along his bolt action hunting rifle could have ended this. Police took 90 minutes getting to the island.

I do not think we should assume we know the facts well enough to reach any final conclusions beyond knowing this was a shocking and deplorable event that involved people pretty much just like us. But I do think and hope we can profitably hear from those who can suggest what can be done if we find ourselves in such a situation, and what we might consider to prepare kids.

My point wasn't that armed citizens wouldn't have been useful - they would. Just trying to make sure we put things in balance - the usual repsonse this side of the pond is to further restrict firearms access to civilians (which is generally useless but satifies the politicians need to be seen to do something). In the wake of this shooting someone in Norway will almost certainly be suggesting 'banning guns' - increasing armed access in reponse to this might seem sensible but will go against the flow of pereceived opinion, and there is little that debating online will do about that.

Let's not forget, these were kids, no adults. The kids had to face an automatic weapon, not an knife.

The brave people from flight 93 allready had knowledge of the intention of the hijackers and knew that if they didn't do anything they surely were going to die, where the people on the island had to hide untill the real police arrived.

In Belgium, a politician has just launched his idea to restrict firearms overhere. And it's not easy to get a permit overhere.

Not that the real criminals give a damn about it. It also won't stop a lunatic.