I'm afraid you missed my point. I very much support the idea that any sane, responsible, law-abiding citizen should be allowed to own firearms. But the idea that violent crime just won't happen in a community where everybody is armed is nonsense.

How many people do actually have the skills to protect themselves against bad guys? I know a bunch of civilians who own guns. IMHO, very few of them could actually handle themselves in any kind of confrontation. Whether it was bare hands, knife or firearm. Very few people have what it takes to use a weapon under stress. But very many people feel a sense of false security and power when they have a gun at hand. That's exactly the kind of stuff that's bad in a confrontation.

I find it a little funny how people look at some incident and say, well, it couldn't have happened if there was an armed bystander around. That's just ridiculous. Look at what happened in Belgium. Do you seriously think the staff could have stopped the psycho from stabbing those people if they had guns? I don't think the typical nurse has the training to deploy a gun and incapacitate a knife-wielding attacker at close quarters. I bet the staff didn't even realize what was going on at the time or were just too shocked to do anything. Whether you have a gun is immaterial if you're wetting your pants. If there really happened to be someone at the scene who had the guts to prevent least some of the victims from getting hurt, he would've done it anyway, gun or no gun. It's all about the attitude and mental toughness. In a situation like that you have basically no time to respond. If you have what it takes, you'll grab a chair and smash the weirdo's skull, kick him in the groin and stomp the holy crap out of him, whatever. But again, there are very few folks who can do that in reality. And for the rest it doesn't really matter whether they're armed or not because the mental component isn't there.

You have to be real - bad stuff tends to happen all of a sudden when you least expect it. And often times the last thing you want in a situation like that is some gun-toting vigilante spraying lead all over the place. A firefighter friend of mine has told me how people sometimes put themselves in danger because they don't realize their own limitations. They see a fire and try to put it out on their own. Before they know it the situation gets totally out of control. Then when the firefighters arrive they have to rescue that person first, which in turn puts yet more people in danger.

I realize full well that life is a crapshoot and that everybody should take care of their own safety as much as possible. The police can't be there all the time. But at least they're equipped, prepared and competent to handle that kind of work. Whereas 99% of the general population are not, whether they own guns or not. That's why owning weapons doesn't make anybody safer per se. Guns sure as hell didn't make the Wild West a safe place no more that some African village where everybody and their grandma is toting an AK.