Firearms yes or no

[SkvyWvr]

Originally Posted by Ostfriese

The thing is that this would only have happend if that Seattle man had been very lucky. Just think about the situation before you answer. Think about it. There are a couple of armed civilians running around a 2.600acre campus. There's a lot of shooting. You just run around with your gun, eager to help (which is OK). Now you come around a corner, and in front of you you see another person holding a gun. What next? Ask him whether he's the bad guy? If he is, you'll be dead before you finish the question, and that's too risky.

Let's just assume guns had been allowed on that campus. 100 people with guns running around plus one madman. 80 of the persons with guns are simply too scared (which is just a human reaction, so don't blame them). 20 of them draw their guns trying to find the madman. From my point of view I predict that at least half of them would have died - killed accidentally or mistakenly by some other 'law-abiding' person.

Again, think before you answer. It's not a shooting range. Real shots are fired, and they are fired at you. It's chaos. And there's something else. If you don't know who of the persons with a gun is the bad guy, how are the police going to find out? Again, it's chaos, it's not a peaceful shooting range where the worst enemy is a piece of wood/paper.

I understand your thoughts quite well, as well as I understand your wish to help others and to be a hero (who wouldn't like to be?). But it was an American who coined the term 'collateral damage', and you'd get an awful lot of that in such a chaotic situation.

Hope that makes my thoughts a little clearer. If you still insist on calling me a sheep, don't hesitate.

This is almost too simplistic to warrant a reply, but here goes. I have a carry permit and carry my 45 all the time. It is lame to think everyone on that campus knew what was happening in the lone building so I can't understand how everyone with a weapon would be running around ready to kill. If I heard shots in the distance I wouldn't "run around" with my weapon drawn looking for someone to shoot. That is up to the police, however if I was in one of those rooms and saw the madman pointing the gun in my direction or the direction of another I would not hesitate in sending him to hell. Gun ownership demands responsibility. Anyone who disregards will find himself sharing a cell with the very fools he would protect himself from.