re: #283 Sol Berdinowitz
NRA: Guns don’t kill, people do!
I can buy that to an extent.
But how is it that the mere presence of guns is supposed to radiate an aura of protection?
Guns are useless, or even less-than-zero in a public setting unless the user is well trained, experienced and equipped with steady nerves and a sound sense of judgement.
You can’t just go and buy a set of those skills at a damn gun show.
A couple of months ago I read a novel “Soft Target” by Stephen Hunter, about a bunch of terrorists who take hostages at a mall which is not “Mall of America.” (Hunter had to include a number of disclaimers that his novel was set at a fictitous mall somewhere in Minnesota.) Anyway one of the shoppers happens to be a U.S. Marine sniper just back from Afghanistan.
The novel follows the Marine around the mall as he hides from the terrorists, obtains a weapon after killing one of them (with a knife) and the various tactical problems that confront him.
Nobody else at the mall has a weapon (except for the hostiles), which the Marine is very happy for since it would have presented a tactical nightmare.