I am typically not this way, but I truly got choked up about the 76 year old professor blocking the door while his students jumped out the windows. This was a truly great man. I would like to think I would do the same although I know I might not. I might be heading towards the windows or hiding under my desk.
I think it is a crime to prevent a man from defending himself (and others). This professor should have had the right to be armed. I am not sure whether he confronted this gunman near the beginning or end of the rampage but this man certainly would have had the courage to put a gun to good use and save a lot of lives (including his own). Why must we take away the right of men like these to defend themselves?
Citizens are generally good. Our safety is with men like these (and ourselves) not with police who will arrive after it is too late.
I believe the same thing about airplanes, airports, churches, schools, etc. A rational gunman will think twice about shooting people if he knows some of them are armed. An irrational gunman will be shot sooner if the public is armed.
I am sorry about my language, but as far as I am concerned the gun control crowd is at a minimum misguided and possibly even malicious. I think about what happened in Australia (I have heard) after guns were banned (families in remote places were killed in large numbers -- the police were nowhere near to defend these families when killers robbed them knowing they were defenseless).
A friend just the other day told me his elderly parents who were being institutionalized due to their infirmities had guns in their house including some characterized as "assault weapons." He asked if I wanted one. I said hell no. I know of many who have been harassed by police including arrested for the mere act of possessing a gun. I don't want trouble. After hearing this story, I think it is almost the duty of a law abiding citizen to have a gun. This is what they believe in Switzerland, and the last I heard Switzerland is a pretty darn safe place. Even Hitler didn't cause trouble with them.
I was once very interested in the subject of journalists who got in shit because they went outside of political correctness. One of the best stories I came across (though I was never able to verify it other than on the site which has since gone down) was this story of an unsung hero...for political correctness reasons.
Apparently, when the shit hit the fan at the Munich Olympics, Carlos the Jackal and his elite squad of terrorists encountered something that was not in the plan. The security guard at the desk of the building where the Israeli athletes were was an old man in his seventies. Yet they were astounded at how quickly and professionally he responded to their intrusion. He drew a 9mm Schmeiser machine pistol and traded them round for round in a manner worthy of their own instructors. He took two rounds himself but subsequently survived.
This is known by few because how was the German government going to explain the fact that the guard put in charge of security in that building was a former sargeant in the Waffen SS.
This old guy had probably seen much worse fire fights in Russia in the 1940s.
A soldier is a soldier is a soldier. A soldier protects what he is ordered to protect and though he might grumble...he obeys. It is a dirty thankless job, but somebody has to do it.
