As predicted in my first post, the thread seems to have neatly split into two camps, with each camp determined to insult the people in the other camp for their (im)morality and poor choices. Makes me sad, but I guess it's human nature.
Maybe we can advance the discussion a little by pointing out that some people seem to equate
willingness to act with
ability to act effectively. The two are not the same thing.
Firearms can be used defensively in one of three ways.
1) As a threat, unfired. This is
by far the most common use of the defensive handgun. Bad guy approaches, good guy shows a gun, bad guy runs away, end of story. This level of use requires absolutely no training whatsoever in order to be effective.
2) As a close contact weapon. Bad guy comes so close you can smell the scum on his teeth. You draw and fire. Bad guy falls down or runs away, end of story. This requires a low level of shooting skill and a slightly higher level of gun-manipulation skill (eg being able to draw quickly enough to save your own life). A very small amount of training can get you to this point.
3) As a ranged weapon. Bad guy is across the room from you, or across a large public space such as a mall, perhaps as far as 75 yards from your position. He is surrounded by running, screaming, moving, yelling innocents. He is moving -- perhaps very quickly. Most likely, he is not facing you directly, but may be quartered away. The light may be poor (as in the Colorado theater). There may be other distractions, such as the sobbing of your own terrified, injured children. Using a defensive handgun as a ranged weapon under these circumstances takes a much higher level of skill than most untrained people realize.
As an aside,
Nick Melli effectively used the lowest, "show a gun" level of response on the active shooter in the Clackamas Mall last December. Unusually, it worked. A more common outcome for a similar action would be the one experienced by
Dan McKown, who lives in a wheelchair following his failed attempt to stop an attacker in the Tacoma Mall about a decade ago.
One final observation. Whenever a subject like this comes up, I see a lot of evidence of the
Dunning-Kruger Effect at work. People without training often mistakenly believe they have a lot more ability to effectively respond to a mass murder event than they actually do. Unfortunately, the only way to remove their misconceptions is for them to go get the training they don't think they need. Talk about a Catch 22!
pax