And THIS is why high capacity magazines are needed!

[Double Naught Spy]

Would I need 17 rounds? Probably not. These thugs are basically cowards and pick on unarmed people. I would submit that one guy with a revolver could have turned them away. The crowd mentality only works if you're not the guy in front getting shot.

I do find it interesting how when a strategy is used effectively against us by others, we downgrade the users with a derogatory personality trait classification, but when our folks employ similar strategies, they are considered to be smart strategies used by brave people.

It is not cowardice that to attack a target in a manner for which the target doesn't have much chance to respond effectively. That is why groups like SWAT wear full body armor, carry what they expect to be superior fire power, come with vastly superior numbers, and use tactics such as surprise, speed, violence of action, and even the cover of darkness to conduct their operations. There is a very good reason why a SWAT team isn't a single person in spandex bike shorts and a neon shirt armed with a warrant, badge, and a gun.

Risk reduction is a strategy applied successfully across human cultures and the animal kingdom. There is a very good reason top tier carnivores don't primarily prey on each other. The risk is too high. Risk can be reduced by methods such as using superior numbers, better armor, picking weaker targets, using surprise, speed, violence of action, and sometimes using the cover of darkness.

We can call the bad guys cowards because we don't like it that their tactics do work with an amount of success that causes us discomfort to consider, but the fact remains that the tactics and strategies are ones that work, that we used ourselves, and that are designed to reduce risk such that even if you aren't successful, then at least chance of injury is reduced.

[dayman]

Do we prepare for what will only definitely happpen, or do we prepare for what could possibly happen, to the best of our planning? I choose the latter...

I think most of us prepare for what might happen, we just all draw different lines. Not many of us - outside of law enforcement - wear body armor every day, and not many of us carry a long gun.
Average Americans are far more likely to be killed by our vices, our cars, or our diets than be murdered.
I carry a gun. Depending on my outfit sometimes I even carry a gun that might even be considered "high capacity", but I don't want to live my life worried about and preparing for being attacked by a knife wielding mob. .
I absolutely agree that, as a rule, more rounds at your disposal is better than fewer, but talking about what might have happened if things had been different is just conjecture. What if the mobbers had gotten involved with sports instead of gang violence? What if all pubs had security doors? What if everyone at the pub had brought their doberman to watch the game? What if guns were legal in England, and as popular as they are here, then the victim was one of the 90% who don't carry anyway?
More than anything, this story is proof that sometimes really bad stuff happens for no reason.

[Skadoosh]

However, to imply that just because your uncle etc here in England looks down his nose at Americans because of the different ways our societies approach firearms, all British people do, most definitely is 'a bit of a sweeping statement'.

Are you saying that I am in fact wrong in my supposition that an overwhelming majority of British citizens are in fact not in favor of private handgun ownership? Do British citizen not support their extremely strict gun control laws?

[Frank Ettin]

Enough [too much] jabbering at each other.