This Is A Duh Sort of Statement

This Is A Duh Sort of Statement

But it still needs to be made. My friend David Hardy over at Of Arms and the Law points out that had the Mumbai attacks taken place in Tucson, the results would have been very different:

And Instapundit reports that there were only ten terrorists. I really wouldn't give ten men attacking a few thousand Tucsonans much of a chance. About 2% of Pima County has a CCW permit; others carry openly or have one in their car (you don't need a permit to have a holstered gun in the glove compartment). So an attack on 2,000 people means an attack on *at least* forty who have a gun on them, and more who will have one available in seconds. A fair number of whom will be behind the attackers' backs.

Now, it's true that at least some Americans with a carry permit would have been mowed down by the terrorists anyway. But it is hard to imagine that all of them would have been killed by the terrorists, without a few of the terrorists being disabled or killed along the way. Of course, in Idaho, we aren't wimpy like Pima County--about 4% of adults in Idaho, last I checked, had a carry permit.

Why do I carry a gun just about every chance that I get?

Not because it makes me feel more masculine. (Those who insist on seeing gun ownership as a form of genital substitution must have a heck of a time explaining why I carry such a tiny handgun.)

Not because I look forward to the opportunity to use it. Twice in my life I have had to decide whether to shoot someone, and in both cases, it was a tremendously frightening choice--one where I had the option of not firing the gun.

I carry a gun whenever I can because we live in a world where homicidal madmen and deranged terrorists make the decision to kill complete strangers. I do not want to ever see such a situation happening, and all I can do is stand by and helplessly watch the murder of innocents. Ever.

The one good thing about no longer working for HP is that they had a rule prohibiting employees from having firearms in their vehicles in the parking lot. This meant that five days a week, I could not have a gun in the car. Those days are over.

UPDATE: Apparently, in spite of India's very strict gun control laws (a gift from the British), if you are an important enough celebrity, you can have a handgun at home.