>Arms training, by contrast, instils people with a sense of
>responsibility and respect for other people. If the politicians were not
>so distant from the real effects of weapons, they would be less blase
>about using them.
There was a proposal in the mid-sixties for the 'go code' to be carried not by a Corporal handcuffed to 'the football' but rather by a capsule to be placed surgically in the chest cavity of said Corporal. That way, before POTUS would launch, presumably wasting many millions of innocents, he'd have to start by wasting 'one of our finest' with his bare hands.
It was dropped due to operational constraints (largely, they change the codes too often); but I always thought it was a good idea.
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It's well documented that those with concealed weapons permits have a lower incidence of violent crime than "ordinary" citizens (or cops, for that matter!). Cause & effect unclear, but it sure does make you wonder. Hey, speaking of wondering, here's an interesting story I came across today; the title of the story should read "Assistant Principal's Illegal Gun Saves Lives" ... just to make it juicier:
[http://www.nealknox.com/fc/1997/fc11-23-97.txt]
Principal's Gun Saves Lives
By NEAL KNOX
WASHINGTON, D.C. (Oct. 29) -- The nation was horrified when 16-year-old Luke Woodham walked into his Pearl, Mississippi, High School with a .30-30 hunting rifle, shot to death his ex- girlfriend and her close friend, then shot and wounded seven other students.
Then the nation learned Woodham had stabbed his mother to death earlier that morning.
Then the nation learned that the local prosecutor had charged six more students with having conspired in the killings as part of a Satanic plot.
What most of the nation never learned was that Assistant Principal Joel Myrick, using his own gun, stopped the killer as he tried to flee the school.
The news media virtually ignored the fact that an armed citizen had possibly prevented more bloodshed -- using a gun possessed in violation of the Federal Gun-Free School Act, which prohibits firearms within 1,000 feet of a school.
To find out what happened I talked to the school's principal, Roy Balantine.
Mr. Balantine said when he heard the shots he ran into the hall and "saw a kid with a gun," then immediately called 911. Mr. Myrick, he said, was in his office on the opposite side of a "commons" that the school surrounds.
Myrick also had run into the hall and seen a student with a rifle; he shoved several students into his office and locked the door, then ran toward the shooting.
He saw Woodham shoot and wound one of the students -- and Woodham saw him, so Myrick jumped back out of the line of sight.
That's when, Mr. [Balantine] told me, "Mr. Myrick remembered that he had been out to visit his parents over the weekend, and that he remembered that he had forgotten to take his gun out of his pickup.
"So Mr. Myrick ran across the commons and out the back door and got the gun, and loaded it, then came around the side of the building."
At that point, Mr. Balantine said, he saw the student pull out of the school parking lot and pull up behind a car that was stopped at a stop sign. As Myrick ran toward the car, Woodham pulled around the stopped car, but spun out and off the road.
Before he could get the car going again, Myrick was there with the .45 pointed in Woodham's face, demanding "Why did you do that?"
That's when Woodham "instantly became a coward," Myrick had told one local reporter.
Woodham must have feared that Myrick would shoot him for he stammered, so Mr. Balantine told me, "Oh, Mr. Myrick; I'm the one who gave you the discount on the pizza last week."
Myrick got Woodham out of the car, made him lie on the ground, pulled his coat over his head and kept one foot on his back until police arrived.
Woodham's rifle was in the car, and he still had 30 rounds.
"With all that ammunition, we don't know what he might have done," Mr. Balantine told me. "We don't know if he would've gone to the junior high or the pizza parlor where he worked, or what. There's reason to believe he might not've been through killing."
"I'm just thankful that Mr. Myrick had the presence of mind to remember his gun and bring it all to a stop."
Amen, Mr. Balantine. Police and local reporters are convinced that Woodham was a member of a satanic cult that had been ritually sacrificing animals and planning killings before fleeing to Mexico.
But predictably, there's a bit of a flap in Mississippi about the "terrible fact" that this vice principal had a gun at school, and that he was violating the gun-free school law (which the Supreme Court struck down but Congress reinstated last year).
Under Mississippi law he could legally have a gun in his car.
I'm thankful he had it, and asked Mr. Balantine to thank him for me and those of us who admire his courage -- and for setting a clear example of a gun being used to save lives.
Further, I told him, if the U.S. Attorney or anyone else wants to give Mr. Myrick any legal troubles, to give me a call and I'd be delighted to start a defense fund.