[Urbane Guerrilla]

Xiphos, not to derail the thread, but I am one of several who will always be willing to remind you that generous private armament is a crime suppressant as the experience of every single State in the Union -- and yours first, in 1987 -- that has liberalized private CCW has shown. Killings go down when the blood-minded have to guess who might have the fangs. The famed helpless bystander just may not be so helpless. The well directed bullet works every bit as well slaying the bad guy as the innocent.

Genocide and violent crime happen to disarmed people -- disarmed either by bad law or by clever generalship on the part of their attacker to neutralize their armed strength. Armed people don't catch much of this kind of trouble.

Gunnery doesn't create killing, not of itself. Not next to murder in the heart. And if your will is to murder, you hardly need a gun. A big wet rock will kill just as dead. Effort involved really doesn't change principle. A black belt martial artist could tell you the same. He might know six ways to kill a man by hitting him in his neck and fourteen more striking his spine, but does this knowledge, and even assiduous practice of these techniques, set him on a road to some inevitable killing? It does not.