Re: Grayhound Beheading
I'll offer my two cents from a couple of perspectives - as a father and as someone who made his living in the air transportation business for quite awhile.
First, think in terms of yourself being on a bus and an attack begins. By the time you realize what is going on and where it is going on, the victim has been stabbed multiple times. In a split second, you have to decide if intervention on your part will save the victim, or simply make you a victim. If you end up dead, your children have just lost a parent and provider. What do you do? Answer: I don't know, its a decision that only the person in the situation can make. Its also a decision that isn't clear cut. Maybe failure to act is cowardice, but maybe its a decision of responsibility with respect to those who depend on you. Sarge, I think you are a good guy and I think you have a Marine's heart, but it just isn't that easy.
As a person who used to write aviation security plans, I would also say that having untrained civilians using firearms in a crowed bus, is not something that most security experts would want to see. The simple fact of the matter is that you would be quite likely to end up with more deaths than just that of the primary victim.
I'm also having trouble understanding just how Britian's knife problem would be made less severe if guns were allowed. Sounds to me more like its a good thing that guns aren't allowed there - a nut with a gun can kill a lot more people than a nut with a knife.
What I think makes a lot more sense is for more people to carry tazers. Had the bus driver had one, and had he been trained in dealing with such a situation, this assault could have been stopped very quickly.
