I think you're lost in someone else's anti-gun fervor You can do the same thing in those scenarios you presented with a sword, a knife, a yard of fishing wire or a syringe of oregano. If someone takes you by surprise, that's it, you're taken by surprise. It won't matter if you have the same weapon or not. If a person wants a gun (or anything else), they can get one. It's just one of those things that probably just cannot be fixed. You can't uninvent it, you can't regulate it absolutely. I do feel, though, that most people should not be allowed to purchase guns. Sure, psychotics REALLY shouldn't have guns, but that doesn't mean I trust the idiot 40-year-old housewife that wears pink sweaters and likes republicans to have a gun, either. There have always been crazy people - people that don't understand how immoral it is to take the life of another person. Just because the weapons are better now makes little difference. It's just crap - watch your back and don't hang around twitchy people. In the end...guns are just stupid. There are plenty of weapons that can completely incapacitate a person without killing them.