Do you and the OP not know what the hell a Federal Air Marshal is or what their job function is? They are undercover agents that are armed and they fly planes all the damned time. My sister is one. We have those people on these planes already. Problem is we don't have enough to cover all domestic flights.

The only problem here is that you are trying to equate what amounts to s simple machine that has been in use for generations by the population to something that is *like* a bit of technology that the population is used to, but in reality is starkly different. The problem is compounded by adults that already have preconceived notions about the thing they are using. Everyone knows that a fridge cools their food and the freezer freezes it. Thats all it does. Everyone knows that a scale measures their weight. Now lets say they made a scale with wireless card that can talk over the internet to your doctors office and report your weight to them every time you weigh yourself. On the surface, that scale is still just measuring your weight to the *average everyday user*. To them it is still just doing what they -know- the scale to do. Its secondary function isn't even something they've thought possible and frankly not something they are probably investigating before they get it. We've had phones and mobile phones for a good while now. People know that they can make calls and text messages from where ever they might be. This is their frame of reference. Most of those same people didn't or don't know that their phone is equipped with GPS that allows them to be tracked because they don't have any reason to actively use that feature. All they know is they dial a number and it calls someone and maybe takes pictures as well. How many phone ads out there tout their GPS capabilities, and how many store clerks talk about it? Only people like us care to know about these features and even utilize them in any way. Joe Public on the other hand could care less, and that is the point. Should people know what the on board computer in their car is reading and keeping track of? maybe? Does knowing affect whether they drive their car, or how they drive it? Nope. Why? Because in the grand scheme of things they use their car to get from point A to point B and have no REASON to know that their car is keeping track of their speed and fuel usage and whatever else these computers track.

"PS The last two generations of my family served. I chose not to because fighting for the US Military has nothing to do with defending the United States." All that means is that they know what kinds of decisions need to be made in a mili-second during live combat and you...don't. Yes, it is all one HUGE cluster-fuck out there, and yes it probably should have been avoided 20 times over, but that doesn't change the realities of what a soldier in the middle of those areas has to experience day in and day out and what they have to do to try to stay alive.

Uhm, no. I was raised around rifles and handguns and never once got it in my head to ever "play" with them. I understood how lethal they are because i was -taught- about guns at an early age and was -taught- how to properly and safely handle them. Also, a knife is WAY easier to use than a gun and way easier to hurt someone with it. Don't believe me? Give a child an uncapped sharpie and tell them to go flail it around at someone and look at how many cuts they can deliver before the person gets the "knife" away from them. I will bet my life that they hit some vital points of the human body with no trouble. Now imagine that same knife in the hands of someone with intent to cause harm. Oh, and knives don't need to be reloaded, or jam.

+1 Damn it I wish i had some points to give you right now.

Depends on where you live, but most places that even have conceal and carry also have a fun thing called the Castle Doctrine, which means no lawyer can come close to successfully arguing your point above. In fact, if you retreat to the furthest part in your home and have to wait there to defend yourself, and end up doing so, most states with the CD will rule it a clean kill after an investigation and you can go on with your life.

Lets remember that there are also a TON of people taking up space in prisons here in the states that are in there for having a little too much marijuana on them or in their home during some drug raid and they are serving longer prison sentences than people in jail for rape and murder. Most of our over-crowding is actually due to this very problem, to the point that -judges- are trying to get those mandatory sentences for pretty minor drug charges changed. Yay for our "war on drugs".

Just a quick note: if you have the D&D Insider subscription, then you have all of those books' rules built into it for character creation. I just run it to update all of my players' characters and they print out their new sheets with new items and skills, etc when they level.

Thank you. I really wish I had mod points right now.

Kinfe? Simple. Go for -any part of the body that is within reach. There fixed that. Killing someone with a knife is FAR easier than with a gun. A knife only needs to penetrate 2 inches into the chest cavity to cause damage to sensitive organs and a good slash to an arm or leg will have you bleeding out and going into shock log before any help arrives. Add to that your body pumping more blood due to adrenaline and you ar screwed if caught with a knife. Now add to that the fact that a knife wielding assailant will "hit" you more than once with a variety of stabs and slashes and will never have to "reload". And before you or anyone else goes there, no it is not easy or advisable to try to "defend" yourself against a knife attack. Your best defense for it is to run, which is also your best defense for a gun, preferably using cover and making yourself a smaller target as you run.

Someone committed to killing another person with their bare hands is not there to consider a single thing. They are there to kill the person and they -want- to relish it. Also, the human body has some fairly fragile parts. a good shot across the head with a stick or other solid object and you will be in the ground fairly soon.

If I had to choose to defend myself against a guy with a gun and a child with a knife, I'd choose the guy with the gun 100% of the time. You don't need to be skilled or strong to severely injure/kill someone with a knife. Also, I challenge anyone with even a modicum of skill with a gun to shoot a bunch of running/moving targets in a high stress situation. There will be more misses than hits. Guns are not the problem. Alarmist reactions, inability and/or unwillingness to learn proper gun safety, and the mentality that just in case someone -might- fly off the handle there needs to be no guns are the problem.

I wish I had mod points right now. Bravo. Seriously, everything said above is on point.

I set one up for my step-son to use. Only I know the actual gmail password, so he can't log into directly. I also have a forward of all the mail he gets to another account of mine just in case. Lastly, I set him up with Thunderbird using a master-password that he set up which is completely different from the gmail one. In the config I just made sure only people I want emailing him are white-listed, so Thunderbird takes care of unwanted things that will only show up in the gmail interface that I go in and delete periodically.