just.one.person

The Old Feeder's Old .45

Joe's Crabby Shack has come away from the nasty murders at Virginia Tech last week with something positive. I don't mean to sound like I'm barking out orders, but read this very poignant story first, then read Joes' very excellent post. If just one student had been armed that day...
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Other bloggers are helping to spread this message of personal responsibility for safety, not just for your own protection, but also for that of your friends and neighbors. Here are a few, check their stories out:

Random Ramblings of a Republitarian
Principled Discovery
Paging Power
The War on Guns
Guerillaspot
Armed Canadian
End the War on Freedom

Be responsible, get a weapon, learn to use it and carry it with you. Don't let a Virginia Tech or a Columbine or a Luby’s Cafeteria shooting spree happen in your presence. Be that "just one person".
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Here is my own experience with being just.one.person:

Before we had the concealed carry law here in Nebraska, I read the law as allowing me to go armed unobtrusively under the reasonable man affirmative defense. Over about 30 years of doing so, it fell my lot to be just.one.person in less than a half-dozen incidents in the US.

Sometimes it was a firearm, sometimes a knife, but in every case no one was injured by my weapon. No one even got arrested, although the police did show up for one such incident, a bar fight in Lincoln.

Only one of these just.one.person experiences was purely self-defense, a 'road rager' sent to get back in his car at a stop light in Bellevue. I can remember him saying, "You wouldn't be so tough without that knife." No kidding. I would have gotten a beating. He got back into his car and I didn't even have to reach for the .45 under the seat.

The other times my inner reasonable man felt justified in offering deadly force, it was to prevent injury to another. The offer was always refused, nobody got hurt, no arrests.

Be just.one.person: its the no muss, no fuss, no bother way to deal with the Cho Seung-Huis and loco drunks that threaten you and your friends.
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Once you have your weapon, know how to use it and are comfortable with carrying it, you should learn how to know when to use it. Read the Gunscribe's explication of 'situational awareness' and how it can save you from a load of grief. Then read this relevant anecdote recounting Joe's recent 'situational awareness' at the bars in Lincoln!