At 02:07 AM 4/1/99 -0500, you wrote:
>    Guns, or any other weapon for that matter, are sort of like fire
>extinguishers. You dont need one very often but when you do you need it in a
>BIG hurry. If you are going to have one  for self-defense you need to have
>it where you can get to it quickly ...

This was brought home to me most vividly by a friend's experience.  For
years he has been in the habit of carrying a semi-auto (mostly illegally
here in the PRCA); late one evening while bicycling home from work in
Ventura Beach he was jumped by 4 young locals who beat him into a hospital
stay & made off with the bike, all his current programming notes, cell
phone, laptop, and the weapon, all of which were in his panniers.  And if
he'd been stupid enough to have the weapon in his hand, finger on the
trigger, he says he doubts that he'd either have had the time to use it, of
if he had the time, and used it, he'd have been in jail instead of a
hospital.  Just like what's happening in Yugoslavia...no easy answers,
sometimes all the fire power in the world won't help, feces just occur, and
innocent people get hurt.

Austin