In message , Alan Minyard
writes
On Tue, 04 Nov 2003 08:04:26 GMT, "Bjørnar" wrote:
In war-time you would shoot first and ask later if your're not
100% certain.

For some, though, the issue is blurred.

I am a very qualified pistol shot, trained in combat shooting.
Shooting me "dead" from anything other than an ambush
would be rather difficult.

Dreadfully easy, Al. I match your pistol and raise you a section of
troops with scoped rifles and support weapons, and the firefight starts
at two hundred yards. I'll even let you fire first. (If it's wartime
then "fighting fair" is for the survivors on the losing side to console
themselves with)


The way to kill an alert armed man is to deceive rather than to
outshoot. Don't leap out, wild-eyed and frantic, shouting "Die, American
pig-dog-scum!"; but (for example) man a tidy, disciplined vehicle check
point and politely ask to see identification and travel documents (the
"Excuse Me, Meester?" ploy).

There's a _reason_ pistols are considered to be self-defence weapons of
last resort by most militaries, however entertaining they are to shoot
for sport and even to train with.

If you expected to fight, you should have brought a rifle: US helicopter
pilots in Desert Storm and Somalia fully grasped that concept (the USMC
have complained about a AH-1 modification, because they stored two M-16s
on the inner door of the ammunition bay in case they were forced down
and the modification precluded that... the Marines understood full well
that if you're being pursued by angry men with rifles, a rifle of your
own will at least slow the pursuit down in a way a pistol never can)

For europe, everything is "blurred"

Less so than you might think.

--
When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.
W S Churchill

Paul J. Adam MainBoxatjrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk