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The one thing that absolutely could have stopped the 9/11 terrorist attacks would have been the passengers rising up and fighting the terrorists. The passengers had a 10 to 1 or greater numerical advantage on every plane. The terrorists were armed with small blades. On the one plane where the passengers did attack, Flight 93, they overcame the terrorists and would have regained control of the plane if the terrorists hadn't crashed it. If they had attacked before the terrorists controlled the cockpit, they would be alive today.

I don't say these things to criticize what the passengers on those planes did. They reacted as we've all been trained to react. They dialed 9-1-1 and waited passively for "proper authorities" to deal with the situation. However, that passivity is a death trip. Passivity and pacifism have always been death trips, and the terrorist attacks only proved that fact.

The lesson that we need to learn from the terrorist attacks is never to be passive in the face of evil. When we are attacked, we need to immediately use force against our attackers. The "proper authorities" won't always be there to help us until it is too late. While we are waiting, we need to be doing all that we can to kill terrorists.

Denying us weapons to use in self-defense against the terrorists is stupid. The idiot who wrote this column buried himself in his fallacies by the third or forth paragraph. Rather than attacking private ownership of guns, we need to promote private ownership of guns as a means of fighting terrorism.

Bill

"Denying us weapons to use in self-defense against the terrorists is stupid. The idiot who wrote this column buried himself in his fallacies by the third or forth paragraph. Rather than attacking private ownership of guns, we need to promote private ownership of guns as a means of fighting terrorism.

Thanks for such a well-phrased response. Forty years ago almost exactly, I saw a bumper sticker in (of all places!) The Comm. of MA. It read: "Outlaw guns and only outlaws will have guns!" It is impossible for me to comprehend the thinking of anyone who would suggest that we can prevent terrorists from shooting up shopping malls, if we all just hand in our guns "to the proper authorities!"........and, I suppose, sit back and wait for "the religion of PEACE" to take over.

Yes, the 9/11 passengers were pre-programmed to sit quietly, dial 911, and wait for the authorities to address the issue.

However, that pre-programming gives way quickly in the American mindset. Notice that while still airborne and just minutes since the 4-way attack began the passengers on the 4th plane got word of the plan, concluded pacifism wasn't going to work in this case, and switched to plan B: "let's roll!".

After 9/11, a huge number of Americans sought out their 2nd Amendment rights - despite the absurdity of .38 vs 747. (I was shocked when my cardiologist asked me what he should buy.) Should the next terrorist attack be on a more personal level as predicted by the article's author, faith in the 2nd Amendment will come back in a force that will give the Brady Bunch apoplectic fits. Carrying a 9mm to stop a hijacked airliner won't happen (TSA won't let you take it onboard, and it won't be useful outside the plane), but a mall attack will convince millions of the value of carrying 24/7.

Modern Americans tend toward a disarmed, pacifistic, submissive attitude toward possible future assault. Once an assault occurs, however, they go polar opposite of armed to the teeth, vengeful, win-at-all-costs attitude. 24 terrorists took out three buildings, causing us to go from soft pushovers to taking out two countries in very short order. A mall attack may seem attractive to terrorists, but they'll learn the hard way to not get between a shopper and a mall.