[Nebr FAL owner]

Actually you would have a few seconds to actually get the mask on unless the toxic gas weapon is literally dumped at your feet the standard for the armed forces is 10 seconds. The fact that the folks in Washinton D.C. all have gasmasks & are building themselves a brand new $286 million dollar state of the engineering art bunker literaly attached to the back wall of the Capitol buildings basement. The sad part is that 99%of what is being done is to protect the government class .Note to all freepers if you are going to buy a gasmask get one from the manufacturer or a safety equiptment supplier not the army surplus store. You will get new equiptment not something that has been sitting on a warehouse shelf for 10 to 40 years.

[David Hunter]

The sad part is that 99% of what is being done is to protect the government class.

Yes, and that's even more true here in Britain, where we can't even carry a penknife with a blade longer than 3 inches! If you did see a few terrorists on the tube about to throw a gas bomb, then the Police would still expect you to use "reasonable force" even though you'd be outnumbered, unarmed and unable to get help from the security forces. Of course, the thought of allowing our people to arm themselves to resist terrorists hasn't even occurred to the statists who run Britain. Blair would probably be more horrified at the idea of your average Brit carrying a weapon, than the idea of a successful gas attack on the tube! We could do with a few FALs over here, or just bog standard Saturday night specials, but we won't get them, not in a million years, or after 100,000 Brits die at the hands of al Qaeda.