Lidwen Wraith wrote:The words from the opinion of the court in the case of US v Gomez were never more cogent: "It seems tendentious to reject out of hand the argument that one purpose of the [Second] Amendment was to recognize an individual's right to engage in armed self-defense against criminal conduct. In modern society, the right to armed self-defense has become attenuated as we rely almost exclusively on organized societal responses, such as the police, to protect us from harm. One can argue that the rise of a professional police force to enforce the law has made irrelevant, and perhaps even counterproductive, the continuation of a strong notion of self-help as the remedy for crime. The possession of firearms may therefore be regulated, even prohibited, because we are "compensated" for the loss of that right by the availability of organized societal protection. The tradeoff becomes more dubious, however, when a citizen makes a particularized showing that the organs of government charged with providing that protection are unwilling or unable to do so. The fundamental right to self-preservation, together with the basic postulate of liberal theory that citizens only surrender their natural rights to the extent that they are recompensed with more effective political rights, requires that every gun control law be justified in terms of the law's contribution to the personal security of the entire citizenry"

Suzanna Gratia, in Killeen, Texas related an incident at the Luby's cafeteria, in 1991. She explained that she didn't grow up with guns; she wasn't raised in a violent neighborhood. She does not favor hunting. She was given a gun by a friend, when she moved out on her own, for her personal self-protection and was taught how to use it. She was at the Luby's cafeteria with her mother and father, enjoying a noon luncheon, when a truck came through the front window of the cafeteria. She said that she believed that there had been an accident and she got up from the table to go help. Then they heard shots being fired. She said that she and her parents dropped to the floor, turned the table over, and put it in front of them for protection. The firing continued. At first she thought it was a robbery, but the firing continued, intermittently. She then realized that this was an execution, and that eventually she and her parents would be the target. She said, "I reached for my purse and then realized that I'd made one of the stupidest mistakes of my life. I had taken my gun out of my purse about three months earlier and it was 100 yards away in my car because in the State of Texas there is no such thing as a concealed carry permit. You can't get one." She was a licensed chiropractor, and was afraid that if "authorities" found the gun on her person she would lose her license to practice. She said that she would have had the perfect opportunity to shoot the individual who was executing the occupants of the cafeteria and to stop this carnage if she would have had the gun in her purse. Her father said that he had to do something to stop this man, and rose from the floor to attack the man during a brief moment while his attention was elsewhere. As he lunged toward the man, the man saw him coming, turned toward him and fired. Her father fell to the floor, mortally wounded. Her mother, horrified at the sight of her husband laying on the floor, went to him to comfort him, and, cradling his head in her lap, she was shot by the assailant. Suzanna, and some others, escaped from this carnage. She lived to tell the story. Her parents did not.

She submitted testimony in 1995 to the Virginia Legislature concerning a bill before them concerning the right to self defense. She noted: "On Dec. 17, 1991, in Anniston, Ala., a restaurant patron defended himself and saved the lives of nearly two dozen others held hostage by two armed would-be robbers. The reluctant hero, who was legally carrying his .45 caliber fire arm, stopped both assailants before they could complete their crime or injure any innocent customers. On Oct. 16, 1991, in Killeen, Texas, an armed homicidal maniac methodically killed 22 people and then himself, facing no resistance from the scores of potential victims, including me. That tragedy will be forever etched in my memory. My parents were brutally murdered, and I was helpless to protect them. None of us in that restaurant could control our own destinies, for Texas politicians had seen fit to keep us disarmed." She noted the difference between the concealed carry laws which were more lenient in Alabama at the time. She also noted: "Clearly, concealed-carry laws translate to saving the lives of loved ones in a manner similar to health or life insurance. If ever there arises that time when it is needed, no substitute will do, and I don’t intend to be victimized again."

She pointed out: "In drafting the Bill of Rights, the Founding Fathers acknowledged self-protection as a prime goal incorporated in the Second Amendment. In quoting criminologist Cesare Beccaria, still renowned for his work "On Crime and Punishment" penned in 1764, Thomas Jefferson said: ''Laws that forbid the carrying of arms ... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. ... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants, they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." "

Legislators, and judges, have made, and upheld, so many regulations against the keeping and bearing of arms by the individual since the time the Bill of Rights, and State Declarations of Rights, have been ratified, that the people are now so afraid to defend themselves that they are relegated to scurrying like trapped rats when the "terror of the moment" arrives, as in the case of the commuter train incident. The woman who recalled that some of the people were slipping in the blood of others trying to get away, also declared that "It was awful." Yes, it was awful; but there is not one report that anyone stood before Colin Ferguson and told him that he was violating the law.