Seriously, I was concerned about this in an abstract way when I learned of the new policy, but in person, my reaction was involuntary and visceral. "These people might shoot me" was constantly on my mind.

@mattblaze Why, just because most of them aren't trained in handgun use or rules for the use of deadly force, and are apparently carrying pistols that some believe can fire by themselves without a trigger pull?

@SteveBellovin Right. One might ask "how's this different from armed police", but it *is* different. Police get involved in bad shootings all the time, of course, but this is worse. The training is different, the mission is different, the attitude is different, and the accountability is different.

@mattblaze I think I've told this story before, but since I can't find it I'll recount it again.
I've never been so scared in an airport as I was on a return flight to EWR from RDU very soon after 9/11. There was a good old boy National Guardsman with an M-16, waving it around and trying to be "helpful". I know now, but didn't then, that the rifle wasn't loaded, but he just seemed so eager to use it…

@SteveBellovin @mattblaze I saw the instruction page carried by the soldiers, and they looked very much like the instructions we were giving sentries at the air base 50 years ago -- when we were concerned with possible terrorist attacks.

@SteveBellovin @mattblaze at the time I was horrified that the guys in my command were given loaded pistols for patrols and sentry duty, but their training did not include pistol practice. It is very easy to miss and hit something else when firing a pistol.

@huitema @SteveBellovin @mattblaze The way I heard one police trainer express it is, “There are no misses on the street. Every round you fire hits *something*, if not your intended target then some other person or property.”

@mkb @SteveBellovin @mattblaze To be fair, when I explained that lack of training to the colonel I immediately got the ammo allocation requested to train the troops. I expect a bunch of junior officers are going through a variation of that in DC.

@themself @mkb @SteveBellovin @mattblaze That question was above my pay grade. It was the French Air Force, and the order came from the general. But there is some practicality to it. At the time, the alternative would have been a MAS 56 rifle, which is not great in close quarters, or a MAC 49 sub-machine gun, which sprays bullets all over the place and seems a bad idea when civilians are nearby.