Notes From The Mumbai Massacre

Photographer: I wish I'd had a gun, not a camera. Armed police would not fire back

"The gunmen were terrifyingly professional, making sure at least one of them was able to fire their rifle while the other reloaded. By the time he managed to capture the killer on camera, Mr D'Souza had already seen two gunmen calmly stroll across the station concourse shooting both civilians and policemen, many of whom, he said, were armed but did not fire back. "I first saw the gunmen outside the station," Mr D'Souza said. "With their rucksacks and Western clothes they looked like backpackers, not terrorists, but they were very heavily armed and clearly knew how to use their rifles.

"Towards the station entrance, there are a number of bookshops and one of the bookstore owners was trying to close his shop," he recalled. "The gunmen opened fire and the shopkeeper fell down."

But what angered Mr D'Souza almost as much were the masses of armed police hiding in the area who simply refused to shoot back. "There were armed policemen hiding all around the station but none of them did anything," he said. "At one point, I ran up to them and told them to use their weapons. I said, 'Shoot them, they're sitting ducks!' but they just didn't shoot back."

I've seen this happen before. Armed men who'd rather not be part of an ongoing fight. Unwilling to call attention to themselves they flee, knowing that fighting would greatly increase the chance of taking fire. Moving targets are also harder to hit.

So the police beat feet, and the rest of the citizenry were of course incapable of legally arming themselves so they died in droves.

Pathetic. And before you say that it couldn't happen here, hark back to when Katrina laid waste to New Orleans. And MANY officers of the law looted then simply ran away.

Thanks to The War on Guns for the link.