"Maybe America still has a lot to learn from England and her villages."

We have, but it's not the lesson I think you mean.

I recently received a comment on a post I wrote back in April of 2005, It's a Cheap Shot, I Know... That was another piece about the flawed idea that laws that disarm the law-abiding populace somehow make that populace safer. Well, the comment I received was quite indignant:

I'm from Abigail's village and I think she would be horrified that you are trying to advocate carrying arms after what happened to her.

Too bad.

The person the police arrested and released wasn't the person responsible for the attack - the person responsible for the attack was someone who lated committed suicide in Scotland. He had a reputation for hunting in the woods (armed) and had allegedly a reputation for drinking and drug taking. The guy was deeply messed up but his actions were beyond comprehension, horrific and completely sick.

And the law did a marvelous job of disarming him did it?

Our village and community were in a state of shock along with the rest of our nation. We stood shoulder to sholuder(sic) and all of us sent our prayers for Abigail and her family. I think your use of this terrible horific attack as a justification for encouraging people to carry more weapons in public is also - frankly sick.

And you're entitled to your opinion. But standing shoulder-to-shoulder and praying didn't prevent the vicious attack upon her, did it? She and her baby son were alone with a knife-weilding nut. No cops, and no other defenders. Had he wished, her attacker could have bashed both their heads in with a handy rock.

So what's your point?

How could you pretend to care about Abigail and the people of my village and country when you advocate the carrying of weapons.

Normally that sentence would end with a question mark, but we both know it's rhetorical. Honestly, I don't care about Abigale and the people of your village specifically, but I do care about Albion as a whole since it's the nation that gave birth to the one in which I now live. As Kim du Toit put it:

I could fill these pages with news of similar atrocities happening anywhere in the world—the British Disease is by no means confined to Britain, as witnessed by car-burning being the recreational favorite of French teenagers—but, if I may be frank, I don’t give a rat's ass what happens to France, to the French, or to any other country in the world for that matter.

But I care, deeply, about what's happening in Britain nowadays, and if it seems any other way to my Brit Friends and Readers, then I humbly beg your forgiveness.

Continuing:

So please get your facts correct about this case and don't you dare use this awful incident to promote the carrying of weapons again.

And you plan to stop me... how?

Maybe America still has a lot to learn from England and her villages.

Indeed. We're learning quite well. Which is why we have "shall-issue" concealed-carry laws in 37 states and unrestricted concealed-carry in two more.

We've learned. And we're still learning.

Abigail herself and her familly have handled this appauling attack with such dignity and courage that they know what courage is and what it means.

People who carry weapons like you will never have an ounce of the courage that she has.

As I noted in my original reply to the anonymous poster, I might not have the courage Ms. Witchalls has had to exhibit in her struggle to recover from her wounds, but Dan McKown has, and he carries a weapon, thus definitively disproving that particular accusation.

I came across a piece at The Ten Ring, Mugging as Amusement. It's about the trial of the people responsible for another assault on a young woman, Nicole duFresne, in New York City - another "disarmed victim zone." Nicole died. She was brave, too. I'm sure her friends and family stood "shoulder to shoulder" and prayed for her, as well.

But Denise references this little tidbit from the story:

The group then rode the subway to Brooklyn, where they menaced a girl at the Broadway Junction station and a man who scared them away by reaching into his jacket as if he were carrying a gun.

Imagine that! Someone who was carrying a weapon (or faked it well) and avoided becoming a victim!

What a coward!

Well, that's the logic my anonymous commenter uses, anyway.

Perhaps England and her villages have some lessons to learn from America? (And that's not a rhetorical question.