not necessarily.  The one with the gun in his hand is in charge at least for the moment.  If he wants to talk...you talk.  That's called  hostage negotiations and is used all the time with great success.  Remember the lady who wrote a book and was called a hero because she talked an intruder out of whatever he was going to do to her?  If I remember right, she led him to Jesus even praying with him. 

In any type of tactical training one of the things they teach you is  to fight only with an equal or greater force unless you have a tactical advantage.  So like I said earlier a handbag against a gun is NOT a greater or equal force.  Obviously it didn't work.  Neither do you attempt to fight a gun with a knife.  Again it's a lesser force.  But if you have a tactical advantage you can use the lesser force successfully.  So for instance if a man with a knife comes up behind a gunman and is able to slit his throat, then that would be an exception to the lesser force having an advantage against the greater force. 

In this latest case, the gun jammed and it turned out to be a tactical advantage which the men who tackled him and the woman who pushed the gun away were ready to act upon.   

Ginger acted when the guy had a loaded weapon. The others acted during the time the shooter was closest to their equal, when he had spent the last round in his magazine and before he could reload the next magazine (no chance or action prior to this). The second action was much better thought out, with less time available, than the first action. Had anyone waited until he reloaded and tried to slap the weapon from the shooters hand, I would have given that person the same grief I did Ginger.

"If we'd fought these women instead of the men," another marine comments, "we might have got our asses kicked."

              - Generation Kill

In reality, women realize that it is less likely someone will kill them.

I can see the logic in that, yet I wonder if that is really what is going through ones head when the rubber hits the road.

Tell that to the congresswoman who he went there to kill.

I don't think that's accurate; not in today's society.  I'd like to say it is, but the type of men who go on killing sprees are not respecters of gender, or as this latest shooter shows, age.

lol, I know you would.  I'm just proud they did something.....because there are many times when people don't...even when an opportunity presents itself...for whatever reasons...

Right but when that moment ends...THAT is where people diverge and some act and some don't.

KFC: Most people cannot spell 'tactical Training' much less having a use for it. I suspect a ‘tactical advantage’ is just as foreign too.  Let me play devil’s advocate here: (I am good at that you know, hehehe)

I believe in humanity and do not have a problem defending it, even at the cost of my own life (I like to think so anyway). I am tactically trained and very comfortable around weapons and agree that a headlong death play is not a good thing, except under very special conditions. It doesn’t take long to get to the point where … but you have got to have the time. I have found from experience that people respond to immediate life threatening circumstances in one of 3 ways:

• They run,
• They freeze or
• They fight.

None of these responses are concerned with active thought (not enough time) and thoughts only come into play once one of these 3 conditions are met. When this happens and circumstances allow you, one can override their ‘gut reaction’ and bring the brain back into active play … and proceed.

No one sane walks into these types of situations and most would never even consider them possible after all … It couldn’t happen to them anyway, Could it? I agree “might make right” is always a good thing to keep in the mind, but there are other things to be considered too … if one HAS TIME.

tova7:

I cannot recall your second story (my problem not yours) so I cannot comment on it. The first story has been re-analyzed enough IMO. Food for thought- "Most heroes do not want to be one and most people who flaunt their heroism ... aren't". Hum, not sure if that applies here, but it sounded good to me, hehehe.