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I almost hesitate to post this for fear of detailing the thread, but I guess we've been meandering for a while.

So, I tried to call Smith & Wesson earlier today for a pretty routine service inquiry that I've been putting off for a while. A recording informed me that their customer service offices would be closed starting today and ending on August 13th. I poked around on their website for a while, but couldn't find any mention of a closure. I could very well be missing something obvious or being naive or something, but it seems kind of weird for a major corporation to shut down customer service for two weeks without any advance notice or explanation.

I don't want to read too much into it, but the only thing that I can think of by way of explanation is that their name is getting tossed around in the press a lot recently (and not generally in a charitable fashion). I guess it could be related to the fallout from this incident.

Has anyone else heard anything about this or anything?

JJVP wrote:Will Smith take on Colorado tragedy. Surprising coming from a Hollywood actor.

http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/video/ ... o-tragedy/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I was completely shocked when I realized that he's actually quite a talented actor.

I'm now equally shocked that he's willing to break with the normal Hollywood ideological lockstep. Good for him.

This one hits closer to home than a lot of other spree shootings I've seen on the news, for some reason. I guess I've always been able to find some sort of twisted logic in the choice of target before, but this just seems almost completely random. Really reinforces the idea that there's a very, very small, but nonzero, probability of a shooter targeting any event or location.

Even considering the time zone difference, I was probably sitting in a Cinemark theater watching the exact same movie when this happened. I wasn't carrying, primarily because I came straight from work (I can't carry or have a weapon in the car there - it's a federal facility). Actually, even if I hadn't, it's about a 50/50 chance that I would've been carrying; I've gotten pretty complacent about it, both because my work situation makes it inconvenient, and because it's something that I still haven't completely "gotten used to," which makes me pretty self-conscious and even a little uncomfortable when I do carry. Even a non-30.06 sign is enough to dissuade me, and I don't usually go to the trouble to find a non-posted alternative. I guess it's time to get over that.

I agree with those who have made the point that, from a tactical perspective, this one was pretty much a Kobayashi Maru scenario. It would be pointless to try to speculate about what I would have done in that situation without knowing exactly what happened, but at least having a weapon with me wouldn't have hurt. Even if my plan was to just hit the dirt and crawl to an exit, having something to fight back with if the guy happened to stumble across me while I was doing so doesn't seem to have a downside. Since he was all kitted out in kevlar, it might not have made a difference in the outcome for me, but that gear doesn't make you magically invulnerable, and the loss of breath/bruises/possible cracked ribs might have at least slowed him down enough for a few more people to make it out. Kind of a depressing train of thought, but true.