In any event, I am enjoying the attention, praise and credit that Kimberly Munley is getting today for her courage and skill in bringing down the shooter who killed 13 at the Texas military base yesterday. Munley, 34, is an expert in firearms and a member of Fort Hood's civilian police department, where she is on the S.W.A.T. team.
Munley was off duty when she heard on the police radio about the shooter. As she arrived at the center where the shootings were occurring, Munley spotted the gunman outside the building, where he was chasing a wounded solider. James C. McKinley, Jr., describes what happenened next in his NYT story:
Sergeant Munley bolted from her car and shot at Major Hasan. He turned toward her and began to fire. She ran toward him, continuing to fire, and both she and the gunmen went down with several bullet wounds, Mr. Medley said.
* * *
Sergeant Munley joined the police force on the sprawling base in January 2008 after a career in the Army. Mr. Medley described her as highly trained, and said she had received specific training in a tactic called active shooter protocol, which was intended for the kind of situation she encountered on Thursday.
Munley suffered five gunshot wounds in the encounter, but she is in stable condition. Read the entire NYT story about Munley here.
I'm very much pro gun control, particularly with regards to citizens as opposed to police (I wish we could be like England but I think gun-less police would just be a total disaster), but I have to say, guns are the great equalizer when it comes to police or military and women. Women can train physically and be in better physical shape than some men, but in the end our physiology works against us. Guns level the playing field by allowing women the exact same power to wield as men have. Of course, I do not know the facts as to whether or not women can handle the same size guns as men or if that is still a handicap, but I'd say any gun is better than no gun at all. A great example of this is the movie _Fargo_, where a woman police officer brings down a man three times her size with just her gun. I feel that in this regard, although guns should not be held by untrained citizens, guns can provide women with a great deal of power they would otherwise be lacking.
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