The Luby's Massacre
Consider the story of Dr. Suzanna Gratia-Hupp. One afternoon in 1991, she and her parents were having lunch at the Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas. Out of the blue, a man drove his truck through the front window of the restaurant, stepped out of the vehicle, and then began casually strolling around the restaurant shooting people.
Not long earlier, a friend had given her a handgun for which she had received training. Immediately after the shooting started, her dad turned a table on its side to use as a partial shield. As she watched the gunman walking through the restaurant about 15 feet from her, she realized she was in a good position to take a clean shot at him. She reached down to her purse to get her gun when he was looking in another direction.
Then her heart sank as she realized that her gun wouldn't be there. At that time, it was illegal to carry a concealed weapon in Texas, and when she had realized she was breaking the law, (being the good law-abiding citizen she was) she had taken the gun out of her purse and put it into her car's glove compartment—a hundred yards out in the parking lot, and totally useless to her now. She later said that was the stupidest, most costly mistake she ever made.
When her father realized everyone in the restaurant was about to die, he heroically rushed the gunman; that distraction was enough to allow Suzanna and some other customers to escape through a broken window. Her father was shot in his tracks, and her mother executed soon after, while sobbing over her dying husband.
