http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/exclusive-westgate-interpol-chief-ponders-armed-citizenry/story?id=20637341

"Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble said today the U.S. and the rest of the democratic world is at a security crossroads in the wake of last month's deadly al-Shabab attack at a shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya – and suggested an answer could be in arming civilians."

Do we wait until it happens here or do we do something in advance?

Ise Mise we you and I have been arm wrestling in another thread about this very subject.
Know my friend I am no Green/Left activist.
Not an anti gun nut.
Have been a sporting shooter, now not against them but no longer one.
I wrestle with my thoughts for and against shooting feral animals in park country.
Know National Parks in some areas pays its workers over time to shoot Rabbits, and the occasional feral cat.
But in my view, the chances of us becoming another USA is zero.
I do not EVER want to know the angry/criminal/or just plain mad can have a gun, destroying our freedom to walk the streets in the rather weird idea that guns protect us.

You would have to say that is a pretty fair admission that the cops are no longer up to the job of protecting the public.

They could do the job if we were prepared to pay enough money to hire enough of than, but we aren't.

We would also have to get rid of all the political correctness, that stops then calling a spade a spade, or a negro a negro when putting out a warning. Fat chance there I guess.

If we armed Australian civilians "for self-protection", I'm pretty sure we'd all be safer moving to Kenya.

It might work, though how you could know escapes me... the half-dozen or so al-Shabab terrorists in Nairobi, Kenya were patently amateurs to take days to murder some 60 civilians.

Sandy Hook, by comparison, showed how a single US mass-shooter can take about half an hour to murder nearly half as many 'soft targets'.

But I have no objection if Ronald Noble's USA wishes to pursue this course of action as an experiment on behalf of other nations. After all they have the pre-existing legislative frameworks as well as the chains of supply in place to easily enable the arming of the remainder of the citizenry who are not so already.

I predict that their court systems would quickly fill with expensive claims against armed civilians for innocent bystanders injured or killed in any attempted interdiction's crossfire.

Can't see public liability insurance coping with the potential fallout. There could be though a distraction away from global warming - to instead worrying about the sort of heat people were 'packing'

Well said Belly.
Guns have their place, but not in the average suburban citizen's home.

We only have to look at the US to see what happens when anyone can access any gun.
Any gun lovers can move there...