“Three American doctors were killed Thursday morning when an Afghan police officer turned his gun on them at a private hospital in Kabul,” nytimes,com reports, “an attack that underscored the growing frustration with the Western presence here a decade after the war began.” Yes, well, notice the sign smack-dab in the middle of the pic above. Given that, I’m thinking it was also an attack that underscored the inadvisability of creating a “gun-free” zone – especially in a war zone. But not exclsuively. More than a few TTAG readers are doctors. Armed doctors (despite hospital policies). And for good reason (154 hospital-related shooting events in 12 years). So here’s how this one went down . . .
A government official said the police officer, Ainuddin, a two-year veteran of the department, had only recently been assigned to the unit guarding the hospital. Witnesses and officials said he fired on the doctors when they entered a security vestibule at the entrance of the building, killing three of the male doctors and wounding a female doctor. The attacker then entered the interior courtyard, where he continued to fire at foreigners.
Other officers were reported to have wounded the gunman before he could kill anyone else, although one security official said the guard had shot himself.
In this case, he did not. The guard is in custody. So how many more people would he have been shot if Ainuddin hadn’t faced armed opposition. By the same token, how many fewer people would he have shot if he’d faced that armed opposition earlier? Say, if one or all of those doctors had been armed? Sadly, we’ll never know. [h/t ropingdown]