I intend no unfair criticism of the dear lady killed in this incident, but let's face the facts -- she made a fatal and tragic error. If you choose to carry a gun, you MUST know how to control it and it MUST be IN YOUR CONTROL AT ALL TIMES. The manual safety/no manual safety is a pure red herring. DAO autos are as safe as DA revolvers to the individual who knows how to handle one; allow a rambunctious 2-year-old access to either and all bets are off. I see women in Walmart and elsewhere every day who leave their bags unattended in their shopping carts. Whether they have guns in there or not is irrelevant; it's a bad idea.

Part of the problem, I am sure, is the compulsion many women seem to feel to carry huge bags loaded with Lord-knows-what-all. While on vacation last summer, and after a long day walking around Freeport, Maine, my wife complained that her back was hurting. I suggested that perhaps this was caused by her gi-mongous shoulder bag, and she responded that she only carried the stuff she needed. I challenged her to show me everything in her bag that she had ACTUALLY USED within the past year. There were car keys, wallet, sunglasses, a small pack of tissues, a hair brush -- and that was about it. The result -- I got ragged in to buying her a bag 1/4 the size of her old one -- and her backache was gone for good. Small price to pay!

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Pisgah