Things I don't understand about America's relationship with guns

By now you've probably heard about the horrific shooting of 4 police officers in a Washington state coffee shop. As if it's not bad enough that you have to put your life on the line for a bunch of ungrateful (and often dumbass) strangers every day, now if you're a police man, you're going to be watching your back while you're sipping a latte with your family. Horrible.

My sympathies aside, on my way back from the gym this morning I was listening to an NPR report on the aftermath of the shootings. The reporter was interviewing locals and getting their reaction to the tragedy and he came across one man, a taxi driver, who had this to say (and I paraphrase): "I think more people should carry guns... and be ready."

Um...I'm sorry. WHAT!?

Help me understand this America, please, coz Lord knows my English powers of logic are failing me here.

Four trained, armed police officers were sitting in a coffee shop, minding their own beeswax and, despite their on-the-job experience and years of training, were unable to pull their guns out of their holsters in time to protect themselves from this random lunatic. How EXACTLY would you, Mr. Taxi Driver, fair better under the same circumstances with a pistol in your pocket?

Is the argument that if other by-standers in the coffee shop had seen the gunman and were armed, they could have perhaps taken him down before he made his way through all four cops? Because that sounds suspiciously like a gunfight at the OK Corale to me. Maybe two of the cops would have been given time to pull out their guns if the barista had dropped the frothy milk and brandished a shot gun but then maybe the little 3 year old girl sitting with her mother and her hot chocolate would have got a bullet in the head instead.

The circular argument that, because some people have guns more people should have guns, just seems like the ramblings of a bunch of lunatics to me. And I'm sorry if you're pro-gun, I just can't get my head around this stuff, even after 15 years of living in this place.