A former missile man on protecting the control room
Steven (no last name given) writes in response to my post about protecting the control room. He says that when he was in the Air Force working missile fields, the two missile launch controllers were armed. (Actually I did know this, but for the sake of the argument I was making, I postulated a situation in which they were not.)

Steven says,

. . .both crew members of a Minuteman site had sidearms in case one crew member went crazy, the other one was supposed to shoot him. The guns were locked in a safe in the capsule and passed from crew to crew during shift change. Don't know if they still do this. Air crews need the same thing, a gun safe in the cockpit with a .44 Special loaded with low velocity hollow points. Good stopping power and they won't go through the planes skin.

Good point Steven, and thanks for reading and writing!