In Degeneration, Leon is shown to ignore standard procedure in favor of what works. So why is Claire, who is more experienced and probably a better shot than the two squad members with him, not immediately given a gun?
She doesn't want one. When Leon throws her his pistol in the airport, she gives it back to him as soon as she can.
We're given the impression that since Code: Veronica, Claire simply hasn't been in combat—so she's hardly going to be "more experienced and probably a better shot" than two career soldiers, except inasmuch as she's dealt with zombies before. In any case, Claire's deliberately and consciously taken on the role of a healer and caretaker more than a fighter. She'll fight when she has to, but prefers not to.
This would explain her work with Terra Save in Revelations 2...
While the whole "chosen to be pacifist" thing is a very good natured choice in most situations, it's a goddamn outbreak! she took down several zombies in seconds while holding a small child with a few well placed shots and a kick, the whole "I don't want to use a gun" argument doesn't hold water when the other option is a bunch of rotting former humans with a hankering for human flesh munching your face off. Its the same thing with barrys daughter in revelations, while true she has a problem with guns due to the accident (read RE:R2 for the accident) not having a firearm in a situation with monsters is just plain stupid, i'd have taken my spare gun handed it to her and just went "listen, save the whole non-combatant crap for when we aren't about to be eaten."
A) Nobody cares what you would've done in that situation.
B) She's focused on taking care of Rani, not kicking ass, and taking care of Rani doesn't require a gun. Claire would've made it out of the airport without firing a shot if not for the senator.
In all honesty I'm inclined to agree with three above here, its a survival situation, they lost a man and if Leon hadn't had his backup gun, she would have been possibly screwed, as the gun throwing scene shows she is far more competent with a gun than anyone except Leon, Angela despite seeing all Leon dispatch zombies spends almost the entire Airport Scenario still kneecapping Zombies rather than taking a headshot, which while hard to overcome training for centre mass shots a headshot is in general the next step in dealing with resisting violent aggressors, at least carrying the spare gun as a "just in case" so that Leon wouldn't have had to throw her one would have made a little more sense.
Claire is a outbreak survivor, an extra gunner would have been very useful, she could fire a gun one-handed without much issue, she could hold Ranis' hand no problem while having a gun, Leon only threw his gun in the first place because he knew he had a backup, what if he didn't? Pacifism is all very well and good until it has a chance to get someone killed, at least she seemed to have wised up more in Revelations 2, picking up a gun as soon as she was able.
The issue is actually a bit of Truth in Television, even the most ardent pacifists, wouldn't even pick up a stick to defend themselves in a bad situation, and as is pointed out, keep a good head on and quick reflexes and zombies aren't that much of an issue, the plan was to pick off most of them and run through, zombies being far to slow to give much of a chase, it only becomes a problem when people react like they do in most zombie media and either back themselves into a corner or just stare dumbstruck.
What was with the infected guy on the plane? Who infected him in the first place? Why was he infected?
Probably a whistle-blower, he seemed to want to get a message out rather urgently, probably details of Frederic's plan, infected so he wouldn't be able to, or He was probably infected as part of the plan to infect the airport, and got a guilty conscience as he was turning.
Why does Angela and Greg completely dismiss Leon's warning about zombies? The whole Raccoon City thing, while fuzzy on the details, by now there are several groups in play dedicated to fighting B.O.Ws, hell, the start of the movie shows people protesting with pictures of zombies, this isn't some unknown threat, in the RE universe, people use B.O.Ws like the real world terrorists use bombs, it's only after they encounter zombies in their face do they take it seriously.
It seems like public knowledge of the actual details of the Raccoon City Incident isn't well known, so they might be aware that T makes humans aggressive and cannibalistic, but don't really know or at least believe it's actually creating zombies, look at the scene in the helicopter, they seem actively sceptical that shooting infected in the head is the only way to deal with them, remember they are police officers, not soldiers, being told "shoot anyone groaning and shambling in the head" is probably a big thing to deal with, when their first instinct is to deter and subdue, not kill.
