Where Right-wing Talking Points Go To Die

Repeating a pithy slogan doesn't make it any more true

If we’ve heard it once from Wayne LaPierre and other Proudly Closed-Minded Gun Control advocates, we’ve heard it a thousand times, right?

“The ONLY thing that beats a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”

Ah, would that such a simplistic statement were true, eh? Because it would certainly make the debate over guns easier. Proudly Closeed-minded Gun Control Foes would have a 24-karat gold slogan they could rely on, and perhaps we could formulate sensible gun policies from there.

Unfortunately for everyone concerned, that slogan, while it sounds good, is nowhere near being true. The mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, TX , is merely the latest example. Armed police (the good guys) waited outside the classroom where the shooter (the bad guy) was holed up and killing students and teachers. They waited for something like an hour…and then the feds went in ahead of them.

Yes, good guys with guns may have eventually killed the shooter, but they certainly didn’t beat him. He killed 19 students and two teachers before he was killed, so advantage shooter.

The problem with LaPierre’s theory is that it presumes that, when faced with a deadly force situation, will react appropriately to dispatch a bad guy with a gun. But you can never account for how someone might react in that sort of situation until they’re actually faced with it. If you are faced with a deadly force situation that calls for you to fire your weapon at a shooter with the intent to kill, could you do it?

Most people will say, “Sure, of course I would.” But until you’re staring down the barrel of your gun and feeling the stress the moral quandary of possibly taking another person’s life, how can you possibly know what you’d do?

Certainly, there’s every possibility that you (the good guy) would do the right thing. You’d correctly identify the situation, take dead aim, pull the trigger, and bring down the shooter (the bad guy). But then you’d probably find yourself dealing the the not insignifcant consequences of taking the life of another human being.

Or would you freeze in the moment? You certainly wouldn’t be the first. Studies show that in combat, 20% of soldiers- professionals trained to kill- don’t fire their weapons.

You can’t know how you’d react until you find yourself in that moment, which hopefully you never will. I can pick up a handgun and immediately know what to do with it and how to use it, but even I have no idea how I’d react.

“The ONLY thing that beats a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”

Really? As if.

As if the equation were that simple. I’ve handled and fired weapons, so at least I have some familiarity with handguns and rifles. Most Americans, though, have never handled, much less fired any sort of weapon.

Killing, for someone who isn’t a psychopath, isn’t an easy choice. Nor is it an easy act to carry out. Wayne LaPierre’s dictum is far too simplistic and not nearly reflective enough of the moral dilemma involved in killing another human being and the lack of experience most Americans have with guns.

If we ever reach a place where killing is easy and commonplace, we as a society are in real trouble. We should be grateful for the moral quandary created by the opportunity to take the life of another human, but it also means we can’t know how we might react if or when presented with the opportunity.

Let’s hope we never have that opportunity.

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