Good Guy With a Gun

Assuming what we've heard so far is accurate, Stephen Willeford and Johnnie Langendorff are a brave men. Willeford heard gunshots from the church next door this past Sunday, grabbed his gun and ran toward the gunfire, shooting the man who had just killed 26 people in the church. He and Langendorff then pursued the killer in Langendorff's pickup, running him off the road and then waited until law enforcement arrived. They did what a lot of people like to think that they'd do in a similar situation. Most people believe that they will be heroic in dangerous scenarios, but you never really know what you'll do until you are right in the middle of it. These two stepped up and did what needed to be done. At the same time their actions confirmed what many gun owners believe: that a "good guy with a gun" will neutralize a "bad guy with a gun", and the answer to mass shootings is not to limit or restrict gun ownership, but to expand it, so everyone has a gun. In this case further bloodshed may very well have been prevented, but 26 people still died before the killer was stopped. There still wasn't a happy ending. Perhaps, gun advocates might argue, if someone inside the church was armed, it could have been prevented altogether.

Maybe. There have been other situations where armed bystanders did what most people do: ran and hid. There have been situations where citizens have drawn their guns, causing confusion for law enforcement. And to bring up a sore subject, since black men seem to get shot if the police suspect that they are armed, let alone have drawn a weapon, what happens when the police arrive and find a black "good guy with a gun"?

I don't pretend to know what the answer is. I can guarantee that the answer won't be simple and that nothing can prevent all shootings. But we sure need to talk about finding a solution. We don't even have good data to base a solution on because NRA influence in Congress has caused most research into gun violence to be suppressed. We can pontificate about immigration and "extreme vetting" 10 minutes after a Muslim kills people while shouting "God is great" in Arabic, but it's always too soon to talk about gun legislation.

Part of the problem is the army of strawmen that the NRA and their allies deploy. No one is suggesting repealing the Second Amendment, no one is demanding that the government "come for our guns", no one is suggesting that law-abiding gun owners be punished. Yet this is what many gun owners argue against, when few, if any, legislators are suggesting anything like that.

Mass killings are becoming the new normal. What are we going to do about it? Let's start with recognizing that something needs to be done.