A Good Guy With a Gun?

One of the frequent talking points of pro-gun advocates is that the best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. 

 

Apparently Broward County deputy Scot Peterson was not that good guy with a gun.

 

Peterson was a resource officer assigned to Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland FL. When Nikolas Cruz opened fire, killing 17 students and staffers and injuring more than a dozen others, Peterson opted to shield himself outside the building instead of charging in and confronting the gunman.

 

Here’s what Li’l Donnie Trump, our Moron in Chief, had to say about that.

 

”When it came time to get in there and do something he didn’t have the courage, or something happened, but he certainly did a poor job.”

“A security guard doesn’t know the children, doesn’t love the children.” 

”They didn’t react properly under pressure or they were a coward.” 

 

Of course, Cadet Bone Spurs has experience dealing with gun fire, right? 

 

Peterson was suspended and he later resigned.

 

Is Peterson a coward? Did he just not love the children enough?

 

Whatever was up with Scot Peterson, it does underscore the whole weakness of relying on a “good guy with a gun” as an effective counter to “a bad guy with a gun”. 

 

There are two forces at work when one is dealing with gun fire.

 

One is instinct. When one hears or encounters gunfire, the instinct is to duck. The instinct for self-preservation does not lend itself easily to running towards gunfire. Even a brave person is going to first react to make sure they’re not getting shot.

 

The other force at work is training. Do you know what soldiers and police officers are trained to do in a hostile gunfire situation? Duck! Seek cover, assess the situation and then you fire back.

 

That is not to say they’re not truly selfless people who will defy instinct and training to immediately hurl themselves in harm’s way in the protection of innocents. But let’s admit that is a truly exceptional type of human being and even for their selflessness, could still wind up dead. Nikolas Cruz could have just as easily killed  18 students and staffers if Scot Peterson had immediately thrown himself in harm’s way without a plan or a clear understanding of the situation. Peterson himself could’ve added to the death toll himself if while firing at the shooter, he did not have a clear line of sight on the shooter. 

 

Or maybe Scot Peterson was just a coward who didn’t love children.

 

I’m thinking more likely that Peterson is at home, kicking himself for freezing in a moment of crisis, 17 deaths on his conscience and a bloviating moron calling him out as a uncaring coward. 

 

The thing is, people are messy, complicated things. We never know exactly how we’ll react in a crisis. I would like to think I would be a strong hero who plunges towards danger to protect innocent lives. More likely, I would behind a wall, hiding with Scot Peterson. 

 

We do know exactly what a gun can do. When you pull the trigger, a gun expels a piece of metal at a high rate of speed that can explode a human heart, shred human lungs or shatter a human skull.

 

We may not know what we’re going to get from people but we damn well know what we can get from a gun.

 

Is it too much to think that maybe the best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is to work to keep the bad guy from having a gun? Maybe that’s wishful thinking. But no more so than the heroic fantasy of a bad guy with a gun being stopped by a good guy with a gun.