Patrick Ivers
noraivers@juno.com
I will correct Luke Tilley in his op-ed that the “good guy with a gun,” sheriff’s deputy Blaine Gaskill, used his gun to shoot and kill Austin Rollins – “an incident in which only two students were wounded before the shooting was put to an end by a not-so-mythical ‘good guy with a gun’” – ending the attack on a Maryland high school, in which a critically-wounded female student died a few days later, since Rollins actually fatally shot himself. The bad guy with a gun killed himself, as often happens in mass murders, so that the good guy with a gun neither prevented the shooting nor killed the bad guy.
Thought experiment. Invite 40 pro-gun Second-Amendment people who believe that a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun to participate at an event inside a large auditorium to which they may bring as many fully-loaded weapons as they choose, concealed in one way or another (inside clothing or backpacks), as well as body armor (e.g., bullet-proof vest) so long as they arrive appearing to be ordinary unarmed citizens. Since most of these volunteers will be white males, the event planners will make sure that a few participants are females and minorities of various ethnicities, including African Americans, Arabs, and Latinos. Once everyone is assembled, all strangers to one another, the participants will be informed that among them is a criminal, a murderer who is scheduled for execution, who also is armed with firearms and a bomb. The one bad guy has the incentive of having been guaranteed his freedom if he can escape the auditorium alive and set off his explosive device. Of the several doors to the outside, all but one are locked; the unlocked door is unidentified. In addition to permitting any participant to fire his/her weapon if s/he feels threatened – “stand your ground” – the rules allow anyone to shoot someone attempting to flee the room, since that person might be the criminal in the act of detonating the bomb. Tables and chairs and refreshments, including alcohol, are available for everyone to enjoy. Would you be willing to be inside that auditorium? Would you feel safer under these circumstances if 39 people carrying guns are socializing together in the company of one very bad, desperate individual?
