Good guys with guns

Rosanne Cash, who has been active in her opposition to gun proliferation and in favor of domestic arms restrictions, is a fine essayist and short story writer, as well. At her Facebook page today, she did a long post on this topic. And it includes a good debunking of the insane idea routinely promoted by gun proliferation advocates that the answer to gun violence and mass shootings is for everyone to carry loaded guns at all times:

Several years later, my precious daughter, Chelsea, was held up at gunpoint in the jewelry store where she worked. The gunmen held her for twenty minutes. I'm so grateful she was not killed and I'm also so acutely aware that the difference between me and the moms carrying the photos on the march is a split second. Do NOT tell me that Chelsea 'should have had a gun.' If she had, she'd be dead. She is not physically or mentally able to coolly aim a gun at someone who is already pointing a gun at HER, and fire sharp-shooter style at another human being while terror-stricken. Nor am I. Nor are millions of other people.

The logic that 'if more law-abiding citizens had guns, there would be fewer mass shootings' is confounding to the point of nihilism. What's the end game? Every first grade teacher should have a gun in her desk to prevent another massacre like Newtown? Every pastor in his pulpit? Every movie-goer, mall shopper, night club patron and mom pushing a stroller, until we are reduced to anarchy and violence in every social venue of this country? [my emphasis]

This is an interesting report from The Young Turks on a real-life situation on a would-be "good guy with a gun" at the Oregon college where last week's now-routine mass shooting occurred, Two Amazing Acts Of Heroism During Umpqua College Shooting 10/02/2015:

In that clip, the Young Turks team refer to this incident of a presumed "good guy with a gun" from a week ago: Witness Who Fired on Carjackers Sought After Northwest Houston Attack ABC 13 09/27/2015; One man is injured after a carjacking and shooting at a gas station in north Houston Saturday night KHOU.com 09/27/2015.