A WalMart.  In freaking TEXAS!  Six minutes before meaningful police response.  I don’t want to hear about proportions of Hispanics in that city and WalMart or any other nonsense.  We are talking about a WalMart in Texas.  There WERE armed civilians present on a crowded Saturday morning and that’s a fact.  More on the details later.

The NRA sponsored “Good Guy With A Gun” response to mass shootings has always been unmitigated bullshit.  El Paso and Dayton exposed it as such, and illustrated the obvious (to every other developed country in the world) insanity of the worship of weapons of war in the hands of civilians that exists in the United States.

Let’s start with some numbers.  13 hours.  2 mass shootings/murders in two different cities.  A combined 31 (so far) dead, and another 51 injured.

Both of the murderers used military style assault weapons — semi-automatic versions which can still put out a lot of rounds “rapid fired” in a very short amount of time.  They aren’t the first to do this of course, and sickeningly they won’t be the last because millions of such weapons are in circulation in this country.  Also, the variants of the M-16 (one of which was used in Dayton — the murderer in El Paso used an AK variant) are especially lethal because their significant higher muzzle velocity produces several times more wound cavitation than the AK but that’s getting into different territory than that I want to focus on. (Yes, semi-auto handguns are also capable of putting out an appalling rate of lethal fire if the person shooting them has practice rapid magazine changes but handgun rounds aren’t as devastating as those from assault rifles.)

The “thoughts and prayers” crowd have long pushed the concept the NRA has told them to push (and does itself btw) which is (they claim) that the only way to reduce the threat of kids being killed in schools, or people at public gatherings like fairs, festivals or shopping malls is for everyone to be armed.  Worse, they came up with their appalling bumper sticker type slogan to “market” their bullshit”:

“The Only Thing That Stops A Bad Guy With A Gun Is A Good Guy With A Gun” 

Leaving aside the sexist nature of that particular marketing campaign (and don’t kid yourselves — the NRA markets heavily to women and with more success than you might think) the idea they have been selling is that regular folks who just happen to be “packing” (carrying a gun) can jump in and save the day before a mass shooting/murder gets to the “mass” part.  That NRA created and promoted argument is and always has been unmitigated bullshit despite their attempts to sell it in their publications which (used to at least) ALWAYS have a section titled “The Armed Citizen” providing examples (with little or no sourcing btw) of people defending their homes against intruders.  Or, more rarely outside the confines of their home.  However to the best of my knowledge there aren’t or haven’t been any examples of “regular folks” charging in and successfully “taking out” a mass shooter/murderer like the ones we had this weekend and in so many prior incidents.  There are reasons for that which I’ll get to.
But for the moment I want to again emphasize that the whole “Good Guy With A Gun” line is unmitigated bullshit
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It’s a lie and always has been.  Worse, those who created and marketed it know that’s the case.

This weekend exposed the grand lie the NRA has been pushing both themselves and via the major political Party (the GOP) they’ve bought and paid for.  One could go back and analyze other mass shootings/murders but what happened this weekend brings the issue front & center and shines a glaring spotlight on the NRA sponsored myth.

Let’s start with El Paso.  Yes, I know it’s a multi-cultural city with a much larger than average minority population.  It also has a long history of being a safe city, and the reality on the ground doesn’t square at all with the Stephen Miller inspired rhetoric Trump spews forth about it and other border cities.  However, even if many came in from out of town Trump drew a crowd for a rally there (and predictably he’s stiffed the city on the bill for the extra security) and he’s got support there.  Also as I’ve noted this mass murder took place in a freaking WalMart.  I’ve lived in both small town and urban America and like anyone who’s been to a WalMart I can assure you that Trump voters, including and especially his hard-core “alienated & pissed off about their lives” base frequent WalMarts wherever they are including in metro areas including in Texas.  Even in El Paso.  Texas also is a poster child for gun worship.  Open carry and concealed carry zealots are right at home in Texas.  If not nirvana for them and their gun-toting swagger it’s damned close.  Texas also happens to be the second most populous state in the country and has long been a red state when it comes to voting.    IOW in a crowded WalMart on a Saturday morning & on a tax holiday just as surely as water is wet and the sky is blue there were people (civilians) packing handguns including at least a few Trump lovers.  Even in El Paso.

From the post shooting/murder analysis I’ve seen it took six minutes for the police to respond.  If that doesn’t sound like much time, put on a movie or TV show with continuous shooting (say the first part of Saving Private Ryan) and with the volume cranked up use the timer on your smart phone to see how long a time that is to be listening to gunfire in a relatively enclosed space where you might be trapped.  Imagine the adrenaline coursing through your body as you try and figure out what to do to save your life and/or that of any loved ones with you.  Trust me — it’s a long, long time.  Now imagine you’re a good ole Texan guy or gal who ain’t lettin no damn gubmint or librul types to tell you to leave your trusty gun at home.  In the situation I’ve described.  Feeling the things a person in that frightening and life threatening setting surely feels.  What do you do?

This might surprise you but I’m going to defend the “armed citizens” there during those terrifying minutes because they did exactly what they should do.  They either found a safe route away from danger and out of the store or a good hiding place — and some of them even helped others to do so.  What they did NOT do was whip out their GUN and go rushing off trying to play hero and cause more panic and chaos — perhaps even unintentionally causing innocent people to flee THEM, the mythical “good guy with a gun.  After all, in a situation like that how is anyone supposed to know it’s really a “good guy with a gun” or the shooter(s)?  Think about how easy it would be for someone trying to flee to see someone running towards them with their GUN out and not knowing whether it was really a “good guy with a gun” or someone about to kill them.  And to run the other way and worse, into the path of the person(s) who really is there solely to murder people?  IOW those present in that WalMart who were armed reacted exactly like they should have.  Responsibly.  They kept their guns holstered and sought out safety and maybe helped others do so.

What they did NOT do was go charging off trying to be heroes and making the job of police responders that much more difficult.

Six (plus) minutes is a long time.  As I just said we should be thankful those civilians present who were armed didn’t go making a dangerously bad situation worse by adding to the panic of those fleeing and describing THEM as the possible shooter/murderer.    If cornered by the shooter would they have attempted to defend themselves?  Probably, although it’s not nearly so easy as it looks on TV and in the movies.  Even well trained people miss their target.  And with your blood pumping high doses of adrenaline through your body your perception of whether someone with a long gun (rifle — and LE carries assault rifles sometimes instead of shotguns) you might not realize it’s a cop in front of you.  You might wind up shooting at a cop, and/or have them shooting you — they might be trained but their adrenaline is pumping too &  sudden movement of a gun coming up to point at them is quite enough for them to shoot.

So, to sum it up for over six minutes this murderous asshole with an assault weapon walked up and down the aisles in a WalMart killing and wounding people.  If I had to guess he probably ran out of targets due to the layout of such a store allowing people cover to flee or hide.  Finally, I would be interested to see footage from the store cameras of his actual arrest.  I saw a pic of him standing casually (albeit in handcuffs) outside with police, and later in the police car and there wasn’t a mark on him.  Compare that to non-white guys arrested in gun related incidents where the guy in handcuffs is lying on the ground (perhaps beaten and bloodied in the process of cuffing him even when he doesn’t resist) and sometimes even shot and dying.  But that’s a different topic worthy of lots of discussion & I want this diary to stay on point, which is that in OVER six minutes where there WERE regular citizens who were armed, where the NRA’s “good guys/gals with a gun” not a one of them went hunting for the shooter.  Instead they did the right thing and cleared out & left things to law enforcement professionals and other first responders.

Now let’s look at Dayton.  This was out in the open at a popular nightlife spot.  Again we had a murderous shooter well prepared with an assault weapon and lots of ammo and plenty of people he could kill.  This time however local LE was close by.  While accounts I’ve read vary by a second or two roughly 30 seconds (perhaps as much as 32) went by from the time the shooter started murdering people until he was down — fatally wounded by local police.    Not that thirty seconds can’t be an eternity for someone in the killing zone but that’s every bit as good a response (and from professionals with actual training) as people can hope for.  LE was responding and going after the shooter every bit as fast as a “good guy with a gun” would have been able to do.  Think I’m wrong about that?  Ok NRA types who might read this.  Riddle me this:

Imagine you and your trusty GUN (this was Ohio so it was concealed carry) tucked away “just in case” and you’re out partying (btw WTF are you doing carrying a weapon if you’re also out drinking at the local hotspot?) and it’s 1am.  You hear gunshots.  It will take a few seconds to register it’s actual gunshots (even if you see the shooter) and experience the WTF? sensations and then the adrenaline hits you like a ton of bricks.  Then you have to take a few MORE seconds just to settle down and start figuring out what to do including (probably) fighting (if you manage to do so successfully) the instinct to duck for cover.  Precious more seconds go by as you decide whether to engage the shooter and how — while you are drawing your handgun and perhaps fumbling a bit since you’re probably not trained for this and real life is NOT paper targets shaped like people.  Your handgun in the moment will seem pitifully small compared to that assault rifle.    You weigh your options.  Do you charge right at the shooter with gun blazing like the folks on TV/in movies?  Do you try to engage him from behind some type of cover?  Do you think to scan around for a few seconds to see if he’s the only one shooting?  Ok — finally you have decided on a course of action and odds are it took you a good thirty seconds at least.  Probably significantly more if you were at the spot with friends or loved ones and also understandably give in to the very human instinct to make sure they are ok and as safe as possible under the circumstances.  Even if you’ve been in the military and faced enemy fire you aren’t going to do all that in thirty seconds.  Perhaps not in even a minute, and with every second that goes by common sense is telling you to either hunker down or look for an escape route and wait for the police to show up.  So, for any gun rights “everyone should be armed” person reading this I challenge you to consider what I just wrote — and CLAIM you’d be responding and taking down the shooter inside 30 seconds.    Or even a minute or more.  Once upon a time I was an active duty jarhead.  Infantry but I was also attached to an MP unit for a good while.  I’m smart enough to know the training and skills I had then are perishable, and quickly.  It takes serious and repeated training to develop and maintain the motor skills (to fire accurately) and decision making skills needed to be effective in a live fire situation.

In Dayton, in 30 seconds the shooter murdered 9 (so far) people and wounded another 27.  Thankfully the police were very close by and even though the murderer was wearing body armor the police neutralized him, killing him in the process.    The point however is that because the police were so close when the shooting started they were able to intervene and confront the murderer and stop him cold every bit as fast or faster than any “good guy with a gun.”  And the murderer STILL was able to kill 9 people and wound 27 more.  We can all hope that what happened in El Paso where the deaths moved from 20 to 22 that none of the other individuals in Dayton (or El Paso) who were wounded succumb to their injuries and die.

I’ll take this to the next step and speculate.  In a crowd that size, even though they shouldn’t have been drinking while at the same time exercising their precious “right” to concealed carry odds are there WERE in fact some “good guys/gals” with guns present at the Dayton scene.  As in Texas they didn’t “go forth unto the breach” but instead showed the good judgement to seek cover or a safe (relatively) escape route and hope LE responded quickly.  Just as they should have done.

Again I will state that some civilian drawing their handgun in such a chaotic situation such as a mass shooting creates even more chaos and is more likely to cause additional death and injury than if they use good judgement and find as safe a space as possible while waiting for law enforcement to respond.

As a final reminder I’d like to go back to Texas, that populous RED state where the good ole boys/gals bray about their Constitutional right bear arms and take such pride in frequently doing so openly.  Well, openly as long as they are white.  Ever notice how when you see pictures of individuals in open carry states so proudly wearing their gun on their hip or in some states where it’s allowed carrying long guns including assault rifles slung over their shoulder those people are almost always white?  Think about it.  And why.  Especially if you are a white person and support gun rights and laws that allow this and insist racism in this country is overblown.  And for those who don’t know I’m a white guy (unmistakenly so) in my sixties.

Ok, so this turned out longer than I’d hoped.  Still, I hope it holds people’s interest and hits home enough to make them think.  Should that be the case I further hope folks will take what I said and use it to build in their own words their own way of making the point.  Which is that this past weekend exposed in quite stark, real terms that the NRA’s “good guy with a gun” line is not just unrealistic, impractical in the real world and even dangerous.

I want people to realize and articulate to others that the NRA’s “good guys with guns” rushing in to “save the day” is complete and utter bullshit.

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1 COMMENT

  1. Great piece, Denis. I totally agree about that BS. A good guy with a gun can get shot just as dead as a bad guy with one.

  2. I ABSOLUTELY AGREE, Denis ….
    This whole thing about carry/open/concealed, is just a way to, (inflate your personality and self-importance) …

    Most people don’t know that there was no holster-packing wild-west scenes back in the day … guns were outlawed to the the normal person, guns were on hooks over the fireplace or hanging by the back door in the kitchen, they were actually use for hunting or controlling vermin, the majority of them rifles/shotguns …

    Your explanation of non/practical self-defense based on a concealed handgun is right on, the only way one would be practical would be as a courier or bank deposit person and one-on-one defense in close quarters … even then, the heart rate and Adrenalin would make any action very difficult …

    These pistol-packing junkie’s need to step down and take courses and learn the truth about killing/getting yourself killed along with many others …

    Thank you for your detailed take on all the gun-pushing people that don’t have a clue out there … the kids think it is so cool to wave a glock around, laying it over on it’s side as you threaten some other gang guy, but that is only in the movies … it could/would throw a hot casing into your personal space …. never good …

    • The old version of Mythbusters did an episode which included testing out some of those “cool looking” firing methods (i.e. the pistol turned almost over) and since both Jamie and Adam were well experienced with firearms and honest enough to give it a real effort it was informative. Bottom line that shit that some things looks so badass cool is wildly inaccurate when they pull the trigger. Actually hitting the target is pretty much an accident.

      Some state’s concealed carry requirements are a joke but some do require at least some education. Also, some who want to concealed carry make the effort to get training. Not enough of them and in most cases the training doesn’t go far enough but from what I can tell there are instructors who make an effort to educate. Part of that education teaches avoidance of direct confrontation, and instead increasing one’s odds by getting into a defensible place/position where any shooter has a limited “lane” to try and kill you. IOW decrease the shooter’s odds and increase your own. Good instructors will also try to create a simulation/event in training to get student’s hearts racing so that the can experience some level of adrenaline rush & understand why the best option is to avoid the shooter if at all possible. Sadly, this is the exception instead of the norm but it seems this weekend showed us common sense and personal survival prevailed over any pre-event dreams of glory/Rambo fantasies.

  3. I have a friend who teaches “Concealed Carry Permit” courses. He likes to have me come in and sit in the back, act like one of the students. He’s retired LAPD detective and Nam vet. He starts out his section regarding “good guy with a gun” by saying unless you’ve been in combat, you have no idea what happens in a shooting situation. His advice, “I’m digging concrete.” In other words, get to safety. My husband has always said the same thing and he’s a combat vet who regularly goes out for shooting practice.

    Then my friend starts in on what are the legal ramifications of firing your weapon and the “bad guy” because you are the “good guy”. After all the bullshit answers from the students, he turns to me. Their jaws drop when I tell them they can and will be charged with second degree murder for killing or attempted second degree murder for injuring a civilian. You could also get hit with aggravated assault, but that is a lesser included offense which your defense attorney will request as part of the jury instructions. However, aggravated assault is a mandatory prison time crime. No probation because you’re the “good guy”. So, if you don’t know your backstop and your bullet hits someone, you get a criminal charge. Amazing what the look on Rambo faces are after I give them the entire legal scenarios of being “good guy with a gun”.

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