Dear good guy with a gun
From top. Permission from author to post in full here.
Jun 17, 2016
by Cab
Dear good guy with a gun.
Where are you? You keep telling us that you will protect us from the bad guys but I have yet to see much action. You have told us you will be there when danger strikes. You have said rest assured that if a lunatic walks into a public place and pulls a rifle you will draw your pistol and protect everyone including your family. Sure you have had a few brief moments of heroism but more often than not you have failed us. Where were you in Orlando? Where were you in Newtown, Columbine, Aurora, Colorado Springs, Roseburg and San Bernardino to name just a few. So far I have seen you misplace your weapon and it ended up in the hands of a child who now has the burden of growing up as a killer. I have seen you demonstrate how to use your pistol and you discharged the weapon in a school. I have seen you mistakenly hand your pistol to someone, dropping it and shooting your own self. I have seen you draw your gun on a simple theft from a store meanwhile shooting several innocent bystanders.
I have lost faith in your ability to protect yourself, me or my family. From this point on I would like to let the first responders handle the dangerous situations. I personally have not read one story of you protecting us by shooting and killing an active shooter with an assault rifle. It has always been first responders taking them down or they take themselves out.
Since you can’t be there for us I would like to take the opportunity away for bad guys to access guns especially high powered rifles. We need better regulation for purchasing guns and need to require mental health evaluations. I would like to see a tiered licensing similar to cars. Class C for 6 shooter pistols Class B for rifles and Class A for semi auto hand guns/rifles for example. Each Class would require training and testing with a mental health exam, becoming more rigorous as the classes go up. I know you may be upset because you will not have the opportunity to purchase a military grade weapon on your way to Taco Bell but I assure you if you are as responsible as you say you are then you will pass the rigorous testing and health exam. You need more training and responsibility before you can continue defending us.
I am sorry it has come to this and I wish you the best moving forward. I have to start thinking about my family and the life we want to live. You are just not able to be there for us like you said and it needs to end.
Signed Ready for a Change
Comments
Very well said!
I know this author. It gets harder and harder to read about the insanity in our society and yet little is done about it.
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when we are afraid of the light.
--Plato
A good guy with a can.
Here's a truly good guy. With a can of pepper spray. Disarming a killer in the middle of a killing spree.
[video:https://youtu.be/kc9ZeHIGphk width:500]
So no gun needed
Terrific heroism!
And I can't help but think that it was lucky that the hero didn't have a gun. It might've caused law enforcement (or another good guy) to think the hero was instead the shooter.
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when we are afraid of the light.
--Plato
You have made a point that needs to be repeated.
The good guy with a gun is a fairy tale. It's a story for men (and a few women) who haven't grown up. We don't live in a cowboy movie. I live in California and took the test for buying a pistol. Not concealed carry, just a pistol for target shooting. The test was ok in that one has to demonstrate some very basic safe handling procedures, but gun owners accidentally continue to shoot themselves, someone else, or the nearest physical object despite the "training." I think stringent gun licensing such as you describe would be a good first step in curbing our juvenile firearm theatrics.
The only difference I have with your position is the acceptability of semi-auto rifles. Only the military has a legitimate use for semi-auto rifles. I'm not even sure the police need them. When I was a boy, some big city police had Thompson guns to combat the organized criminals, but that was about it. Swat teams may be a necessity sometimes, but they seem to be used all the time now for everything beyond a parking ticket.
We have become a nation of frightened bunnies. Who the bogey man is varies from group to group, but our scared populace seems sure there is one--somewhere. "Second Amendment rights" has become the justification for owning all sorts of ridiculous weapons that are of no earthly use to a civilian. These people have conveniently forgotten the "well regulated militia clause in the amendment. Good lord people, grow up.
Thanks for a well-written essay.
-Greed is not a virtue.
-Socialism: the radical idea of sharing.
-Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
John F. Kennedy, In a speech at the White House, 1962
Yes.
Much like the "Ticking Time Bomb, So Must Torture" fable.
Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.
Off this subject.
I can't master the private message part of this website for some reason. I tried a couple of weeks ago to ask you who or what your avatar represents. I recognize Henry IV's banner but the rest is olde English or olde Norman-French to me. I'm pretty olde too, so vexillology is not a subject I'm going to attempt. It's easier just to ask.
-Greed is not a virtue.
-Socialism: the radical idea of sharing.
-Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
John F. Kennedy, In a speech at the White House, 1962
It's the standard of the Beauforts
Half-siblings of Henry IV.
Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.