The myth of a good guy with a gun

Easier to get than baby formula. (Photo: Getty Images)

At the satirical site The Onion, "No Way To Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens" has been republished 21 times in almost exactly eight years.

The headline has remained the same for every major mass shooting, from Isla Vista in 2014, to last Saturday's supermarket shooting in Buffalo, to Tuesday's school shooting in Uvalde. Just the main image and basic facts about the shooting were updated each time.

In the US, Uvalde is the 27th school shooting in 2022 alone, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The country has seen more than 200 mass shootings this year. 

Some stats to alarm you a little more: An American’s odds of dying from a gun shooting is 22 times more likely than the lifetime risk of dying while riding inside a car, truck or van. Gun assault is over 10 times more likely than dying from a force of nature, such as a hurricane, tornado, earthquake or flood. 

The Onion’s use of anaphora strengthens how little helplessness has to do with such tragedies. The death of 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School at the hands of an 18-year-old shooter was not inevitable.

The wrong culprit

Texas Governor Greg Abbott in a Wednesday press conference attributed the rise in mass shootings, in part, to mental health issues.  

Greater mental health support is necessary but does not address this problem. Scientific research and experts have repeatedly shown that mental illness is not the cause of violence–as is the case of the Uvalde shooter. In fact, a person with mental illness is more likely to be a victim of violence. 

A 2016 study from the American Psychiatric Association found that "mass shootings by people with serious mental illness represent less than 1% of all yearly gun-related homicides," and that "the overall contribution of people with serious mental illness to violent crimes is only about 3%."

What can be done?

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University in 2019 highlighted 10 policies that could reduce gun violence in Illinois. These include banning the sale of new assault firearms, prohibiting firearm sales to people convicted of multiple alcohol-related offenses, and requiring gun purchasers to apply for a license with law enforcement and undergo safety training, rather than applying online or by mail without training.  

Currently, US law only requires background checks when people buy guns from licensed firearms dealers. However, research from nonpartisan Rand Corporation estimates that universal background checks could prevent 1,100 homicides per year.

False ideology

In response to the latest massacre, politicians like Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Attorney General Ken Paxton have suggested arming school teachers and security guards.

States like Texas have also responded by loosening gun laws. Most recently, Texas politicians passed a law making it so that people don’t need a license or training to carry a handgun. 

If this is hard to comprehend, here’s some context: Nearly 10 years ago, days after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut, National Rifle Association (NRA)  vice president Wayne LaPierre gave a press conference where he vowed not to budge an inch on gun control. To justify the NRA’s absolutism, LaPierre uttered a phrase that would become one of the defining phrases of the debate over guns.

“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” he said.

LaPierre was arguing then to put more guards in school—a prospect that has no evidence of working as evidenced by the armed police outside the Uvalde elementary school who engaged the shooter before his massacre on Tuesday.

This gun rights ideology is embedded in Republican politics and in the culture of American gun ownership—a vision that armed citizens, and not the state, represent the ultimate guarantors of freedom and civil peace.

The omnipresence of firearms creates a society governed by violence that is suspected to break out anywhere, anytime. Schools, places of learning and play, equip themselves with metal detectors and armed guards. Young students are forced to engage in active shooter drills. This reinforces fear and inhibits learning.

At the end of the day, the second amendment has created a country where the murder of children becomes the price to pay for a skewed version of freedom.