The NRA loves to parrot the thinking that it takes a good guy with a gun to stop a bad guy with a gun. They say this because they want to encourage gun ownership and, sadly, many conservatives think that they can be the savior in the case of a mass shooting.
A journalist asked combat veterans how this would work out and predictably they were not impressed (see story below).
It reminded me of something that was emphasized time and again in my CERT training:
In a crisis, you will always fall back to your training.
What this means is that when you’re stressed, you will lose the ability to think. You will not have the time nor inclination to improvise but will go with what you know. The middle of a disaster is no time to try out new things! If you have not trained for a particular situation, you will not only be useless but could make the situation worse.
This concept is repeated in the Emergency Medical Services in Disasters book:
When personnel are stressed and overwhelmed, they will fall back on prior training and experience. Only those equipment and protocols that they are accustomed to during day-to-day operations will be used.
Sadly, America has experienced many recent mass shootings. Some of these have had concealed-carry, combat veterans at the scene. Those vets could conceivably have jumped up and shot at the perpetrators but chose not to, pointing out that they did not want to inadvertently shoot innocent people. What’s more, they recognized that the incoming SWAT teams have no way of distinguishing the “good guy with a gun” from the “bad guy with a gun.”
Another post I read showed a team of two dozen SWAT members who took down Robert Dear, the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood mass murderer. It made the point that it took this team of specially-trained police officers to take this guy down. How do you think Mr. Good Guy with a Gun would fare?
Secret Service agents go through years of training to overcome the human instinct to duck when gunfire breaks out and act instead. Police officers with years of firearms training still conduct frequent drills to deal with active shooters. This is not stuff your typical gun owner is familiar with. There is far more involved than just being able to hit a target.
In short, simply carrying a gun around does not turn you into Rambo. In the unlikely event you are present at a mass shooting event, sure, you might get lucky and stop it. Miracles do happen. Chances are pretty high, though, that you will have no idea what you’re doing and either get yourself or others hurt or killed.
Your gun may be good for your personal protection but don’t fool yourself into thinking you can take out a terrorist. Leave the SWAT stuff to the pros.
Combat veterans spoke to The Nation’s Joshua Holland in hopes of confronting the “lies” peddled by the NRA and their corporate masters.
“I think there’s this fantasy world of gunplay in the movies, but it doesn’t really happen that way,” said retired Army Sgt. Rafael Noboa y Rivera. “When I heard gunfire [in Iraq], I didn’t immediately pick up my rifle and react. I first tried to ascertain where the shooting was coming from, where I was in relation to the gunfire and how far away it was. I think most untrained people are either going to freeze up, or just whip out their gun and start firing in that circumstance.”
Source: Combat veterans shoot down NRA ‘fantasy world’ of ‘good guys with guns’