Maybe you think you are, but trust me, you're not Rambo. You're not Dirty Harry. You are not Detective John McClane (from the Die Hard movies). I know you want to help. It's a noble trait. I want to help too. But answers are difficult to come by. Especially after a tragedy like the one in Aurora, CO, this past weekend.
Some of you think that if more people would carry concealed handguns that somehow the tragedy might have been averted or diminished somehow. "If only someone in that theater had a gun to shoot back with..." the logic goes. I recall hearing much of the same just after the tragedy at Virginia Tech several years ago.
Close your eyes for a moment for me, please... OK, that does not work when I'm typing this and you're trying to read it. It would work so much better if I could tell you out loud what I'm about to write. So, please try to 'see' the image I'm about to paint with my words. I'm not the best wordsmith (or even a good one), so please work with me.
I do not know if I should put a disclaimer on here or not. While I do not know if I will succeed, I will try to paint a somewhat graphic picture of a fictitious shoot out in a theater. Well, I guess i there is a disclaimer there after all.
You and your friend/child/parent/boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse decide to go see some new move where the theater will be quite crowded. You arrive on time and decide to sit about half way down on the left hand side of the theater. So, about half of the people are behind you and most of them are on your right. The pre-movie conversation is good. The popcorn is good. The ice cold soda is good too. Soon it's commercials (yuck!), and then previews (yay!), and finally the movie you're here to see.
The movie is fantastic. You want to talk to your seatmate about it, but you're a well-mannered person, so you hold off until the movie is over. Then..
Loud sharp noises erupt in the theater. For a few seconds you're confused. The sounds do not jive with what's going on in the movie. Then the screams start.
You look around frantically. You see smoke and bright flashes of light at the back of the theater on the other side of the theater. You push your seatmate down onto the floor and draw your own handgun. You WILL put a stop to this. You turn toward the latest series of flashes, which you know are muzzle flashes. One... Two... Three shots erupt from your own gun. The flashes at the back of the theater don't stop though.
Then you hear more loud booms, but not from the back of the theater. These are up front but still on the other side of the theater. Good grief, there are two shooters!
You turn to the front shooter and let loose another three rounds. Since this shooter is closer to the screen, you can see him go down in the reflected light of the movie screen, presumably from your own rounds. More booms.
Then intense pain.
You realize that you've been shot! This is definitely not the way it plays out in Halo or Socom or Call of Duty. Darn! It hurts! In a panic you turn back to the rear of the theater and with renewed confidence despite the pain (I mean, you did take out the second shooter up front!), you fire more rounds towards the shooter at the rear of the theater. It had to be him. Somehow you missed him the first three times you fired in his direction.
Elsewhere in the theater...
Another shooter mentally gives himself a high five. His shots have knocked you down. He, too, heard the booms. However, he saw your muzzle flashes as you were drawing a bead on the first shooter in the rear of the theater. This shooter was a little smarter and dropped to one knee before firing in your direction. His first shot clipped you in the shoulder. But his second and third killed your seatmate instantly.
Elsewhere…
The first shooter sees the flashes that took you down and turns toward this shooter, unleashing round after round in that general direction. You should be relieved to know that the shooter that killed your seatmate is now dead at the hands of the original shooter (turns out that kneeling behind a movie theater seat does not provide that much protection in a gun fight...). Well, and another four people who had the misfortune of sitting near that 'hero' and were killed by the original shooter's return fire.
But...
Now with muzzle flashes all over the place, more and more shooters join the fracas. No one knows who is shooting at whom. (Remember, it's kind of dark in a theater)
People are falling over as they try desperately to get out of the theater.
Hours later the picture begins to unfold. There are five people dead with guns in their hands or at least near their bodies. Anyway, the police have collected five guns other than the ones that the original shooter used. The original shooter somehow manages to survive without a scratch on him. Fate sucks sometimes.
All in all thirty people have died in the mess. That's including our five heroic gunmen. Oh, yeah, you died shortly after the police arrived to restore order. As it turns out, the shoulder is a really crappy place to get shot. Hollywood sucks at the whole truth telling thing. The shot that "only" hit you in the shoulder nicked your superior thoracic artery. You bled out.
Almost two weeks later the stats are all in.
The original shooter killed 20 people, including two of the heroic gunmen.
You killed the man up front and one person sitting beside him. (Thank goodness for ballistics to prove who fired what...)
The guy up front killed your seatmate.
The other seven fatalities were spread out amongst the other three heroic gunmen.
Five heroes killed ten innocent people and no one got the original gunman.
Great outcome there, Rambo. Just fantastic.
Footnotes:
As a point of reference, I own several handguns. I love to shoot at paper targets. I do not have a concealed carry permit. I do not necessarily have a problem with well trained people carrying concealed weapons. I just don't like the idea of shootouts at the local theater or Wal Mart of Subway restaurant.
Like I said earlier... I know you want to help, but this may not be the best way to do so.
(Paragraph edited to correct factual error. Tip to self: spend time with Mr Google next time.)
I remember a story after the Gabby Giffords shooting in Arizona a while back. A man was across the street in a store when he heard the shots ring out. He ran out of the store he was in and drew his weapon and looked around. He said he saw a man on the ground with a foot on his neck. That foot belonged to a person holding a handgun on the man on the ground. The man who exited the store said his initial thought was to draw a bead on the man with the gun clicked off the safety on his handgun and had his hand on the weapon, ready to draw, thinking he was the root of all of the mischief. But something made him hold off for a second. Turns out the original shooter was the one on the ground and a good Samaritan had the shooter under control. Our would be hero stopped to think for a second and further tragedy was averted. I hope the thought went through our would be hero's head that he would have had to fire into a crowd and if he had missed he might have hit an innocent bystander. {ADD} The good Samaritan said he was 'lucky' he did not draw and shoot. He admitted to having no formal weapons training.
Between movies and video games we've somehow gotten conditioned to this whole 'shooting is easy' concept. I've put close to seven hundred rounds through my two .22 handguns and am only a fair to middling shooter (I get mostly 9's and 10's on the paper targets at ten yards.) And that's taking my time in a well lit shooting range. Without people shooting back. I'm not the smartest guy in the world, but I'm wise enough to know that I am not Rambo.
The thought of a crowded place full of would be Rambo's scares the bejabbers out of me. I know you want to help, but this is not the way to do it.
(And no, banning handguns is not the way either.)
(Please help me with any tags you think might help the diary out. Thanks in advance.)