Years ago an "All in the Family" episode featured a punch line in which Archie Bunker said the solution to airplane hijacking was to arm all the passengers. What used to be a punch line has now become a talking point, and whenever there is a mass shooting we can expect to hear the argument that if only more people had guns, the extent of the massacre could have been limited. As with many other political questions, this is a conclusion reached more through wishful thinking than through reference to reality.
As a veteran (Viet Nam), I think I can offer a reality-based commentary on the likely effect of trying to arm ourselves against the next mass shooter. The best illustration of the outcome is probably a three-way firefight I witnessed. Story after the jump.
One night while sitting in front of sandbags on the perimeter of a small landing zone in the uplands (it was too hot to get into the bunker), we were staring out into the blackness of rice paddies and groves of trees when we saw a firefight break out off to the side, further up the perimeter. Soon, we saw shots coming up to the bunker to our left, and then shots back from the bunker --to and from both of the other positions. There may have been a few flares and mortars going off as well -- in the end, there was a neatly illuminated three-way firefight. In the morning, we learned all three groups involved were on the same side.
How does this happen -- not just friendly fire, bit a full-fledged three way gunfight? The answer lies in the reality of sudden, unexpected gunfire. Like much of warfare, the incident I describe above was, to us who watched from a distance, a sort of magical lightshow, something to relieve the tedious hours sitting in the night trying to stay awake. Equally fantastic are the dreams of heroism of gun lovers, holding their firearms and feeling their aura of protectiveness, imagining how a single shot could cut short a massacre. So too, a sportsman with shooter's earmuffs pops off rounds at a paper silhouette and imagines he is training for a real life emergency.
But that's not what it's like when the earth is suddenly shattered with unexpected, deafening gunfire. Other than flattening out on the ground in panic, you have little sense of what actually is happening, or even the exact source of the shots. Even trained and seasoned soldiers often are unable to respond at all.
General S.L.A. Marshall estimated in his book Men Against Fire that only about 25 percent of soldiers actually fired in action at any particular engagement during WW II. His conclusions have been questioned, in part because his methods involved informal interviews, but even if his numbers were exaggerated, it is generally agreed they had considerable basis in fact. Based in part on Marshall's conclusions, the army took efforts to condition soldiers psychologically to increase the rate of fire; even so, evidence suggests that though more soldiers may be firing in combat these days, many simply fire wildly, or into the air Moreover, the more strongly conditioned soldiers are to fire aggressively and purposefully, the more instances we have of overreactions, for example where civilians are targeted.
What does this real life experience tell about the likely outcome if we try to arm our entire citizenry? Likely, we can expect a range of results, hardly any of them desirable.
First, if more people are defensively armed, we can expect that crazed shooters will continue to focus on those targets that are most vulnerable. Darkened movie theaters, elementary schools, and similar sites will remain thinly defended areas. There may be fewer targets, but those that remain will provide sufficient opportunity for future tragedy.
Second, simply giving guns to people will not arm them with the tools needed to respond effectively in case of an attack. It is simply unreasonable to expect teachers, for example, burdened as they already are, to take on the further responsibilities of trianing to respond like soldiers to a battlefield situation.
Third, as the three-way firefight I describe above illustrates, in the event people are able to fire back, the likely outcome will be a panicked melee, increasing the general bloodshed. When multiple people start shooting, nobody will know who is the aggressor, and everyone will become a target. It is not as easy to hit a target in action as it appears on TV -- in fact many shots will go wild. Each shot fired can cause "collateral damage." The shooting could conceivably go on until nobody is left standing. If disciplined soldiers can get into a three way friendly fire fight, what can we expect from untrained, un-uniformed, panicked civilians when they face their first shocking attach?
Finally, those who train to respond to emergencies with gunfire will become additional threats to public safety. The Viet Nam firefight I describe above happened because soldiers were trained to respond aggressively to panic situations, to shoot when presented with an unexpected noise, to ready their guns when faced with the unknown. An alert soldier or "ready" civilian must maintain what is essentially a paranoid state of mind. This is what has happened with the tragic shootings in Florida and elsewhere. Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis were shot by people who wanted to protect themselves, who believed that they needed to be armed against potential danger, and who conditioned themselves to respond aggressively in the face of perceived danger in their wars against the unknown. Martin and Davis were "civilian" casualties of that war.
While present tenants of the Supreme Court have voted to affirm the Second Amendment confirms a personal right to bear arms, even they recognize the state's ability to regulate that right. We can hope that a future Court may revisit that question, but in the interim perhaps we should work toward the "original intent" of the framers by conceding, for the time, that there is a general right to bear arms, but noting that the arms contemplated in 1789 were single shot muskets. Personally, my idea of the freedom aimed at in the Constitution is not a world of wild-west shootouts, but rather a world where you can walk down the street free of danger, where you do not have to arm yourself against sudden attack, where you can leave your doors unlocked and do not have to sleep with a pistol under your pillow. We can arm our soldiers with machine guns, but let's limit the public to muskets, target guns, deer rifles, and bird shot.
I am writing my congressman and senator today to urge them to work toward strong fun control. Do likewise. Let's all work for peace in this holiday season.