This weekend, there were two rallies responded to the mass shooting in Burlington, Washington. One, happened in Olympia; the other, in Cal Anderson Park. The former was held by those who want to pour more guns into our already gun-crazy society, and the latter by those who want to restrict access to and place bans on certain types of guns. KOMO's story on these rallies is almost entirely devoted to the gun believers in Olympia and has this title: "Gun advocates: death toll at Cascade Mall could have been lower if witnesses had guns."
Nothing in the post challenges or even questions this logic. It is allowed to have equal standing with other statements that are consistent with the facts, which say, again and again, that gun violence in the U.S. is exceptionally high because guns are exceptionally easy to obtain in this country. The Trace has done an excellent job of packing these facts into one neat post. And a post on Vox provides the key fact that mass shootings represent annually about two percent of all gun-related deaths in the U.S. Most American guns are either shooting their owners, or shooting someone their owner knows and is not getting along with, or accidentally shooting someone their owner knows and loves.
A protester on the steps of the Capitol building told KOMO that because "99.9 percent of the time the police are not there immediately to respond," gun believers are "in the best position to respond when something happens." What overflows from this statement is insanity. In fact, I have heard the ravings of people high on powerful psychedelics that made more sense than the pro-gun arguments that KOMO, a respectable news institution, has presented as reasonable.
What is most curious in all of this, and what KOMO doesn't give a moment's worth of thought, is the total absence in the world of gun believers of something that generals love like nothing else. It is something that soldiers in combat always fear their enemy might have. It is something that can bring a whole war to an end. This thing is called the element of surprise. It may not exist for gun believers, but it certainly does exist. Indeed, it was the very last thing the four armed police officers experienced on the morning of November 29, 2009, when the madman Maurice Clemmons entered a coffee shop near Tacoma and opened fire. Overwhelming the great advantage of the element of surprise often takes some time and several deaths, especially if the bad guy has an assault rifle. (What we must not forget is that there was an armed police officer at the mass shooting that happened at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando .)
There is another important thing that somehow fails to exist in the world of gun believers. This thing is even said to have been around when the earth was formed from random and scattered matter rotating the young sun. This thing is called confusion. It often erupts in situations where people fear for their lives. And it can even make sense-making very difficult indeed. When in a state of confusion, it is not easy to determine who is shooting who, who is the good guy with a gun, who is the bad guy with a gun. This, by the way, is why soldiers wear uniforms. It helps to reduce the confusion in battles. In the world of hard facts, friendly fire turns out to be as deadly as enemy fire. This is why it is so sad that bad guys with guns do not wear a special uniform. They have the nerve to also look just like good guys.
My point: If you remove the element of surprise and confusion and many other important facts of life, then the holes in the cup that holds the pro-gun argument might drop from many to not as many.
