Dodged a Bullet

            It was about three weeks ago a man shot several dozen and killed one dozen in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado.  Yesterday a man dropped a handgun he had brought into a movie theater in Sparks, Nevada where it discharged, injuring him in the seat of his pants.  Between the shooting in Colorado and the accidental shooting in Sparks, I took my two sons to see the movie from the former shooting at the theater of the latter. 

            Soon after the Colorado shooting many gun/second amendment supporters suggested that if there had been armed civilians in the movie theater the night a mad man came in, the death toll would have been smaller, perhaps even restricted to the mad man himself.  Maybe that’s what the Sparks man was thinking when he walked into the theater with a handgun in his pocket.  I suppose the attraction to be a hero who stands up and guns down a possible murderer is pretty powerful.  Imagine the entire country finally seeing a killing was prevented by a man who legally owned and carried his weapon on the national news.

            Unfortunately what happened in Sparks was far more likely because statistically the chance of a gunman bent on murder entering the same theater as a legally armed civilian is very unlikely, but instead it’s statistically more likely an owner’s gun causing harm to himself and those around him.  This man is also very lucky that when his weapon fell out of his pocket the bullet didn’t hit another theater patron.

            Others will argue that more and more civilians should carry guns all the time, bringing the odds of the murderer and the hero being in the same place at the same time, allowing them to be Harry Callahan or Jack Reacher. But personally I don’t want to be in the theater/classroom/church when the gun battle starts, especially if the caliber of the “good guys” doing the shooting is represented by the gentleman who dropped his gun in Sparks yesterday.  (By the way, how likely is it that a dropped handgun discharges?  I’m just asking.)

For two years I wore a M1911 .45 pistol in a holster on my belt while I was a boarding officer in the Coast Guard.  I remember it was nicknamed simply the Forty-five.  (Pictured above)  I qualified on it every year, twice a year.  I also went to a three week law enforcement training in Modesto where we went to the range every day.  I was expected to be able to un-holster it, click off the safety, chamber a round, and hit my target if the situation required it.  During those qualifying days I had all the time I needed to hit a target 25 yards away.  I usually qualified on the lower end of the scale.  Meaning I wasn’t a particularly good shot.  I can’t imagine my aim would improve with someone shooting back at me or others.

What am I saying?  I think while a hero standing up and taking down a man intent on murder looks great in books and movies, in real life it’s far too risky that innocents would be injured or killed.  Let’s not add more guns to daily public life, let’s instead rest safe in the statistically unlikely chance that a gunman will try to kill us as we watch movies, or go to school or church.  At least for now.