Good Guys, Bad Guys, and Guns

After Newtown there was a lot of talk about how important it is for the "good guys" to have guns because the "bad guys" have guns.

Charles Ramsey, this intriguing and appealing fellow who rescued the three captive women in Cleveland, seems like the perfect illustration of the foolishness of that line of argument.

He strikes us as a "good guy" if there ever was one -- and just think how much more prepared he would have been to rescue the women from the "bad guy" captors if he'd had a gun! -- but now it turns out that in another facet of his life he's not unambiguously a "good guy," and in fact has been a violent "not-good-guy" in situations where guns often prove tragically lethal. 

Enough of the good guy/bad guy trope in the gun rights debate. It's just dumb. Good guys are bad guys and bad guys are good guys. All of us.

Comments

[Joseph A. Tomain]

"Just as every cop is a criminal
And all the sinners saints"

[kdi]

Good guys should have guns. Bad guys will have guns. All guys should be subject to stronger gun control laws/background checks.