"Good guy with a gun"

I was asked, relative to last week's shooting in a Pennsylvania hospital, if I thought the US should encourage more civilians to carry guns. Herewith is my answer.

I am in favor of allowing competent citizens to carry concealed weapons. Both parts of that sentence are important. "Competent" because incompetence kills, and "concealed" because open carry is (in most cases) provocative. It's also a threat - how am I supposed to know that the idiot individual with a rifle walking down the street is a good guy or a bad guy?

I am not in favor of encouraging people to carry guns. "Adding courage" is not something I want to do with regards to guns. If you don't have the courage needed, don't carry. That's the philosophical side of the case.

The practical side of the case is that you have a better chance of getting struck by lightning than needing a gun. So, for most people, the real risk of carrying is accidental discharge of a weapon. Also on the practical side is the nature of the threat. In most mass shooting cases, the criminal has the advantage of surprise. In the Pennsylvania case, had the attacker been a better shot, the doctor would have been dead and the shooter would have had a second gun.

Police carry guns, but in practice most of the time they are moving to a shooting. As we saw in the Las Vegas shooting a few months back (where two cops were shot in the back while on lunch) police are no more surprise-proof then anybody else.

In short, although I have no problem with concealed carry, "good guys with a gun" are always going to be scarce on the ground.