Somehow I think Wayne LaPierre isn’t going to amend or complicate his binary good guy/bad guy gun talk. It is nonetheless interesting that what stopped the recent gunman in Pennsylvania was a pair of good guys without guns:
“[Bernie Kozen and Mark Kresh] positioned themselves in a way that they were able to jump on the subject as he came through the door,” Bivens said. “They wrestled with him in an attempt to subdue him, even as he was firing rounds.”
Kozen is the director of parks for the township and Kresh is a citizen who was present at the meeting. After the initial struggle, they held Newell down and bound him with clothing.
It’s easy to lose sight, in gun debates, of the fact that there are viable methods of self-defense other than guns–weapons or methods that don’t go off when you’re cleaning them, dropping them, or leaving them where kids find them. A gun is sometimes clearly more effective, but owning one is a particularly high-stakes trade-off.
As is often the case in these matters, it also bears examining at what point this shooter changed from “good guy with a gun” to “bad guy with a gun.”
