A GOOD GUY WITH A GUN
Driving north on Interstate 35, just outside of downtown Kansas City, I pass a billboard picturing several men in uniform (a soldier, a police officer, etc) all brandishing firearms; the text reading “Good guys also have guns”. This billboard has been there for several months and I’ve driven passed it countless times, yet I get the same feeling of unease every time I see it. At first, I couldn’t really explain the source of the feeling. I live in a very conservative state where it seems there is a gun show every other weekend during the summer months and the Second Amendment is only rivaled by John 3:16 as the most oft-quoted piece of writing. So you would think I wouldn’t be overly concerned about a billboard like this, but, for some reason, I have been. I think I’ve finally figured out why, and I’d like to try to elucidate my thoughts here.
Before I go any further, I want to say that I’m not really interested in engaging in argument over the merits of the second amendment or the scope of gun control. Generally speaking, I feel like people are fairly entrenched in their beliefs on the subject and I don’t believe that I’m going to be able to craft some sort of novel and brilliant argument that is going to sway anyone to my side. I know my limitations. I did Lincoln-Douglas debate in high school and I was mediocre at best. I am concerned, however, with the language of debate, because the way we frame an argument is very important. And the statement “good guys also have guns” is a poorly framed argument.
When I was a kid, and in many respects this holds true today, I was obsessed with superheroes and fantasy stories like Lord of the Rings and Chronicles of Narnia. All of these stories have one thing in common: they all depict the fight between the purely good against the purely evil. And, in most of these stories, good triumphed over evil. That’s very comforting in ways that stories more grounded in reality can never be. That certainty of knowing what is right; of only being given the black and the white with no shades of grey; these are things that, as adults, we realize don’t really exist. Superman and Lex Luthor are just constructs. Real life is filled with moral ambiguity and nuance.
Given the fact that, in the real world, good and evil are not clearly demarcated, the statement that good guys also have guns is troubling in one of two ways: either it is appealing to ignorance or it is predicated on a dualistic worldview. If the latter, then the author is aware of the fact that grey areas exist and it is nearly impossible to categorize people as “good” or “evil” and, in spite of this knowledge, is choosing to appeal to those who lack this understanding (i.e. They are assuming their readers are stupid and hoping to manipulate this stupidity) or they themselves believe in the existence of pure good and evil. While these ideas are mutually exclusive to a certain degree, they each result in a portion of the population with the same worldview, so I will handle them at the same time.
My favorite superhero has always been Batman. On the surface, it’s not really possible point out any real difference between him and Iron Man. Both Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark are billionaire playboys by day and crime fighters by night. They both fight the evils of their respective worlds, not by any innate power, but with wits and gadgets. Maybe Bruce is a little more goth, but there really isn’t any difference other than that. But what makes Batman stand out is his rogue’s gallery. No other superhero has a more disturbing array of psychopaths than Batman. And none is more horrifying than the Joker: a true sociopath who wants nothing more than to watch the world burn.
In our world, we see an analogue between the Joker and terrorism. Both can easily be seen to be the embodiment of evil; entirely unpredictable. However, this is only true on superficial examination. The Joker is a fictional character. He is chaotic and unpredictable because the people who created him made him so. He has no motivation for his actions because he was not written with motivations. Terrorists are different. On the surface, they appear unpredictable; their only motivation to cause destruction and fear. But terrorist organizations are filled with individuals, each with their own hopes and hatreds and motivations. We don’t understand them because we are either unwilling or unable to understand them. What truly makes terrorists terrifying is the fanatical belief that they are right and the willingness to back up that belief with violence.
In order to believe in a good guy with a gun, one must first believe there is a good guy. In order for there to be a good guy, there needs must be a bad guy. The news is full of stories of horrifying acts of violence: bombings, mass shootings, war. It’s entirely human to retreat to those comforting stories from our youth, to believe that, when faced with acts of evil, a hero should rise up to fight against them. And it becomes easy to confuse acts of evil and evil doers. The man who shot up the nightclub in Orlando must have been evil, and not suffering from mental illness or the product of religious fanaticism. But the fact remains that, in his mind, he was a good guy with a gun; that he was combating what, in his mind, was evil.
That is what is disturbing about the billboard’s message. A person who is absolutely certain of his rightness who has the means and willingness to commit violence in defense of that certainty is someone to be feared and not revered. Because the end results of such are rarely the endings we see in stories, but rather death and suffering.
