A PSA from “Sandy Hook Promise” is intended to push more gun control, but instead makes the case for having good guys with guns in place to stop bad guys with guns.
Sandy Hook Promise is the gun control group for which country singer Tim McGraw raised money via a Summer 2015 gun control fundraiser.
The group’s PSA rolls through a dramatized script of the events leading up to a firearm-based attack at a high school. It shows a boy named Evan scratching a message into the top of a wooden library table, followed by a girl who reads the message and responds without knowing who Evan is.
The two exchange messages again on that same desk–still without knowing one another–and then meet by chance in the gym; the girl recognized Evan after he spoke a phrase he’d written on the table top.
Their eyes connect, both knowing they have found the person they were looking for, then boom–the gym door flies open approximately 40 feet away and a fellow student steps in and works the action on his rifle as he stands silhouetted against the sunlight outside.
Evan immediately remembers seeing the armed student post a social media photo with a gun and remembers watching the would-be attacker watch YouTube videos of people target shooting. Sandy Hook Promise’s intended point–watch for signs of a school shooting (and those signs much be taking photos with a gun and watching videos of people target shooting on YouTube).
But what the video actually communicates is one simple fact: A good guy with a gun could stop the would-be attacker in his tracks before anyone was harmed.
Here’s why:
1. The attacker stepped into the school gym holding his rifle in a way that provided seconds of response time. He was not ready to shoot and a teacher or staff member with a concealed carry permit could have eliminated the threat.
2. The attacker stepped into the school without a live round loaded into the chamber of his gun. So in addition to not holding the gun in a position from which he could shoot, the would-be attacker had to work the action to put a bullet in the chamber too. These things all add up to time and every extra bit of time–no matter how small–benefits the innocent if there is a good guy with a gun prepared to defend innocent life.
The NRA drew the same conclusion after watching the video. It tweeted:
AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of “Bullets with AWR Hawkins,” a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.