The progun shibboleth that “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun” has become so commonplace that it’s easy to forget its grisly origin.
In 2012, after a 20-year-old with severe mental illness who was raised by a gun-loving mother killed 20 first graders at a Connecticut elementary school, National Rifle Association (NRA) President Wayne LaPierre made the phrase his opening salvo in what would become a successful campaign to derail national gun control legislation. Only “properly trained, armed good guys,” he claimed, stand between America’s vulnerable children and its “genuine monsters.”
