In the wake of tragedy, familiar arguments rush back into the headlines. Recent shootings—both abroad and at home—have once again reignited the gun control debate, accompanied by alarming statistics and emotionally charged claims. That reaction is understandable. Grief demands answers. But urgency is not clarity, and too often this debate relies on misleading definitions and comforting assumptions rather than reality.
Gun violence is a serious issue. But the way it is commonly discussed—especially after rare, high-profile attacks—obscures more than it explains. A closer look at how we define “mass shootings,” where they occur, how they sometimes end, and what history tells us about violence and power reveals a far more complicated picture than blanket solutions suggest.
The Problem with “Mass Shooting” Statistics
When people hear claims of “hundreds of mass shootings” in a year, they understandably imagine constant public rampages—schools, malls, concerts. But those numbers usually come from extremely broad definitions: any incident where four or more people are shot, injured, or killed, regardless of context.
Under that framework, gang-related drive-bys, domestic disputes, and robberies are counted alongside indiscriminate public attacks. This is similar to inflated “school shooting” statistics that include gunfire blocks away from an empty campus or incidents occurring after hours. Technically accurate, but deeply misleading.
The result is a distorted sense of frequency that drives fear-based policymaking rather than targeted solutions.
What We Actually Mean by “Mass Shootings”
When most people talk about mass shootings, they mean indiscriminate public attacks on strangers. When researchers narrow the definition to reflect that reality, the numbers drop dramatically—typically to single digits or low double digits per year.
In a country of roughly 330 million people with widespread gun ownership, these events are statistically rare, even though their impact is devastating. Acknowledging that rarity does not minimize the horror; it provides context. Policy built on inflated numbers is more likely to miss the mark.
Gun-Free Zones and Target Selection
One uncomfortable pattern consistently appears: the vast majority of high-profile public mass shootings occur in places where civilian carry is prohibited.
This does not mean gun-free zones cause shootings. But it does suggest attackers consider resistance when choosing targets. In several cases, shooters explicitly described selecting locations where they expected little immediate opposition. Ignoring this reality doesn’t make it disappear.
Resistance, Response Time, and Reality
When violence erupts, time is decisive. Police response is measured in minutes. Violence unfolds in seconds.
This matters because police have no specific legal duty to protect individual citizens—only a general duty to the public. That doctrine is uncomfortable, but settled law. When the state encourages disarmament while offering protection it is not legally obligated to provide, it is asking citizens to accept risk without guarantee.
Even beyond law, there is a deeper truth: nobody knows how they will respond under fire. Most people believe they’ll be heroic. But when a round cracks past your head, theory collapses. Adrenaline floods the body. Tunnel vision sets in. Fine motor skills degrade. Training helps, but it does not abolish fear.
Police are not abstractions. They are human beings operating under uncertainty, protocol, and liability. Expecting flawless, immediate action every time—as a substitute for personal agency—is unrealistic.
The Equalizer Problem Everyone Avoids
This brings us to the part of the debate that is almost always ignored: firearms equalize power.
A five-foot, 110-pound woman does not have the same physical options as a six-foot, 200-pound man in a violent confrontation. That is biology, not politics. A small handgun—a .22 or a .38 in a purse—can radically change that equation. Not by guaranteeing safety, but by introducing deterrence and agency where none would otherwise exist.
Policies that remove this equalizing option disproportionately affect the vulnerable: women, the elderly, the disabled, and those living in high-crime areas. The strong lose little. The weak lose everything.
This imbalance is hard to miss when elected officials surrounded by armed security argue that ordinary citizens do not need the same means of defense. The same state that cannot guarantee individual protection asks taxpayers to fund “buybacks”—effectively paying to surrender personal agency while those in power retain theirs.
History reinforces this point. When the Black Panthers armed themselves to monitor a corrupt police force, the response was not reform but restriction. Rights that were tolerated suddenly became “dangerous” once marginalized groups exercised them openly. Gun control has often followed armed self-assertion, not preceded violence.
Defensive Use and the Limits of Illusion
Defensive gun use is difficult to quantify, but even conservative estimates suggest it occurs far more often than mass shootings—and even homicides—by a wide margin. Most defensive uses involve no shots fired at all; mere presence or brandishing prevents escalation.
These incidents rarely make headlines, which is understandable—but their absence distorts the debate by erasing a major way firearms are actually used in the real world.
None of this suggests firearms are a cure-all. They are not. It simply acknowledges a basic reality: safety is personal before it is institutional. Removing that agency without consent does not eliminate risk; it redistributes it upward, toward systems that may hesitate, arrive late, or fail entirely.
Closing the Loop
Inflated statistics create panic. Panic justifies sweeping restrictions. Those restrictions remove equalizing tools and replace them with dependence on institutions that have no guaranteed obligation—and no guaranteed performance—when it matters most.
Attackers understand this imbalance. They seek soft targets. When resistance does appear—armed or unarmed—violence tends to end faster. Not because of policy, but because someone present had the ability or willingness to act.
Every society balances freedom and risk. That balance should be argued honestly, not smuggled in through distorted data or paternalistic claims about what is “for your own good.” Rights taken in the name of safety are rarely returned—and they are almost never taken first from those with power.
These are my less extreme views on the Second Amendment.
Make the Navy private again.
Mic G
Life after door kicking. 
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