Illustration Courtesy of Christy Thomas
Good or Bad Person
So, after the most recent domestic massacres, the usual mantra pops up, “If the good guys were armed, we could stop the bad guys.”
OK, I’m a good person. Let’s put a gun in my hand.
Of course, I have no ability to judge distances because of a lack of depth perception. At my age, my arms tremble a bit when I’m holding something heavy so aiming straight would be nearly impossible, plus I’ve never fired a gun, much less loaded or unloaded one, but that’s not the point.
I’m a good guy, so I should carry a gun.
Now, most of my friends are good guys as well. So are their friends. Along with all our children and our children’s friends. In fact, none of us really know any bad guys, so we should all be carrying guns.
Now because we humans also function from instinct as well as higher reasoning powers, any sudden noises something out of the ordinary will put us on the alert immediately. Therefore, we should all be trained to pull out our guns and get ready to aim at the slightest possibility of something dangerous happening, say a sudden crack of lightening, or a backfiring car (I guess cars still do this–am showing my age here), or an unexpected knock at the door (I am beginning to pity the lives of various delivery persons), or someone starting to shove in a line or other tightly packed place or a fire alarm going off or a slamming door or a dropped tray or someone cutting us off in traffic. You know–just anything that gets the ol’ adrenaline flowing.
Now, all of us good guys have our guns pulled out. The problem is, we’re not sure who else is a good guy or a bad guy. Really–if the bad guys will all promise to wear a “I’m a bad guy” sign, it would help, but they probably wouldn’t cooperate. In fact, if they did cooperate that way, they are probably not really bad guys after all, and maybe we shouldn’t shoot them.
But, since all our senses are going to be on high alert at this point, we probably won’t take the time to make careful inquiry. I mean, really, at that point, are you going to ask, “Are you a good guy? If so, I won’t shoot you. But if you are a bad guy, I will.”
Except that question is kind of self-defeating because bad guys generally lie about whether they are bad or not, so anyone who answers, “I’m a good guy” is probably not a good guy because he/she is lying about it.
What to do?
Just shoot them all, of course. It’s very simple. Let’s arm everyone and have a game of “Last Man/Woman/Child Standing.”
Get ready, get set, . . . go buy your guns and start shooting.
Christy Thumb
The Rev. Christy Thomas
The Rev. Christy Thomas of Frisco, TX, a retired clergy member of the North Texas Annual Conference, writes the advice column "Ask Thoughtful Pastor," for the Denton Record-Chronicle newspaper in Denton, TX. She blogs at Thoughtful Pastor and is the author of a new book, "An Ordinary Death."