Who are LaPierre's 'Good Guys'?

After the Newtown school shooting, Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice President of the NRA, said, “The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun.” He seems to have given a solution to gun violence and school shootings a great deal of thought. His maxim gives the impression of being wise. Unfortunately, it is simplistic and omits one of the most blatant and crucial aspects of human nature, which is, that every guy who fires a loaded gun at someone thinks he's the good guy. Eric Frein, the survivalist who killed the trooper in Pennsylvania, thought he was good and cops were bad. Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, who killed 12 people at the Charlie Hebdo office in Paris, thought Allah was on their side and cartoonists were evil. Men with guns in Nigeria kill indiscriminately in order to rid the world of "bad" western education (boko haram). Men with guns in Syria kill infidels (which pretty much means whomever they want) in order to establish a "good" and universal caliphate (ISIS). Men with guns in Iraq take revenge on the other men who, with explosives, blew up mosques and markets.

Since the beginning of history, the pattern has been exactly the same. One guy, feeling vulnerable or wanting to feel stronger and more important, gets a weapon. A second guy, who's on bad terms with the first guy, feels threatened and gets a weapon to defend himself. Escalation follows. Eventually, one uses his weapon. Armed conflict is nearly inevitable. Internationally, arms races lead to war. When the smoke has cleared, the winner writes the history.  And (you guessed it) the good guy won.

Gun rights advocates are correct about one thing: "guns don't kill people; people kill people." Gun rights advocates are also correct when they, like Wayne LaPierre, say that we should keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill. But that's about where gun rights advocates stop thinking critically, because if they took the next logical step, they'd have to conclude that one of the major examples of mental instability is a man who owns or brandishes a loaded gun.

Proof of male-gun-owner-instability is in the facts. Men are three times as likely as women to own a gun, and nearly seven times as likely as women to use a gun to kill someone. The problem, Mr. LaPierre, is not good guys versus bad guys. The problem is guys with guns.

Since we can't ban guns (it's unconstitutional; it's even too perilous to talk about because men go berserk and become mentally unstable if there's any mention what so ever of restrictions on guns), let's talk about making the ownership and possession of guns by men illegal. It's a sensible solution if there ever was one. After all, there is no doubt (statistically) that men with guns are the problem.

We can't get rid of men, though. In fact. a brief look at history will pretty much convince anyone that men have been killing off me for thousands of year to no effect. If men with guns can't get rid of men with guns, who can?

Let's go outside the envelope. Suppose all the women in the world proclaimed in one voice that they  were fed up with spousal abuse, rape, gun violence, gangs and wars for all time. Suppose they communally decided that one way or another they'd end male brutality for all time. How could they do it? By agreeing to give birth to fewer male babies. If enough women stuck with it, after just two generations, there would be so many more women than men that women could pass and enforce any and all laws prohibiting men from owning or possessing a gun? No wars. No poaching. No drive-bys. No ISIS or Boko Haram. No Newtowns.