One of the differences between moderate advocates of gun control and prohibitionists is in their attitudes toward self-defense. The former are willing to recognize that defensive arms in the right hands can be socially beneficial. The latter deny that firearms do in fact save lives. A good example is Katie Couric’s new TV special “Under the Gun.” In that program, Matt Lauer states: “There is a very common expression out there that ‘The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is to have a good guy with a gun.’ ” Couric answers, “Most public health experts and gun safety experts say that it is just a specious argument.”
The unnamed “experts” on whom Couric relies are apparently not expert at reading newspapers. Literally, a good guy with a gun is not the “only” way that armed criminals are stopped. But it is an important way, including in mass shootings. As I detailed in a 2015 study for the Cato Institute:
by David Kopel