“I think of the crowded school library in which my son died. I try to imagine a librarian drawing her Glock and returning fire.”
“What if I’d been in that library in 1992, charged with keeping my son safe?”
“I put the question to a man I know, a retired Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent who specializes in training people to use guns defensively — the kind of training that this administration might want to give teachers, the kind that the National Rifle Association imagines could stop the killer in a mass shooting.”
This man spoke with me about the low proficiency of the average gun owner: “Imagine shooting hoops in your driveway and thinking you can play in the N.B.A.” He spoke of the hundreds of hours necessary to achieve the Zen-like level of expertise in which, in the midst of chaos, responses are instantaneous and instinctive. He spoke of the continual training necessary to maintain those skills, and he generously agreed to take me through an abbreviated version of that curriculum, training intended to turn an average shooter into, well, what exactly? I wasn’t sure. – Gregory Gibson for The New York Times, Opinion: My Son was Dead. Did I Feel Better Holding a Gun?