Armed Good Guys? ‘The Reality of a Firefight Is a Form of Madness’
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Version 0 of 1. To the Editor: Re “Realizing It’s a Small, Terrifying World After All,” by Dan Barry (This Land column, June 21): I was seriously wounded in combat as a replacement in the armored infantry in the liberation of France from the Nazis in 1944. I know what it is to be the stranger in a firefight. Both Donald Trump’s claim that an armed bystander could have stopped the rampage in Orlando and the N.R.A. official Wayne LaPierre’s notion that it takes a good guy with a gun to stop a bad guy with a gun are ridiculous. Combat — real combat — bears no resemblance to their Hollywood image of war. The reality of a firefight is a form of madness: shifting silhouettes, dimly perceived, pop of weapons, freezing fear, trembling hands, most of all the stink: sick, sweet odor of blood mixed with the odor of feces and urine, stale sweat, cordite. Who and where is my enemy? Only training and long experience lead to the steadiness required to kill a terrorist armed with an assault weapon. More than likely the bystander with a gun will kill or wound only other innocents. Pretending that the citizen, probably carrying only a pistol or a revolver, can take on a madman firing 30 rounds a magazine is the height of fantasy. It is time for Congress to show some guts, take on the National Rifle Association, the gun industry and its supporters, and remove assault weapons from the hands of terrorists and so save more innocent American lives. EDWARD W. WOOD Jr. Denver |