Second Amendment Advocates Must Show More Lives Are Saved by Guns, Says Firearms Expert

Noted firearms and self-defense expert Massad Ayoob (L) speaks with an attendee at the 38th Annual Gun Rights Policy Conference in Phoenix, Arizona, on Sept. 24, 2023. Michael Clements/The Epoch Times

PHOENIX—A noted firearms expert believes gun control activists have controlled the emotional appeal in their campaign against the Second Amendment for too long.

“Our side has won its place with logic, application of law. The other side tends to win on emotion,” Massad Ayoob said during a speech at the 38th Annual Gun Rights Policy Conference in Phoenix, Arizona, on Sept. 23.

“I think we should be using the emotional element on our side as well.”

Mr. Ayoob has been a firearms writer, trainer, and self-defense expert for over 50 years.

He acknowledged that several thousand people are killed with guns every year. But he said gun control activists focus almost exclusively on the tragic number of deaths while ignoring millions of lives saved by guns.

People practice shooting a gun during a Defensive Pistol Class at Burro Canyon Shooting Park in Azusa, Calif., on Feb. 12, 2023. Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images

According to the 2021 National Firearms Survey (pdf) published by Georgetown University, there were an estimated 1.67 million instances in which a person used a firearm in defense of self or others.

According to the survey, a little over 25 percent of these incidents occurred in the gun owner’s home, and more than half, 53 percent, happened outside their home but on their property. About 9.1 percent of defensive gun uses was in public, and 4.8 percent occurred at work.

In most defensive gun uses, 81.9 percent, no shots were fired, the study reads.

Mr. Ayoob said this is why gun control advocates ignore, downplay, or deny the “good guy with a gun” narrative. By only counting defense situations in which shots are fired, they can claim that guns aren’t used to save lives as often as they are.

“The other side dances in the blood of the victims,” Mr. Ayoob said.

Relatives of victims of gun violence and gun violence prevention advocates at a press conference to honor the second anniversary of the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, on Dec. 10, 2014. Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

According to Mr. Ayoob, gun control advocates use the media to focus on tragedies. From Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, to the Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo, New York, to the Emanual African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, Mr. Ayoob said the media focuses on the killers and their victims.

He pointed to the coverage of the Columbine High School shooting.

“The faces of those two monsters appeared on the covers of Time and Newsweek,” he said.

This type of media attention drives copycat killers to seek attention they can’t get any other way. Mr. Ayoob said the attention should be on the people who take the role of defenders.

To illustrate his point, he compared one mass shooting with a thwarted mass killing.

A sign stands near the site of the December 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, on March 14, 2018. John Moore/Getty Images

On Dec. 14, 2012, a killer shot his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School. As he entered the building, he was reportedly confronted by Principal Dawn Hochsprung and the school psychologist, Mary Sherlach. Mr. Ayoob said that the women reportedly approached the killer with their hands outstretched in a heroic effort to stop him.

They became his second and third victims after his mother, whom he had killed the night before. By the time he shot himself less than five minutes later, he had fired 154 rounds and killed 26 people besides himself.

Mr. Ayoob said another killer had a similar plan for a church in Colorado five years before Sandy Hook. But it turned out very differently.

On Dec. 9, 2007, a gunman opened fire in the parking lot of New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He had killed two other people the night before and wanted to kill more.

He shot four people in the parking lot, two of whom died. As he entered the church foyer, he shot and wounded one man and was confronted by volunteer security guard Jeanne Assam. Like the women in Sandy Hook, Ms. Assam had her hands up to stop the shooter.

Killer Stopped by Handgun

But, in this case, the former police officer was holding a 9 mm handgun and was able to stop the killer before he could hurt anyone else. According to Mr. Ayoob, it’s a travesty that Sandy Hook is a catchphrase for gun control, while New Life Church is virtually forgotten.

He said part of the problem is that the discussion almost always focuses on crime, so the number of defensive gun uses is severely undercounted. And not just because the cases in which no shots are fired are ignored or the intended victim doesn’t report the incident.

It’s also because the definition of defensive gun use has traditionally been limited to interactions between humans.

Mr. Ayoob said that every time a hunter fired a shot to scare away a predator, each farmer who ever shot a coyote threatening his livestock could and should be counted as defensive gun users.

“If you’ve ever shot a venomous snake before it could bite you or your children, you’ve engaged in defensive gun use,” he said.

He said it is up to Second Amendment advocates to talk about the lives that are saved. He pointed out that gun control activists have a very efficient media operation. He said Second Amendment supporters must build their own system for getting their message out.

“They call us bloodthirsty, but they focus on death,” Mr. Ayoob said. “We need to show the faces of the survivors.”