There is an ongoing myth being pedaled primarily by conservatives that the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is to have more good guys with guns. If only the victims of all these mass shootings hadn't been so foolish to think they were safe in their churches and LGBT friendly night clubs then maybe they could have shot the shooter before the shooter shot them. Personally, I think this argument is not only complete bull shit, but more so it is incredibly offensive and insensitive to the victims and their families. But I'm a philosophical guy and I like to play around in my head with hypothetical situations of how events could have occurred under different circumstances. All of these "good guys with a gun" types like to think that they know exactly what they would do if there was a shooter on the loose, so I thought I would present a scenario for readers to play around with. The only difference is that I will base my hypothetical scenarios in reality rather than Steven Seagal movies.

Let's begin by imagining every person who wants to openly carry their firearms in public, as many have argued for, are now allowed to do so.

One night, you and some of your gun-toting friends decide to go to your favorite bar (or movie theater, or church, or any public space where you're supposed to feel safe). While you and your friends are at the bar ordering drinks you hear several gun shots and panic immediately spreads throughout the building. Those first gunshots mean that people have already died. By the time you take your gun from its holster more shots are fired and more are dead. When you turn around to see where all this chaos is coming from you see dozens of other like-minded citizens brandishing their guns so that they too can attempt to be the hero.

But in a sea of people brandishing high-caliber weapons, ask yourself: who is the shooter? This is actually the second problem in this hypothetical scenario because while it took you and all the other "good guys" with guns a however brief amount of time to take your gun from its holster and turn to fire it, the man who entered the building planning to take as many lives as possible had his weapon at the ready and needed no preparation, he didn't even have a specific target.

A mass shooting is classified by the FBI as four or more lives being taken in a public place, and in the amount of time it would take you to realize what was happening at least four people would already be dead. If you had been at the entrance when he came in ready to kill, you wouldn't have even had time to reach for your holster.

But luckily you were farthest from him and were able to draw your gun. Now what do you do? There are now dozens of other armed civilians between you and him and for all you know he is one of those dozens of people or maybe he isn't acting alone. How many other people in there could be his accomplice? How many people think you could be an accomplice yourself? The bar now becomes the world's largest Mexican standoff.

In fact, at this point the killer could simply stop shooting people, start running around in the chaos, and disappear into the fray. But let's pretend he didn't. Let's pretend he is still intent on killing as many people as possible. Without a doubt he is going to start to notice people reaching for their own guns who have just made themselves immediate targets. Even if it only takes a few seconds to take a gun from its holster and turn the safety off, he has the advantage of being at the ready. Anyone he sees reaching for their pocket would quickly be shot.

But you, oh special super hero of gun violence, you were just out of sight enough that he doesn't notice you pull out your gun and start to aim it in his direction. But what about all of the screaming and scattering bar goers who aren't about to risk their lives with a madman? Are you just going to start randomly taking shots in the middle of a dark and crowded bar with helpless men and women running for their lives. Are you going to risk your own life for that matter?

You're not. You, me, and everyone else knows it. When those shots start going off, regardless of what you're packing, you're going to run too because you're not the kind of person that would sacrifice your life like that since odds are that's all you would be doing. The moment you draw a gun on a person intent on killing as many people as possible you have just made yourself their next target.

So let's get more hypothetical. You've got balls of steel and don't give a single shit about your own life. You are selflessness incarnate and you fire one off at the shooter. Did you even hit him? How much professional experience do you have with handling and discharging a firearm? On a scale from 1 to 10 how much of a marksman are you? 1 being a scared kid who is only shooting a gun because his dad is making him and 10 being a Navy SEAL shooting a target on a boat a mile away while they themselves are on a different boat. How confident are you that you aren't going to hit an innocent bystander? Going to a shooting range and blasting off a few rounds at a paper target is not at all like aiming a gun at an actual human with the intent to maim and/or kill them.

Also keep in mind that there are dozens of other "good guys with guns" wanting to do the same thing. If you start firing off rounds then how do they know that you're not the shooter? Or at least an accomplice? They don't always act alone you know. It wouldn't take long for a situation with one active shooter to devolve into a situation with dozens of active shooters without anyone knowing who the initial shooter was except of course for the initial shooter.

But okay, let's put all that aside and assume that you are in fact the action hero that you think you are. You are what would happen if John McClane and Rambo somehow had a baby. Although dozens have already died by now, you are able to fire one good shot right between the mass murderer's eyes. But then the police start to arrive and when they do they see dozens of dead bodies all over the building, many of which have guns since we live in this "guns for all" utopia, and they see you standing over the carnage with your gun in hand.

You are now under arrest. Explain it however you like, you are going in for questioning at the very least. Until there is enough evidence to show that you weren't the (original) shooter then guess what? You were totally the shooter. You had better hope there's good enough video evidence to prove that you were acting in defense, if there's any video footage all. Maybe some eyewitnesses can vouch for you despite doing everything they could to just get the hell out of there alive, but even if it's proven that you weren't responsible for all of those deaths, except one of course, you still broke this silly law called "vigilantism."

Taking the law into your own hands is incredibly dangerous for all the reasons I pointed out in my hypothetical situation above. As bad as gun violence is now, it would only skyrocket if every citizen thought they had the right to take the law into their own hands.

Finally, keep in mind that death is not justice. Death is not what these people deserve. Death does make them suffer for the atrocity they committed. Death is the easy way out. The majority of mass shooters know that they are going to die not long after they first pull that trigger. Many of them take their own lives and many die in shootouts with the police, but don't think for a minute they had any plan of getting out of their alive. For them, dying is part of the plan. But that doesn't mean you should risk your life or the lives of anyone in the crossfire.

Because let's be honest, you don't want to stop a murderer, you just want to be a hero. You're already captain hindsight, trying to impress people with your cowardly and impotent catchphrase of "would have, could have, should have."