*content warning: discussion of mass shootings and gun violence*
Since the Sandy Hook school shooting in 2012, there have been 1,911 mass shootings in the United States, killing and wounding nearly ten thousand people. To break it down for emphasis, that's almost three hundred mass shootings per year, which comes to down to approximately one mass shooting almost every single day or every other day. And, these statistics don't even include other forms of gun violence. But because of the frequency of these mass shootings, active shooter situations are often at the forefront of the mind of many Americans. For me personally, I fear an active shooter every time I walk into a movie theater, go to a concert or a sports game, visit my old high school, go to the mall, or even when I've gone to church. I'm always trying to figure out a plan for what I'll do, and I always keep in mind where the nearest exit is. And I know I can't be the only one that has this fear--according to a poll from 2017, approximately 4 in 10 Americans fear that either they or someone in their family will be a victim of a mass shooting.
But despite the fact that gun violence and mass killings in particular have occurred more often than we could have ever imagined, gun control, defined as measures intended to restrict the possession and use of firearms, is still being contested. While some see the clear need for it, others tend to make the following common arguments against any form of it (including things like stricter background checks, bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines) : "guns don't kill people, people kill people;" "gun control violates the 2nd Amendment;" "gun control won't work, because people who want to be murderers will still find a way to kill people;" and "we need guns to protect us from these mass shootings and from the government."
So, in place of gun control, which is still being debated, many places have gotten creative in terms of measures they've tried to take to prevent mass killings and to protect people when these shootings happen. One of the most recent examples of this is detailed in an article on NPR's website, in which Oakland University in Michigan is arming their students and faculty with hockey pucks to act as a defensive tactic against potential active shooters.
According to the article, Oakland University has a no-weapons policy, and after an active shooter training, the police chief at the university (Mark Gordon) had a spur-of-the-moment idea for a way for people on campus to defend themselves: hockey pucks. Here's a direct quote from the article with some of the police chief's reasoning:
"If you threw [a hockey puck] at a gunman, it would probably cause some injury. It would be a distraction, if nothing else," Gordon told WXYZ, a local ABC station. The police chief also suggested that a group of students could "rush" an active shooter with their pucks, creating a distraction that would allow someone else to get their hands on the shooter's weapon.
Additionally, the article details that the pucks also serve as a fundraiser to buy interior locks for doors on campus, since all of the doors currently lock from the outside, which is not ideal in a situation in which there's a murderer on the loose.
But here's the issue with handing out hockey pucks to students for defense against an active shooter--much of the reasoning behind this idea rests on a logical fallacy called a "false analogy." A false analogy occurs when a person tries to compare two or more things that aren't really comparable, in that they're more different than they are alike. In this case, hockey pucks and guns are not comparable. A gun, especially one like an AR-15, is deadly, fast, can be shot from a distance, and can be easily aimed, making it easy to kill many people within a very short period of time. A hockey puck, however, is more likely to injure than kill, is much slower, and has a low likelihood of actually hitting the target, especially from a distance. Therefore, if these students are armed with hockey pucks in a defense against someone with a gun looking to commit mass murder, their likelihood of being able to stop the shooter is still very, very low.
However, what's unfortunate is that despite the somewhat flawed logic of giving students and staff members hockey pucks in defense of a mass shooting situation, this is one of only a few options this college has in order to protect its students and staff. What is needed is a larger-scale change from the government, particularly common-sense gun laws to restrict (but not necessarily take fully away) gun ownership, and this is something that Oakland University cannot control by itself. Therefore, this situation is a classic example of an idea that I discuss in my research: which is that while fallacies can be important tools to point out potentially sneaky and manipulative rhetorical moves, sometimes we need to be willing to look beyond a fallacy and see the reasoning that lies beyond it.