U of T expert on why the NRA is wrong: Real life is not an action movie

People dive for cover at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival after a gunman in the Mandalay Hotel opened fire on the crowd. Fifty-eight people died, including four Canadians (photo by David Becker/Getty Images)

Published: October 4, 2017

The National Rifle Association says “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” But that romantic-hero image is wrong: Research – and the Las Vegas shooting – proves otherwise, argues Jooyoung Lee, an associate professor of sociology in the Faculty of Arts & Science at the University of Toronto.

In an opinion piece published by Maclean’s magazine, Lee writes that video of the Las Vegas massacre that left 58 dead and hundreds injured reveals again what he has learned from almost a decade studying gun violence: When the shooting starts, chaos and confusion ensue.

“Mass shootings are chaotic, scary, and fleeting, and they rarely conform to our dominant cultural images of active-shooter situations – much less the action-hero prospects,” Lee (pictured left) writes. “While shootouts look cool, stylish, and effortless in movies like John Wick or The Tower, reality is a different animal."

Lee cites Randall Collins’s 2008 book, Violence: A Micro-sociological Theory, which he says “dispels many of our oldest myths about violence.” Studies show that few people are cool and competent during mass shootings. Most are overcome by fear. They can't be counted on to stop a bad guy with a gun.

“This holds true for the average person and the trained soldier alike,” Lee writes.