OPINION

A night of fun has turned fitful

Trevor Hughes
USA Today

DENVER – As a college student in Boston, movie nights were often rowdy affairs as we raced from classes to snag the best seats in a darkened theater to catch the latest sci-fi flick or cheer the re-released original “Star Wars” films.

We reveled in the group experience, good-naturedly bickered over the theater sound systems and cheered Obi-Wan Kenobi when Alec Guinness stepped into the light. Movies took us away from our tests and classes and deadlines.

But after three years of covering the 2012 theater shooting in Aurora, Colo., in which 12 people died, I found myself feeling something quite different while at the movies with my parents: fear.

Sitting in the dark, I found myself scanning the exits and swiveling my head whenever someone stood up. I couldn’t focus on the screen because I was too worried about the people around me. And then last week someone killed two people in a movie theater in Lafayette, La., a town I’ve come to love. My friends in Lafayette, as you might imagine, freaked out.

Our politicians have shown no real willingness to confront gun violence. That has me thinking: Maybe I should buy a gun.

I hate the idea of living in fear. I hate the idea of looking at fellow moviegoers as potential killers. And gun ownership, which mystifies my English parents, has never appealed to me.

But I can’t escape the notion that I ought to be taking more responsibility for my own safety. After 20 years of covering shootings and disasters, I know that no matter how hard our cops work, they won’t arrive until after the Bad Thing has begun.

I know the statistics, that putting more guns into circulation will lead to an increase in gun violence. When the only tool you have is a hammer, well, every problem starts to look like a nail.

But that’s them. Not me. I know I can be trusted to use a gun safely, in the same way that millions of Americans who own, carry and use guns safely every day are trusted. In some ways, it feels like carrying a gun might be like wearing a seat belt: a reasonable and simple safety precaution.

In the immediate aftermath of Aurora, some gun rights advocates argued for more guns in public. Their argument is basically a version of the quote by author and futurist Robert Heinlein: “An armed society is a polite society.” A gun owner I respect said that murderers and terrorists deliberately choose soft targets, places where they know they themselves won’t be immediately targeted. The Aurora theater shooter, for instance, picked a darkened movie theater because he’d have the best chance to kill people without being stopped.

The instant he was confronted by armed police officers, he surrendered. Sounds a little like what happened in Lafayette, where the shooter, after going outside the theater, was frightened by the arriving police, went back inside and killed himself.

Bullies are like that. Stand up to them and they back down or flee. And carrying a gun is the ultimate equalizer, right? It puts you on an equal footing with anyone, putting the power of life and death in your hand.

I’m not sure I’m ready for that. I’m not sure I’m willing to buy a product deliberately designed to kill. Having covered mass shootings for decades, I know too well the devastation a gun can cause in the wrong hands.

But what’s the option? Spend the money on a giant television so I never have to go to the movies again? Avoid large public gatherings? Rely on someone to watch over me?

No. I’m not going to hide at home in fear.

As Ben Franklin said in 1773: “Make yourselves sheep, and the wolves will eat you.”

I’m no sheep. But I’m not quite sure I want to be a wolf, either.

Hughes is a Denver-based correspondent for USA Today. Follow him on Twitter at @TrevorHughes.