As the nation ponders how to stop the next mass shooting, the gun rights movement offers a straight-forward formula, laid out famously by NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre.

“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” LaPierre said last month, as his group responded to the elementary school massacre in Newtown, Conn.

One Man’s Story

In Washington state, one such “good guy” — a private citizen who drew his gun in defense of others — paid a heavy price.

More: Armed ‘Good Guys’ and the Realities of Facing a Gunman : NPR

Here’s a good piece on the realities rather than NRA fantasy. It’s never as cut and dried as anyone, on either side of a contentious debate, would have you believe.