Problems rarely have simple, clear answers upon which everyone agrees. I offered a few rather depressing thoughts on guns in my last column, and in today’s missive I’d like to suggest what the White House might call alternative facts that are worth considering. Like most of you, I suspect you have been bombarded with a wide range of reactions to the most recent mass murder in a school. (Think for a moment how truly horrible that last sentence was – “most recent mass murder in a school” – and how that made instant sense to you.)

Wayne LaPierre, the NRA’s leader for nearly 30 years now, leapt again to his rickety soapbox to make a series of claims about how gun owners in this country (like me, I guess, as I am a multiple gun owner) are under attack. Funny, I thought it was the kids in Parkland that were under attack. Mr. LaPierre asserted in his remarks that the media is exploiting the horror of dead children for political motives (which was, of course, exactly what he himself was doing). He also noted that the biased mainstream media would not report his words. How do I know this? I was watching his speech on MSNBC, the prime member of the liberal media deep state, according to people like, well, Mr. LaPierre.

Over those nearly three decades, Mr. LaPierre has made millions in salary and speaking fees. And his organization takes in tens of millions, the majority of that not from member dues, but from fundraising and donations. I was in a gun store earlier this week and the “NRA Donations” jar was packed full of cash.

The NRA won’t say how many members it has, though it has hinted at 5 million. That’s actually a small fraction of the total number of gun owners in the United States, where roughly a quarter of Americans own guns (interesting sidebar: a 2015 study by Northwestern University and Harvard found that some people have a LOT of guns, and that 3% of gun owners own roughly half the total number of guns. Some folks have serious collections).

Now, the NRA does great work in some areas – credit where credit is due. They are unmatched, for example, in offering courses on hunter safety, marksmanship, and more. They present themselves as a service organization for their members and that they do a bit of political stuff.

The real core role of the NRA, I believe, is to lobby on behalf of gun makers and to promote gun sales. Remember when President Obama was “coming for your guns?” It didn’t matter that the only gun legislation Obama signed actually made it easier to carry a weapon in national parks. It only mattered that he was “coming for your guns.” Since Mr. Trump has been elected, there has been a significant drop in gun sales (nearly 40% for Smith & Wesson), to the point that some in the industry have called it the “Trump Slump.” Just last month major gun maker Remington filed for bankruptcy. It seems Mr. Obama was great for gun sales, and Mr. Trump is not.

So, let’s take a look at the NRA’s and presumably Mr. Trump’s, “better” world with more guns in the hands of teachers, principals, school janitors, and other good guys. If you accept the premise that a good guy with a gun will stop mass shootings (despite what could generously be called spotty data for those that argue the affirmative), then why are we stopping at arming teachers? Currently, good guys with guns are not allowed to take their weapons to the House and Senate galleries. Shouldn’t we change that? Shouldn’t we want people to carry guns in the Capitol? On the White House grounds? How about at Broncos games?

And what kind of good guy are we talking about? Are you equally sanguine with, say, twenty-five young men of color walking around your neighborhood with AR-15s on their backs? How about 50 young Latino men striding through Cherry Creek Shopping Center? What do you think would likely happen if, at the next school shooting, the police arrived to find, say, 10 members of the Nation of Islam running around with semi-automatic weapons, looking for the bad guy? Issues of race and society still cut deeply in the US. So, if you ponder the above scenarios and think the “good guy with a gun” is the answer despite the challenges, well, you are either far brighter than I or perhaps profoundly naïve.