Wednesday's case of ballpark violence (you and I know it was another form of domestic terrorism, but we can also be pretty sure that the Obama regime would have called it ballpark violence) would surely have been far, far worse but for the presence and heroic actions (and training and discipline – more on that in a minute) of the two Capitol Police officers who were detailed to provide security for House whip Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.).

There's a racial angle to this, and it's one that the left and its media lackeys, usually all too eager to find and exploit racial angles where none really exist, will surely ignore, because it clearly doesn't fit the desired "narrative."

When I heard the names of the two officers – a man and a woman, David Bailey and Crystal Griner – there was nothing about those names that indicated any particular ethnicity.  But when, late Wednesday, I saw their photos, it seemed pretty clear that both are black.

"And isn't that amazing?" I thought.  Apparently, they must not have received the memo informing them that Republicans are all racists who hate black people!  Officer Griner, in particular, must not have received the memo informing her that Republicans are the perpetrators of a "war on women"!  Somehow these two managed to put their lives on the line to protect a bunch of "white guys" whose ultimate agenda is to (in the words of Creepy Uncle Joe Biden) "put y'all back in chains"!

So not only were these two officers professional enough to refuse to swallow the propaganda spewed by Black Lives Matter and the other fomenters of racial divisiveness, but they were also professional enough to be trained and disciplined enough to prevail in what, once the bullets started flying, could have been a suicide mission.

Here's where we depart from the alleged racial angle and address the very real tactical angle of Wednesday's attack and the actions of the two heroic officers.  You see, regardless of what you've seen for years in movies and on TV, using a handgun to engage a rifleman is usually a losing proposition.  Shots that are difficult to impossible with a handgun are actually pretty easy with a rifle.  In a firefight that pits a rifleman against a handgunner, the rifleman has a distinct and usually overwhelming and deadly advantage.

This is where the two officers' bravery and heroism would not have been enough. All the praise for their bravery and heroism would be delivered posthumously but for their training and discipline.  That training and discipline, and the fact that simply wielding a rifle doesn't make one a rifleman, and that the cowardly attacker wasn't much of a rifleman by any reckoning, allowed them, even though they were wounded, to turn the tables and stop the attack.  That's the point of the defensive use of firearms: to make the attacker stop.  If the attacker happens to be killed, well, that's just an unfortunate side effect of having been stopped.  In this case, the attacker got just what he deserved, and I'm sure he's now in that corner of hell reserved for evil cowards.

So, as happens on rare, happy occasions (as in the World War I exploits of Sgt. Alvin C. York, or the more recent attempted terrorist attack on the "Draw Muhammad" art competition in Garland, Texas), good guys armed only with handguns managed to neutralize bad guys armed with rifles.  The pistoleros prevailed!

The lesson for all those Americans who exercise their God-given right to self-protection (which the Second Amendment does not grant, but pledges to protect) is that it's not enough to merely keep and bear arms.  One needs to be competent with those arms, and the way to do that is to train and practice, practice, practice!

Stu Tarlowe has been a contributor to American Thinker since 2010, with well over 100 pieces published.  His personal pantheon of heroes and role models includes Barry Farber; Jean Shepherd; Long John Nebel; Aristide Bruant; Emmett Grogan; Hunter S. Thompson; Rabbi Meir Kahane; G. Gordon Liddy; and, of course; Col. Jeff Cooper.