You know the story I never need to read again? It’s the one where some vigilante comes to Gotham City and says, “I’m going to use guns and kill criminals. ‘Cause I’m a bad-ass and I’ve got the guts to do what Batman can’t.” And then, ya know, something goes wrong: A kid or a cop gets caught in the crossfire. It turns out the “criminal” was actually innocent. Commissioner Gordon won’t stand for it. Batman says, “Stop being a dick.” Whatever.
Throw in a quote about “staring into the abyss” if you want to get really “edgy” about it.
(And, no, changing it to a flaming sword doesn’t make it “fresh and exciting”. Cut it out.)
This story has been D.O.A. for awhile now, but the recent Battle for the Cowl mega-plot in the Batman comics uses this plot (I kid you not) three different times.
What really cements the creative bankruptcy involved here, however, is that Battle for the Cowl exists specifically because Batman is missing. And Batman is missing specifically because he broke his own rule and fired a gun. Which means that there was actually an opportunity here to take this tired, weary story and breathe a little fresh, legitimate life into it by using it to explore and comment on the decision that Batman had made.
Unfortunately, all three of the writers involved were too busy beating this dead horse to notice the opportunity that was passing them by.
Is this obsession of DC’s some kind of anti-NRA/anti-Gun Rights sort of thing?
Doubtful. The idea that Batman will never use a gun dates back to 1940 and has evolved into a central tenet of the character’s mythos (focused around the fact that he saw his own parents gunned down). It also ties into a wider theme of “superheroes bring criminals to justice, not vigilantes who act as self-appointed judge, jury, and executioner”.
The perceived “grittiness” of Batman stories coupled with (a) the prohibition being so deeply ingrained into the character and (b) the ever-present “why don’t they just kill the fucking Joker already?” question (which was actually, IIRC, established in the exact same issue as the prohibition on Batman using guns) make the “what if we did it a different way?” story super-appealing for Batman writers.