In what way is courage, in this case, something like a man with an empty gun?Atticus tells the children on the last page of Part 1 that he wants...

When Atticus shoots the mad dog, he is in complete control
of the situation. The dog has no chance against a marksman with a gun. Mrs. Dubose,
however, is like a person fighting her battle with an unloaded gun. She has no chance of
living a longer life, so she picks a slightly different battle that she can win:
overcoming her addiction to morphine before she dies. Atticus points out that real
courage is

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"when you know you're licked before you begin but
you begin anyway and you see it through no matter
what."

In Atticus' view, it
took no courage to kill a defenseless dog. However, Mrs. Dubose showed real courage by
taking seeing through her battle to the end.