Volusia County Public Library discussion

One major aspect of the novel is the fictional scientific hypothesis used by the Wildfire team that only a single, unmarried man or person could make certain critical command decisions with little or no hesitations. Dr. Hall assumes this means he is the one that will arm the nuclear self-destruct device at Wildfire. Would you assume the same thing until being told that it is actually for the person to disarm the device if the emergency is not critical? Why would the government have such a thing in place in a situation like this?