EDITOR’S NOTE: This is one of a series of articles on gun rights. Each addresses a common anti-gun trope.
“If carrying guns is such a good idea, why haven’t any mass shootings been stopped by gun carriers?”
They have. That you may not have heard of such occurrences can be attributed to the following possibilities:
- A mass shooting that is stopped by a armed citizen doesn’t actually become a mass shooting, since many people are not murdered.
- The mainstream press, agenda-driven as it is (and, please, don’t pretend otherwise) hasn’t reported such occurrences.
- You’re not paying attention.
But, before we get into those supposedly nonexistent mass shootings, lets discuss the term “mass shooting” itself. If you’ve paid any attention to the controversy over the definition(s) of term “assault weapon,” you might not be too surprised to find out that the definition of “mass shooting” is itself nebulous. The FBI recently changed its definition of “mass murderer” from someone who killed four or more people (not counting himself) during one event to someone who killed three. Meanwhile, a widely-cited privately generated tracker uses a much broader definition of four or more killed or injured, not including the shooter. This is a rather expansive definition in that it conflates a term that average folks apply to the truly horrific incidents such as San Bernadino, Sandy Hook, and Orlando with gangland shootouts and drug crime.
Think about it. When you hear the term “mass shooting,” what do you think of? Do you include in your imaginings some gang-bangers in a turf fight or a drug deal gone bad, or do you envision crazed loners systematically murdering innocents? I suspect most of us think the latter, which makes conflating such incidents with gang crime tendentious and prejudicial. The aforementioned tracker tallied 372 mass shootings, by its definition, in 2015. Yet, Mother Jones, that bastion of conservatism reports that there were actually four. 4, not 372. Six, if you use the FBI’s more recent definition.
Given the disagreement in defining what constitutes a mass shooting, given the anti-gun bias of the mainstream press (and, again, if you don’t believe it to exist, grow up), and given that an armed civilian (here I use “civilian” because law enforcement and armed security aren’t the question here) who stops a shooter before he shoots four people keeps the incident off the tally, we shouldn’t be surprised in finding disagreement over this article’s opening question.
Nevertheless, it’s quite easy to disprove a negative. Anecdotes suffice. Without further ado, I offer to you a list of incidents where an armed citizen has stopped a shooter:
Pearl High School, Pearl, MS, 10/1/97
Parker Middle School, Edinboro, PA, 4/24/98
Appalachian School of Law, Grundy, VA, 1/16/02
New Life Church, Colorado Springs, CO, 12/9/07
AT&T Store New York Mills, NY, 5/27/10
Sullivan Central High School, 8/30/10
Freewill Baptist Church, Spartanburg, SC, 3/25/12
Clackamas Town Center Mall, 12/11/12
Wal-Mart, Augusta, ME, 6/26/16
Construction Site, Austin, TX 4/30/14
Cache Valley Hospital, North Logan, UT, 5/16/14
Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital, 7/24/14
Logan Square Chicago, 4/17/15
Falah Barber Shop, Philadelphia, 3/22/15
Bonnie’s Bar, Plymouth, PA, 10/9/12
House Party, Atlanta GA 5/3/09
Players Bar and Grill, Winnemuca, NV 5/25/08
Palms Internet Cafe, Ocala, FL 7/13/12
Alcoholics Anonymous Meeting, Columbia, SC 4/7/09
Trolley Square, Salt Lake City, UT, 2/12/07
Golden Food Market, Richmond, VA, 7/13/09
Destiny Christian Center, Aurora, CO, 4/24/12
Tyler Courthouse, Tyler, TX, 2/24/05
Freewill Baptist Church, Boiling Springs, SC, 3/25/12
Logan Square, Chicago, IL, 4/20/15,
Los Altos Skate Park, Albuquerque, NM, 3/22/15
B & L Landscape Company, Jacksonville, FL, 3/9/16
Playoffz Night Club, Wellford, SC, 6/26/16
Peach Tree RV Park, Early, TX, 7/29/12
House Party,West Pullman, IL, 7/4/14
Winton Hill, OH, 7/26/15
Magnet Bottle Shop, Conyers, GA, 5/31/15
Fire Station, New Holland, SC, 5/5/15
Mystic Night Club, Portland, OR, 1/11/14
Grocery Store, Salt Lake City, UT, 4/27/12
Tammaron Village, Oklahoma City, OK, 12/17/09
Public Street, Memphis, TN, 3/8/07
Schnuck’s Supermarket, Memphis, TN, 7/21/06
Muskegon, MI, 8/23/95
Shoney’s, Anniston, AL 12/17/91
Mayan Palace Theater, San Antonio, TX 12/16/12
Gun Shop, Santa Clara, CA, 7/7/99
Traffic Stop, East Baton Rouge, LA, 2/17/06
Bank Robbery, Bessemer AL, 5/14/07
These incidents are in no particular order, and there may be disagreement on whether some of these are averted “mass shooter” incidents. Judging shooter intent can be difficult, especially if he was killed before he got a chance to kill. And, in couple of these instances, the bad guys were stabbing people rather than shooting them. Given the recent mass stabbing in China that resulted in 29 dead and 130 wounded and the more recent slasher incident at Ohio State University, we should not dismiss bad guys with knives.
This list is by no means comprehensive or exhaustive, and I welcome readers who know of any I have not included to add them to the comments list or forward them to me. I will update it periodically.
A final note. By some reports, 92% of mass shootings have occurred in “gun-free zones.” This figure, disputed by some (due to expansive definitions of mass shootings and gun-free zones), points at another reason why there may be fewer armed-citizen interventions in mass shootings.
So,
Gun rights lesson #488: Yes, mass shootings have been prevented by armed citizens. Many times.
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