Good Guy With Gun Stories

The place to talk about personal defense, preparedness, and survival; both armed and unarmed.
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skb12172
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Good Guy With Gun Stories

Post by skb12172 »

One of my former professors has called me out publicly, on Facebook, challenging me to provide verifiable stories and statistics on a Good Guy With A Gun saving the day, particularly in a mass shooting.I know the NRA regularly publishes this stuff and I can find examples on my own, but I want to do this right. Can you help me respectfully, but truthfully and forthrightly, destroy him in this challenge? Here are his comments.
I honestly can hardly imagine a "good guy with a gun" scenario working in real life, unless the good guy manages to instantly take out the bad guy with the sort of preternatural efficiency that only happens in the movies. Let's look at a hypothetical shooting: on a college campus, at a movie theater, at a public gathering of some kind, whatever. A bad guy starts shooting. A good guy starts shooting back. Another good guy pulls his weapon, but doesn't doesn't which of the shooters is the good guy, and which is the bad guy. Another good guy does the same. Now we have four shooters (and it could spiral on from there). Then the cops arrive. How in the world do they know which one is the real bad guy?

Can someone point me to a reliable source which says exactly how many mass shootings have been shut down by a "good guy with a gun?" Maybe there have been some, but I can't think of a single case, whereas, sadly, I can think of multiple cases where nothing even resembling that happened.
There must be an end to this intimidation by those who come to this great country, but reject its culture.
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Jericho941
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Re: Good Guy With Gun Stories

Post by Jericho941 »

We've had guys with guns intervene before, with varying degrees of success. IIRC the main problem with the guy who intervened in the Tacoma Mall shooting was that he tried to get the guy to surrender instead of shooting first. There was that courthouse shooting where the bad guy was wearing body armor and a carrying bystander intervened; he got killed but he managed to slow the shooter down while law enforcement backup arrived.

Other times, someone intervened before the bad guy even started shooting. Usually written off as "oh the students were off-duty police" or "well he didn't actually start shooting so how can we know?"

Because for all the talk thrown around of Hollywood fantasies, they're still operating under one of their own: That this is something solved with a quick-draw. Bad guy draws, good guy draws faster, shoots bad guy dead. Or the good guy gets into an old-fashioned shootout with the bad guy after the bad guy's started shooting.

They'll also move the goalposts: That the person reacting to the shooter A: Has to hit and disable the shooter without any collateral damage and B: come out unscathed. Again, Hollywood.

The reality is much more pragmatic. If you engage a spree shooter, you may stop them or you may only be a speed bump. Both outcomes are acceptable.
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blackeagle603
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Re: Good Guy With Gun Stories

Post by blackeagle603 »

12 times mass shootings were stopped by good guy with a gun. LINK
"The Guncounter: More fun than a barrel of tattooed knife-fighting chain-smoking monkey butlers with drinking problems and excessive gambling debts!"

"The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic;" Justice Story
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blackeagle603
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Re: Good Guy With Gun Stories

Post by blackeagle603 »

Uber driver with gun apparently stops would-be mass shooter LINK
"The Guncounter: More fun than a barrel of tattooed knife-fighting chain-smoking monkey butlers with drinking problems and excessive gambling debts!"

"The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic;" Justice Story
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Denis
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Re: Good Guy With Gun Stories

Post by Denis »

Kevin Vickers was the Sergeant at Arms who stopped a potential bloodbath in the Canadian parliament with a handgun. He's now Canadian ambassador to Ireland.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Vickers

Info on the Avoid, Deny, Defend response to mass shootings here: http://www.avoiddenydefend.org/

Read this paper, and note Figure 5 and the text thereto: http://alerrt.org/files/research/Active ... Events.pdf
In the 41 events that ended before the police arrived, the attacker stopped the attack by killing himself on 21
occasions and simply left the scene in 4 cases. The potential victims at the attack site stopped the attacker themselves in 16 cases. In 13 of these cases, they physically subdued the attacker. In the other 3 cases, they shot the attacker.
The FBI calls their similar programme "Run, Hide, Fight":
https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/office-of- ... -incidents
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Darrell
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Re: Good Guy With Gun Stories

Post by Darrell »

Jeanne Assam, who stopped the church shooter here in Colorado Springs a few years ago.
Eppur si muove--Galileo
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PawPaw
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Re: Good Guy With Gun Stories

Post by PawPaw »

Hundreds, if not thousands compiled over the years at the NRA in the Armed Citizen Column.

LINKY HERE
Dennis Dezendorf
PawPaw's House
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Erik
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Re: Good Guy With Gun Stories

Post by Erik »

The Westgate mall attack in Nairobi
News of the assault was beginning to spread via frantic phones calls, texts, and WhatsApp messages. Westgate is in the heart of a Kenyan-Indian part of the city, and the close-knit community there knew better than to rely on the authorities to send help. Instead, the call went out to the community’s own licensed gun holders, who were organized into self-appointed armed neighborhood watch units.
According to the article, two civilians with handguns was in the group that first entered and cornered the terrorists.
"Life is tough, but it's tougher if you're stupid."
John Wayne
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Erik
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Re: Good Guy With Gun Stories

Post by Erik »

Let's look at a hypothetical shooting: on a college campus, at a movie theater, at a public gathering of some kind, whatever. A bad guy starts shooting. A good guy starts shooting back. Another good guy pulls his weapon, but doesn't doesn't which of the shooters is the good guy, and which is the bad guy. Another good guy does the same. Now we have four shooters (and it could spiral on from there). Then the cops arrive. How in the world do they know which one is the real bad guy?
Actually, the Westgate story I linked is a good example to refute that hypothetical. The first group to respond didn't know each other, only one of them was in uniform, yet it didn't take them very long to figure out who was the good guys and bad guys. They instantly joined together as a group. It was probably very obvious. The people shooting at unarmed people was bad guys, the people protecting civilians was the good guys.

I would be tempted to ask a counter question. Can he link to any story where a good guy with a gun trying to help has been mistaken for a bad guy and shot? I cant recall a single case where that happened. But there are many cases where two or more good guys responded independently and joined forces in going after the real bad guy.

Another point that has been made on this subject is that there are many cases where there have been no mass shooting because someone with a gun stopped it before lots of people was shot. So just counting the actual mass shootings stopped is undercounting the real number. In several of the links given above, the count would have been a lot higher if they hadn't been stopped early by a good guy with a gun.
"Life is tough, but it's tougher if you're stupid."
John Wayne
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