Do Armed Civilians Stop Mass Shooters? Actually, No

[TruthOut10]

In the wake of the unthinkable massacre in Connecticut, pro-gun ideologues are once again calling for ordinary citizens to arm themselves as a solution to mass shootings. If only the principal at Sandy Hook Elementary School had possessed a M-4 assault rifle she could've stopped the killer, they say. This latest twist on a long-running argument isn't just absurd on its face; there is no evidence to support it. As I reported recently in our in-depth investigation, not one of the 62 mass shootings in the United States over the last 30 years has been stopped this way. More broadly, attempts by armed civilians to intervene in shooting rampages are rare—and are successful even more rarely. (Two people who tried it in recent years were gravely wounded or killed.) And law enforcement overwhelmingly hates the idea.

Those pesky facts haven't stopped the "arm America more!" crowd from pressing the argument with alleged examples of successful armed interventions. The problem is, the few examples they keep using—in which they depict plain old folks acting heroically and with definitive results—fall apart under scrutiny. Here are five of them and why they don't work:

Appalachian School of Law shooting in Grundy, Virginia
Gun rights die-hards frequently credit the end of a rampage at the law school in 2002 to armed "students" who intervened. They conveniently ignore that those students also happened to be current and former law enforcement officers, and that the killer, according to police investigators, was out of ammunition by the time they got to him.

Middle school dance shooting in Edinboro, Pennsylvania
An ambiguous case from 1998, in which the shooter may well have already been done shooting: After killing a teacher and wounding three others, the 14-year-old perpetrator left the dance venue. The owner of the venue followed him outside with a shotgun, confronting and subduing him in a nearby field until police arrived. The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, who himself recently argued for more guns as an answer to gun violence, told me this week that one police source he talked to about this case said that it was "not clear at all" whether the kid had intended to do any further shooting after he'd left the building.

Do Armed Civilians Stop Mass Shooters? Actually, No. | Mother Jones

 

[arKangel]

Mass shootings occur in "gun free" zones.

End of thread.

 

[AmyNation]

People and business owners have the right to a gun free zone if they choose.

 

[eots]

Pearl High School, Mississippi: This incident began the morning of Oct. 1, 1997, when 16-year-old student Luke Windham entered the school with a rifle. Wearing only an orange jumpsuit and a trench coat and making no effort to hide his weapon, he initially entered the school and shot and killed two students, injuring seven others. He was stopped by assistant principal Joel Myrick, who retrieved a .45 cal. handgun from the glove box of his truck.

"I've always kept a gun in the truck just in case something like this ever happened," said Myrick at the time, who went on to become principal of Corinth High School, Corinth, Miss.

Appalachia Law School, Virginia: On Jan. 16, 2002, Peter Odighizuwa, 43, a former student from Nigeria, arrived on the campus of the school with a handgun around 1:00 p.m. and immediately killed three people, at least two of them at point-blank range. Two students - Mikael Gross and Tracy Bridges - both retrieved handguns from their vehicles and confronted Odighizuwa. As former police officers, both men were trained to subdue suspects but the fact is they were on the scene and armed, and helped prevent more killings.

Muskegon, Michigan: From the Aug. 23, 1995, issue of the Muskegon Chronicle: "Plans to slay everyone in the Muskegon, Michigan, store and steal enough cash and jewelry to feed their 'gnawing hunger for crack cocaine' fell apart for a band of would-be killers after one of their victims fought back. Store owner Clare Cooper was returning behind the counter after showing three of the four conspirators some jewelry, when one of the group pulled out a gun and shot him four times in the back. Stumbling for the safety of his bullet-proof glass-encased counter, Cooper managed to grab his shotgun and fire as the suspects fled."

Colorado Springs, Colo.: On Dec. 9, 2007, gunman Mathew Murray, 24, launched an armed attack against the parishioners of the New Life Church that ultimately left two innocent victims dead. But the toll could have been much higher, were it not for the heroic actions of former police officer Jeanne Assam from Minnesota. In an interview she said she very nearly decided not to go to church that morning but because she saw a headline on her computer indicating that two young people were murdered and a training center for Christian missionaries about 70 miles away in the Denver suburb of Arvada, she changed her mind. Murray shot a total of five people before an armed Assam shot and killed him. There were about 7,000 people at the church at the time of the attack.

Numerous school massacres stopped by gun owners who wielded their weapons in defense of children

 

[Oddball]

Seems they omitted the Pearl High School incident....I wonder why?

 

[Oddball]

/thread

 

[Politico]

No one has said arm principals with M4s. Stop smoking crack. And yes someone with a gun could have stopped them.

But let me explain some reality to you. If I carry a weapon it is to protect me. I could care less about you. If I am walking through the mall and some lunatic starts shooting I am my concern.

 

[bitterlyclingin]

[Lindisfarne; Cool reading. The Moral. What drew the Evil to it, was its defenselessness. With Newtown fresh in everyone's mind, now lets make everyone as defenseless as Newtown was by disarming everyone except the evil ones. They will always find a way anyway. The word 'Berserk' came into the English language as a result of the behavior of a tribe of Northmen, the 'Berserkers' who used to eat this special mushroom before going off to war and began to behave in a very peculiar way after eating them.]

"I pull up in front of our town's little savings bank branch, drop out of the door and when my boots hit the pavement reach under my shirt and the remove the Smith & Wesson Model 28 .357 which I then put under the seat before locking the truck. "What are you doing Grandpa?" my granddaughter asks walking around from the other door.

"Here's a word of advice cupcake. It's never a good idea to walk into a bank with a gun."

The next stop after the bank was her school and when we walked in together I left it locked up under the seat again. Not because I was worried about violating the Federal Gun Free School Zones Act because, and while most school teachers and administrators don't understand this, there are exceptions and I'm one. Instead I left the gun under the seat because I would give those school teachers and administrators the vapors if they even suspected I was armed. Guns are evil most of them seem to feel. Not only mine. The guns of the police they'd summon to their aid are bad too. The make believe guns boys play cowboy with are bad too, even the gun a second grader might pencil in when drawing a picture of an "army man" is evil. It's a key tenet of their wishful thinking.

And a very strange brand of wishful thinking it is. Because instead of hoping for something to come their way, they're wishing for nothing to happen. Its symbol might be a monkey with it hands over its eyes because it's principal doctrine is that if you can't see any evil, refuse to see any evil, then it doesn't exist. Of course it's only a variation of the old notion that if you don't look a lion in the eye he won't charge. But it's what these people believe. Which is why that school, like many other schools run by similar believers once prohibited any discussion of 9/11, any videotapes, photographs or indeed any reference to it at all. Again if you don't see evil or don't learn about it, talk it out, try to learn the lessons it teaches you, then it doesn't exist, won't have any power over you. Can't.

But educators should know something about history. Because this is an old story and has its roots in a tragedy every bit as compelling as Sandy Hook School. The story of Lindisfarne.

An island connected to northern England's coast by a tidal causeway. A holy place, in fact its name today is Holy Island and 1300 years ago it was Christendom's most prominent experiment with what we today would call a Gun Free School Zone. But what happened there should have proved for all time that covering one's eyes, pretending that demons don't exist, that you're somehow "better than that", is worse than futile. Criminally worse.

Lindisfarne was a monastery, renowned for its non-violence, dedicated to learning, to the idea that in the tumult of the early Middle Ages, man could, should be, was "better than that." Gloriously "better than that." And for a while people believed along with them in this "right message" and endowed Lindisfarne with riches, sang its praises in ten thousand churches.

Its ruins today are still a beacon atop a spire of high rock, surmounted by sheer stone walls, far above the everyday concerns of this world.

But they are ruins because one dark in the eighth century Lindisfarne's rock and walls were scaled by Vikings holding their swords in their mouths. Demons out of the northern seas who chased the unarmed monks from room to room in the monastery, butchering them for sport, sacking their golden altar and trampling their precious books underfoot. An event which shook Christendom to its core.

Why did it happen? Quite simply because the killers were drawn by the defenselessness of the place, by Lindisfarne's "right message", by the fact that Lindisfarne abjured violence and trusted as school administrators trust today, in never looking the lion in the eye.

Above all by the fact that Lindisfarne would not suffer the presence of armed men who might defend it.

Today most of us don't even remember that there once was such a place. Even though we keep repeating the same mistake it made. We don't remember what we should have learned then; that weakness will, sooner or later, summon horror.

As Adam Lanza was summoned to Sandy Hook School."

Articles: Lindisfarne To Sandy Hook: The Tragedy of Wishful Thinking

 

[Quantum Windbag]

In the wake of the unthinkable massacre in Connecticut, pro-gun ideologues are once again calling for ordinary citizens to arm themselves as a solution to mass shootings. If only the principal at Sandy Hook Elementary School had possessed a M-4 assault rifle she could've stopped the killer, they say. This latest twist on a long-running argument isn't just absurd on its face; there is no evidence to support it. As I reported recently in our in-depth investigation, not one of the 62 mass shootings in the United States over the last 30 years has been stopped this way. More broadly, attempts by armed civilians to intervene in shooting rampages are rare—and are successful even more rarely. (Two people who tried it in recent years were gravely wounded or killed.) And law enforcement overwhelmingly hates the idea.

Those pesky facts haven't stopped the "arm America more!" crowd from pressing the argument with alleged examples of successful armed interventions. The problem is, the few examples they keep using—in which they depict plain old folks acting heroically and with definitive results—fall apart under scrutiny. Here are five of them and why they don't work:

Appalachian School of Law shooting in Grundy, Virginia
Gun rights die-hards frequently credit the end of a rampage at the law school in 2002 to armed "students" who intervened. They conveniently ignore that those students also happened to be current and former law enforcement officers, and that the killer, according to police investigators, was out of ammunition by the time they got to him.

Middle school dance shooting in Edinboro, Pennsylvania
An ambiguous case from 1998, in which the shooter may well have already been done shooting: After killing a teacher and wounding three others, the 14-year-old perpetrator left the dance venue. The owner of the venue followed him outside with a shotgun, confronting and subduing him in a nearby field until police arrived. The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, who himself recently argued for more guns as an answer to gun violence, told me this week that one police source he talked to about this case said that it was "not clear at all" whether the kid had intended to do any further shooting after he'd left the building.

Do Armed Civilians Stop Mass Shooters? Actually, No. | Mother Jones

Mother Jones does not think guns help stop stop crimes, yet they think police should have guns.

Can anyone explain that?

 

[percysunshine]

"As I reported recently in our in-depth investigation, not one of the 62 mass shootings in the United States over the last 30 years has been stopped this way."

Logic flaw alert!

By definition, they were not stopped.

The ones that were stopped do not end up in the 'mass shootings' category.

Try again young jedi...

 

[Oddball]

In the wake of the unthinkable massacre in Connecticut, pro-gun ideologues are once again calling for ordinary citizens to arm themselves as a solution to mass shootings. If only the principal at Sandy Hook Elementary School had possessed a M-4 assault rifle she could've stopped the killer, they say. This latest twist on a long-running argument isn't just absurd on its face; there is no evidence to support it. As I reported recently in our in-depth investigation, not one of the 62 mass shootings in the United States over the last 30 years has been stopped this way. More broadly, attempts by armed civilians to intervene in shooting rampages are rare—and are successful even more rarely. (Two people who tried it in recent years were gravely wounded or killed.) And law enforcement overwhelmingly hates the idea.

Those pesky facts haven't stopped the "arm America more!" crowd from pressing the argument with alleged examples of successful armed interventions. The problem is, the few examples they keep using—in which they depict plain old folks acting heroically and with definitive results—fall apart under scrutiny. Here are five of them and why they don't work:

Appalachian School of Law shooting in Grundy, Virginia
Gun rights die-hards frequently credit the end of a rampage at the law school in 2002 to armed "students" who intervened. They conveniently ignore that those students also happened to be current and former law enforcement officers, and that the killer, according to police investigators, was out of ammunition by the time they got to him.

Middle school dance shooting in Edinboro, Pennsylvania
An ambiguous case from 1998, in which the shooter may well have already been done shooting: After killing a teacher and wounding three others, the 14-year-old perpetrator left the dance venue. The owner of the venue followed him outside with a shotgun, confronting and subduing him in a nearby field until police arrived. The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, who himself recently argued for more guns as an answer to gun violence, told me this week that one police source he talked to about this case said that it was "not clear at all" whether the kid had intended to do any further shooting after he'd left the building.

Do Armed Civilians Stop Mass Shooters? Actually, No. | Mother Jones

Mother Jones does not think guns help stop stop crimes, yet they think police should have guns.

Can anyone explain that?

 

[Zoom-boing]

In the wake of the unthinkable massacre in Connecticut, pro-gun ideologues are once again calling for ordinary citizens to arm themselves as a solution to mass shootings. If only the principal at Sandy Hook Elementary School had possessed a M-4 assault rifle she could've stopped the killer, they say. This latest twist on a long-running argument isn't just absurd on its face; there is no evidence to support it. As I reported recently in our in-depth investigation, not one of the 62 mass shootings in the United States over the last 30 years has been stopped this way. More broadly, attempts by armed civilians to intervene in shooting rampages are rare—and are successful even more rarely. (Two people who tried it in recent years were gravely wounded or killed.) And law enforcement overwhelmingly hates the idea.

Those pesky facts haven't stopped the "arm America more!" crowd from pressing the argument with alleged examples of successful armed interventions. The problem is, the few examples they keep using—in which they depict plain old folks acting heroically and with definitive results—fall apart under scrutiny. Here are five of them and why they don't work:

Appalachian School of Law shooting in Grundy, Virginia
Gun rights die-hards frequently credit the end of a rampage at the law school in 2002 to armed "students" who intervened. They conveniently ignore that those students also happened to be current and former law enforcement officers, and that the killer, according to police investigators, was out of ammunition by the time they got to him.

Middle school dance shooting in Edinboro, Pennsylvania
An ambiguous case from 1998, in which the shooter may well have already been done shooting: After killing a teacher and wounding three others, the 14-year-old perpetrator left the dance venue. The owner of the venue followed him outside with a shotgun, confronting and subduing him in a nearby field until police arrived. The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, who himself recently argued for more guns as an answer to gun violence, told me this week that one police source he talked to about this case said that it was "not clear at all" whether the kid had intended to do any further shooting after he'd left the building.

Do Armed Civilians Stop Mass Shooters? Actually, No. | Mother Jones

Mother Jones does not think guns help stop stop crimes, yet they think police should have guns.

Can anyone explain that?

tff, OB. Damn why'd you get your rep knocked out?

 

[martybegan]

People and business owners have the right to a gun free zone if they choose.

Yes, but the smart ones would provide armed security.

 

[Zoom-boing]

Dec 17, 2012

With one shot, an off-duty sergeant took down a gunman who attempted to opened fire at a crowded movie theater lobby during a late night showing of “The Hobbit” in San Antonio, 1200 WOAI news reports.

Man Attempts to Open Fire on Crowd at Movie Theater, Armed Off-Duty Sergeant Drops Him (UPDATED) | TheBlaze.com


Dec 18, 2012

A gun-carrying man in Flagstaff, Ariz. is being credited with helping stop a bank robbery suspect — but he never even had to pull out his gun.

As soon as I leave work, my pistol is at my side, and it doesn’t leave my side unless I’m about to go into a place that doesn’t allow it,” he told the Daily Sun. “Would you feel better if you were shot with a 10-round magazine instead of 30?…If criminals are going to have them, responsible citizens should be able to have them.”

Gun-Carrying Arizona Man Helps Nab Bank Robber — And All He Had to Do Was Show the Suspect He Was Armed | TheBlaze.com



Cops, law abiding citizens, bad guys, loons.

Who would not be able to get a gun if guns were banned?

Leftist thinking is warped. No, really.

 

[Locke11_21]

Actually, guns to prevent things like this. One thing that was not reported in the Clackamas, OR mall shooting was shooter, Jacob Shooter was confronted by Nick Meli who has a concealed carry permit. When Roberts so that Meli had him locked in his sights, Robert offed himself. Had not Meli been there, the situation would have been far worse. Oh, and this happened in a gun free zone, and DUMBocrat politicians in Oregon are trying to pass anti-gun legislation that would prevent law-abiding citizens from concealed carry.


Also, in the Aurora, CO shooting, the shooter chose to do his tragic act by going to the only theatre that banned people from carrying a gun, even if they had a concealed carry permit.

And CT, well, not exactly a gun friendly state either.

Notice how these nutjobs go where they know there will be no guns.

 

[Cecilie1200]

In the wake of the unthinkable massacre in Connecticut, pro-gun ideologues are once again calling for ordinary citizens to arm themselves as a solution to mass shootings. If only the principal at Sandy Hook Elementary School had possessed a M-4 assault rifle she could've stopped the killer, they say. This latest twist on a long-running argument isn't just absurd on its face; there is no evidence to support it. As I reported recently in our in-depth investigation, not one of the 62 mass shootings in the United States over the last 30 years has been stopped this way. More broadly, attempts by armed civilians to intervene in shooting rampages are rare—and are successful even more rarely. (Two people who tried it in recent years were gravely wounded or killed.) And law enforcement overwhelmingly hates the idea.

Those pesky facts haven't stopped the "arm America more!" crowd from pressing the argument with alleged examples of successful armed interventions. The problem is, the few examples they keep using—in which they depict plain old folks acting heroically and with definitive results—fall apart under scrutiny. Here are five of them and why they don't work:

Appalachian School of Law shooting in Grundy, Virginia
Gun rights die-hards frequently credit the end of a rampage at the law school in 2002 to armed "students" who intervened. They conveniently ignore that those students also happened to be current and former law enforcement officers, and that the killer, according to police investigators, was out of ammunition by the time they got to him.

Middle school dance shooting in Edinboro, Pennsylvania
An ambiguous case from 1998, in which the shooter may well have already been done shooting: After killing a teacher and wounding three others, the 14-year-old perpetrator left the dance venue. The owner of the venue followed him outside with a shotgun, confronting and subduing him in a nearby field until police arrived. The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, who himself recently argued for more guns as an answer to gun violence, told me this week that one police source he talked to about this case said that it was "not clear at all" whether the kid had intended to do any further shooting after he'd left the building.

Do Armed Civilians Stop Mass Shooters? Actually, No. | Mother Jones

Normally, it would be utterly beneath my dignity to comment on anything published in "Mother Jones", which isn't even worthy of lining my cats' litter box. And it would also be beneath my dignity to respond to anyone who would publicly announce that he's such a pathetic loser that he voluntarily reads "Mother Jones" (which is basically saying you like being lied to). But this one time, I will slum it and allow these two pieces of offal my attention.

Please direct your attention to the most important lie in the entire lying article: there is no evidence to support it. What that means is that there's PLENTY of evidence, but we just set the parameters to disregard it. Basically, "Mother Jones" only counted those shootings where lots of people died, or to put it another way, where there was no one with a weapon around to stop it.

As Ann Coulter succinctly put it, "It would be like testing the effectiveness of weed killers, but refusing to consider any cases where the weeds died."

Let me spell this out for the thinking-impaired among us, ie. the OP and any other leftists wandering around: you can't talk about what effectively stops shooters if you refuse to include any instances where the shooter was ACTUALLY STOPPED.

And the more dishonest you have to be to try to make your point, the more obvious you make it that you don't HAVE a point, and don't deserve to be listened to.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Seems they omitted the Pearl High School incident....I wonder why?

They only included incidents where four or more people were killed, ie. incidents where no one stopped the shooter.

 

[Dick Tuck]

Seems they omitted the Pearl High School incident....I wonder why?

I see you were too lazy to read the linked OP article:

High school shooting in Pearl, Mississippi
Another case, from 1997, in which the shooting was apparently already over: After killing two and wounding seven inside Pearl High School, the 16-year-old perpetrator left the building and went outside near the parking lot. The assistant principal—who was also a member of the Army Reserve—ran out to his own vehicle, grabbed a handgun he kept there, and then approached the shooter, subduing him at gunpoint until authorities arrived.

 

[Dick Tuck]

Seems they omitted the Pearl High School incident....I wonder why?

They only included incidents where four or more people were killed, ie. incidents where no one stopped the shooter.

Had you bothered to read the article, you'd know that your statement is bullshit.

 

[bripat9643]

Hey, Nimrod: did you ever consider the fact that if someone blows away some thug intent on a mass shooting, then the mass shooting doesn't occur? Then it doesn't appear in your list of mass shootings!

Liberals should always avoid any attempt to commit logic. Whenever they try they only succeed in making themselves the target of ridicule.

In the wake of the unthinkable massacre in Connecticut, pro-gun ideologues are once again calling for ordinary citizens to arm themselves as a solution to mass shootings. If only the principal at Sandy Hook Elementary School had possessed a M-4 assault rifle she could've stopped the killer, they say. This latest twist on a long-running argument isn't just absurd on its face; there is no evidence to support it. As I reported recently in our in-depth investigation, not one of the 62 mass shootings in the United States over the last 30 years has been stopped this way. More broadly, attempts by armed civilians to intervene in shooting rampages are rare—and are successful even more rarely. (Two people who tried it in recent years were gravely wounded or killed.) And law enforcement overwhelmingly hates the idea.

Those pesky facts haven't stopped the "arm America more!" crowd from pressing the argument with alleged examples of successful armed interventions. The problem is, the few examples they keep using—in which they depict plain old folks acting heroically and with definitive results—fall apart under scrutiny. Here are five of them and why they don't work:

Appalachian School of Law shooting in Grundy, Virginia
Gun rights die-hards frequently credit the end of a rampage at the law school in 2002 to armed "students" who intervened. They conveniently ignore that those students also happened to be current and former law enforcement officers, and that the killer, according to police investigators, was out of ammunition by the time they got to him.

Middle school dance shooting in Edinboro, Pennsylvania
An ambiguous case from 1998, in which the shooter may well have already been done shooting: After killing a teacher and wounding three others, the 14-year-old perpetrator left the dance venue. The owner of the venue followed him outside with a shotgun, confronting and subduing him in a nearby field until police arrived. The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, who himself recently argued for more guns as an answer to gun violence, told me this week that one police source he talked to about this case said that it was "not clear at all" whether the kid had intended to do any further shooting after he'd left the building.

Do Armed Civilians Stop Mass Shooters? Actually, No. | Mother Jones