Have Any Mass Shootings Ever Been Stopped By a Civilian With a Gun?

[Doctor Jack]

I am legitimately curious and I don't know the answer. We do hear quite a bit from the NRA and other gun rights activists that the best way to prevent mass shootings is my loosening concealed and open carry laws. In schools we need to arm the teachers and staff and out on the street, more people need to be packing. However, a lot of people are walking around with guns already. I mean a shocking number of guns are in the U.S.

So with this many guns and this many people allowed to carry guns legally, when people say that we need more good guys with guns to stop mass shootings, I wonder has it actually ever happened? Have there been any cases where someone dickhead was loaded to the gills, ready to kill everyone in an office building, school, bar, wherever, and a civilian prevented it by shooting said dickhead?

[Hoyt]

1. I know a feeble elderly lady stopped Loughner, and there are similar examples.

Gunners have a few minor cases where a toter SUPPOSEDLY stopped a crime. By the way, George Zimmerman is counted in those stats of supposed self-defense shootings.

[deathrind]

2. Not before the event

Started. There have been mass shootings that were stopped by civilians when the shooter had to reload.

The Tucson shooting of Gabby Giffords and many others (19 wounded / 6 killed) in 2011 was stopped when the shooter had to stop to reload the gun and people tackled him. The capacity of the ammo clips used was 33...had he only 10 shot mags perhaps less would have been killed/injured.

[Major Nikon]

34. Loughner wasn't stopped by a civilian with a gun

He was stopped by multiple civilians without guns, which is a good argument for limiting the fire rate of guns sold for civilian use.

[Texasgal]

3. It's interesting

to me that the gun nuts talk about Chicago and all the gun violence there and how "libs never talk about THAT" well HELL! Where are all you gun nuts? Why haven't you helped stop the Chicago violence? Where are you gun freaks?

[Kang Colby]

4. Plenty

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/10/03/do-civilians-with-guns-ever-stop-mass-shootings/

[Hoyt]

6. Oleg Volk, not that rabid gun freak. Those are not mass shootings, and he doesn't mention cases like

cowboy who missed the robber and shot the store clerk square in the head. Nor did he didn't mention George Zimmerman who gun proponents say stopped an attack by an unarmed kid.

[Kang Colby]

19. Oh, Hoyt.

They didn't become mass shootings because they were stopped, thankfully. Mass shootings rarely if ever occur outside of places where guns are banned.

The Zman thing is old and played out. You can do better. The notion of projecting that loser onto every gun owner is silly.

Otherwise, hope all is well with you.

[Hoyt]

25. Why waste my good stuff on people who believe they need a gun in their pants to go to the store.

[Kang Colby]

31. Wow, what a zinger!

[lame54]

37. 10-2 is hardly plenty

[salin]

5. Appreciate the responses, but neither seems to be 'a good guy with a gun' answer.

Which I think is the OPs question. Given how frequently that response (the solution = more armed people, so 'a good guy with a gun' can prevent ... insert mass shooting event), the question is provocative.

Another example (along with the two above offered) of citizens stopping the bloodshed in a mass shooting happened in the UU church shooting in Knoxville, Tn. Like the other examples - it was not a 'good guy with a gun' who interrupted and ended the atrocity. Several church members restrained the shooter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knoxville_Unitarian_Universalist_church_shooting

[Unrepentant Fenian]

7. The shooter in Orlando...

The shooter in Orlando got through 3 uniformed, armed Police Officers BEFORE he ever got inside the bar. One of the cops was paid security for Pulse, when the gunman engaged him, he put out a call for back up. That's when the other Police arrived and engaged the shooter. The shooter had a Sig assault rifle, so the cops were way out gunned. The shooter made it past 3 trained, uniformed Police Officers because of his superior firepower and went inside and started a blood bath.

So I don't believe that if "Only one person in the bar had a pistol, the carnage would have been stopped". I have a concealed weapons permit. Had I been in that bar that night, my only thoughts would have been on getting myself and my friends out of there. There is no way any sane civilian, armed with a pistol is going to go up against a madman with an assault rifle if there is any chance of egress without engagement.

Before anyone tries to call me a coward, and I sure don't say this to brag but I am a former Army Ranger and I'm also not stupid. An armed person in Pulse that night would have made absolutely NO FUCKIN' DIFFERENCE !!!

[jmg257]

11. You are indeed not stupid. As someone with a CCW, what are the odds you would actually be carrying

at a Nightclub full of drinking and dancing?

Other then the notion of having a "designated carrier", civilians at company Christmas parties and Dance clubs aren't likely to be well-armed....yet.

[Person 2713]

12. Thanks for the sanity check. A pistol in someone's purse etc, a match for an AR

shooter gone crazy with intent to kill already shooting ? Improbable

[BlueMTexpat]

26. Thanks for your informed

input.

I have the same opinion, but no practical experience or knowledge.

Had I been there, I would have been petrified with terror. Period. Even if I had had a gun and knew how to use it, it is likely the last thing that I would have thought about while someone was spraying bullets around with an automatic weapon. Self-preservation would have been foremost. Hopefully, I would have thought about preserving others as well.

Hopefully, I will also never have to be put to such a test. I really do not know how I would have behaved.

[joshcryer]

28. Assume you did want to protect others in your group.

In such a closed, loud, flashy environment, you're going to have a very hard time pinning down the aggressor. Hundreds of people scattering, fighting, pushing, shoving, screaming. Basically, the killer can always choose a spot that would mitigate the ability of an armed civilian to react.

[anoNY42]

29. Slightly off topic,

but I have know several former Rangers who were douchebags, so that isn't a good data point for whether or not you are a coward...

[ecstatic]

8. I think on a military base, but I can't remember the details. nt

[X_Digger]

9. Bit of a catch-22 though, isn't it? If the person were stopped before shooting 4 people..

.. then it wasn't a mass shooting-- it doesn't count.

If the shooter shot four people, then was stopped-- well, it didn't prevent a mass shooting, so it doesn't count.

[Decoy of Fenris]

13. Yup. This right here.

"stopping a mass shooting" is a misnomer and completely impossible. If the mass shooting is stopped, it doesn't become a mass shooting. If a mass shooting isn't stopped, it becomes a mass shooting. A logical impossibility.

I've tried to bring that point to the fore several times, but the (sadly most rational) response tends to be "But... but shut up". Still, points for acknowledging it.

[linuxman]

15. Bingo.

Mix in the fact that rampage shooters almost exclusivly hit areas without armed civilians and you have the bulletprood (forgive the pun) anti-gunner catch-22.

[LanternWaste]

38. As much a Catch-22 as asking if any conflicts have been prevented through diplomacy.

As much a Catch-22 as asking if any conflicts have been prevented through diplomacy.

"If the conflict were stopped before, then it wasn't a conflict-- it doesn't count. If the conflict happened, then was stopped via diplomacy-- well, it didn't prevent a conflict, so it doesn't count..."

[AngryAmish]

10. A teacher we t to his car, got his gun and stopped a school shooting.

[npk]

14. Civilians with guns can't stop mass shootings

Unless they are psychic and shoot the suspect before they pull out their gun. Once a suspect opens fire with a high powered assault rifle, it doesn't matter if 40 people in the area have guns, people are going to be killed. The best you could say is that perhaps fewer people would die, but that is assuming that at least one of those civilians has an equally capable high performance weapon that can match the gunman's. Mass shooters normally shoot indiscriminately and normally use a technique known as suppressive gun fire. Meaning that literally a wall of bullets are coming at you. By the time you draw your gun to fire back you are long since dead.

And even if armed civilians could stop a mass shooter, armed civilians engaging a mass shooter creates another problem. When police arrive how are they supposed to determine who the good guys are with the guns and who the bad guys are with the guns. Something that conservative gun nuts have never been able to understand. We don't have a sticker on our foreheads that reads "Good Guy with Gun". So police officers would be less effective in their response to a mass shooting with a large number of civilians armed with a gun.

[OhioBlue]

20. I work as a substitute in our local school system

I asked our resource officer what her opinion was about arming teachers. She said essentially the same thing you did about when the police respond. She said they are trained to shoot to kill anyone with a gun when responding to an active shooter situation.

[anoNY42]

30. If this were true

cops would never win gunfights...

"but that is assuming that at least one of those civilians has an equally capable high performance weapon that can match the gunman's."

[mythology]

16. There was the shooting at what used to be Ted Haggard's church

But the woman who shot the mass shooter was a former cop so maybe that isn't a great example.

I'm sure it has happened, but I also suspect that the statistical probability of hitting a bystander or not being in a position to fire on the attacker or having your own gun used against you are far higher than preventing a mass shooting from being worse.

[NobodyHere]

17. If a mass shooting was prevented with a good guy with a gun,

then it wouldn't have been a mass shooting.

[libodem]

18. Sure

In your dreams.

[REP]

21. Police credited civilian shooters with slowing down Charles Whitman

A civilian was one of the men who cornered Whitman on the tower, but it was a police officer who actually fired the shots that killed him (the civilian and the other officer missed when they fired).

[Doctor Jack]

22. Wasn't that like 50 years ago?

[REP]

23. The question asked was "ever"

I provided an answer.

[Doctor Jack]

24. Fair enough

[joshcryer]

27. New Life church shootings

The killer went to YWAM first but they evacuated very quickly and he was unable to get to the 80 or so youth and adults that were there (they basically scattered). So he went to New Life church, killed people in the parking lot, went inside, and was subsequently shot by a woman who conceal carried (in Colorado conceal carry is popular and it's a "shall issue" state, and it's especially popular among the conservatives in Colorado Springs).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Colorado_YWAM_and_New_Life_shootings

I've been to New Life so it's unclear if he would have been able to kill a lot more people, because of how open it is and how relatively easy it would've been to escape, but he would've had free pickings of hundreds of congregation members.

The problem with the argument that people carrying could stop a mass murderer is simple, as the Paris and Pulse shootings show: if the murderer stakes out the location, finds one with few exits or difficult to get to exits, they can destroy, utterly destroy the people inside. There's no hope for you, even if there's someone who's armed there, because of the chaos that would ensue and the inability to get a clean shot off.

[ileus]

32. How would you know? If it's stopped before the legal definition of "mass shooting"

I think you'll find 90% of those with CC permits only carry in the car, or when traveling.

If all CC holders would actually carry that would be nice, but it just doesn't happen. Lots of people are big on the idea, get training and buy a firearm then find out you have to be dedicated to carrying at least 1 extra pound.

I have one of 3 EDC firearms, and my wife carries one of two she's picked out. I don't care if I ever stop a mass shooting....I care about personal safety and that of my family.


I have seen a list of supposedly stopped "mass shooting" floated around on Facebook but who knows if it's true if the shooting was stopped before the governments magic number is reached. Of course every mass shooting is eventually stopped by someone with a gun, and that's all I need to know.

[davidn3600]

33. No, because they usually only attack places where people don't bring guns

Movie theaters. nightclubs, schools, etc... these are "gun free" zones.

They don't go and shoot up a gun show convention.

[Lee-Lee]

35. There have been many where armed intervention stopped it sooner

Of course unless you are psychic you can't stop someone before they act. But rapid intervention does change things as the profile of most mass shooter (aside from the Jihad types) is that they either give up or commit suicide as soon as armed resistance is there and they don't hold absolute control of the situation in their minds.

1997- Pearl High School in Mississippi the shooter. The shooter had gone to his car intent on going to attack the middle school and was stopped and held at gunpoint when an assistant pinciple ran to his car parked off campus, retrieved his handgun and ran back.

2002- Appalachian School of Law. Shooter kills and injured several before two students retrieve handguns from their cars, confront him at gunpoint and hold him stopping him from further attacks.

2007- New Life Church Colorado Springs- Gunman attacked a mission center killing one person and wounding another before escaping. Later that day he appears at New Life Church and begins shooting. A church member named Jeanne Assam draws her legally carried concealed handgun and shoots him ending his attack.

1998- Parker Middle School PA. Student shows up at a school dance with a handgun, shots and kills one adult and wounds one adult and two students. The owner of te banquet hall retrieved a shotgun he kept on premises and held the shooter at gunpoint ending his shooting. The banquet hall owner had to hold him at gunpoint for 11 minutes before police arrived, showing how much faster the shooter was stopped than if it had been up to the police.

2010- NY Mills NY, a man enters an AT&T store with a handgun and a list of employees he intends to kill. One employee is wounded before a customer who is an off duty cop with a concealed handgun draws it and kills the attacker.

2012- Freewill Babyist Church Boiling Springs SC. A man is seen taking a shotgun out of his car and walking toward the church. Staff locks the door but he kicks it in. A church member with a concealed weapons permit drew his pistol and held it on the man and he was subdued before he could cause injury.

2014- Portland. A man was refused entry to a strip club after bounces overheard him making rude and racist remarks. He later returned wearing a mask and shot the bouncer. Before he could shoot anyone else another bouncer drew his legally carried handgun and shot him.

2014- Austin Texas. A man recently fired from a construction job had returned once making threats and a police report was filed, but later returned with a gun and began shooting. The foreman was shot but still drew his legally carried concepts handgun and shot the attacker stopping him from inflicting further injuries.

2014- PA. A man who had previously been treated at a hospital for psychiatric issues returned and shot his caseworker, killing her, and shot and wounded his doctor. The doctor pulled his own handgun from his desk and shot the attacker, stopping him from leaving the office and attacking others in the hospital.

[Angel Martin]

39. this !

"the profile of most mass shooter (aside from the Jihad types) is that they either give up or commit suicide as soon as armed resistance is there"

any armed resistance typically ends the Adam Lanza type shooting - as the shooter kills himself.

That's why the school "gun free" zones are so misguided. In those cases, armed school employees could dramatically reduce the numbers once it starts.

The jihad shooter - he or she has to be shot until they collapse. Even still, I'd rather have a chance than be stuck in the club bathroom and not be able to do anything but text...

[Javaman]

36. 3.1 percent have exchanged fire with shooters...

but there is nothing that shows that the shooter was actually stopped.

check out his chart.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/13/health/mass-shootings-in-america-in-charts-and-graphs-trnd/