Do civilians with guns ever stop mass shootings?
"Backers of laws that let pretty much all law-abiding people carry
concealed guns in public places often argue that these laws will
sometimes enable people to stop mass shootings. Opponents occasionally
ask: If that’s so, what examples can one give of civilians armed with
guns stopping such shootings? Sometimes, I hear people asking if even
one such example can be found, or saying that they haven’t heard of even
one such example.
A while back I posted about a few examples,
but since then there have been some more, so I thought I’d note them.
Naturally, such examples will be rare. Even in states which allow
concealed carry, there often aren’t people near a shooting who have a
gun on them at the time. Many mass shootings happen in supposedly
“gun-free” zones (such as schools, universities or private property
posted with a no-guns sign), in which gun carrying isn’t allowed. And
there is no central database of such examples, many of which don’t hit
the national media, especially if a gunman is stopped before he shoots
many victims. Moreover, at least some examples are ambiguous, because it
might be unclear — as you’ll see below — whether the shooter had been
planning to kill more people when he was stopped."
[Washington Post]
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