“ ‘The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun.’ You’ve heard NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre say these words, and with each passing day, they prove to be truer and truer.” Those are the opening words on the NRA Blog article ‘A Good Guy with a Gun’.
They are a complete and dangerous fantasy.
The latest mass shooting in America at another Gay club, this time in Colorado Springs—has again led to questions about whether or not more regular people should be armed in public. As quoted above, the NRA pushes the idea that more armed guards, armed teachers and just regular old armed citizens are the solution to the increasing gun violence and killings in America.
The situation that developed over the weekend at Club Q in Colorado Springs seems to correlate what a 2014 study the FBI conducted concluded. In the Club Q case, people at the club have been hailed as heroes for subduing the gunman and preventing the deadly shooting from being even worse. At least one, possibly two, very heroic individuals subdued the shooter by having taken his handgun and using it to hit him over the head with it... not shoot him but hit him with the gun and disable him, according to a statement by the mayor.
The 2014 FBI study showed that out of 160 active shooter incidents examined, in five of those incidents, armed individuals who were not members of law enforcement exchanged gunfire with the shooter, leading to either the shooter being killed, wounded or taking his own life. By contrast, 21 of the 160 incidents ended after unarmed citizens “safely and successfully restrained the shooter,” the report stated.
Most armed civilians have insufficient training to safely engage. The conclusion is that most of the time, if you’re talking about a civilian stopping a mass shooter, it’s the unarmed guy without the gun doing it without them further endangering fellow citizens or the responding law enforcement officers, regardless of the marketing the NRA would have you believe.
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