The Armed Citizen Factor

A new report from the FBI about active shooter incidents in 2021 provided ample evidence that armed private citizens actually do take down active shooters; last year, four such criminals were put down for the count.

According to the FBI report, Active Shooter Incidents in the United States in 2021, “In one incident, an armed citizen shot and killed a gunman who had just ambushed a law enforcement officer.” In another incident “an armed employee shot and killed the shooter (an employee terminated earlier in the day).” In a third incident, “seven employees exchanged multiple volleys of gunfire with the shooter, four of them during the final encounter resulting in the death of the shooter.” In the fourth case, a gunman fatally shot a store employee and a customer, and wounded two other employees of a business before other armed employees killed the shooter.

Alan Gottlieb, executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation, noted in a statement, “It is important to acknowledge these citizen first responders, and the countless lives their heroic actions saved. Truly, these were good guys with guns.”

Incidents like these are on the rise, the FBI report said. In 2020, there were two incidents in which armed citizens to down the perpetrators. It makes the contention by the Everytown for Gun Safety lobbying group in support of “effective laws (that) discourage violent conflict and encourage people to deescalate confrontations rather than using deadly force” wishful thinking.

When circumstances do not allow group hugs, or safe escape, the only option left is to fight back, and concealed carry statutes make that possible. This is why attempts to erode those laws threaten public safety by attempting to disarm the good guys.

The 30-page FBI report notes 14 of these monsters were killed by law enforcement, another 11 committed suicide, 30 were taken into custody and one is apparently still at large. Of the 61 killers in 2021, only one was a female. A dozen of these incidents met the FBI’s definition of a “mass killing.” One shooting suspect was killed in a vehicle crash.

Tragically, one citizen Samaritan who killed the murderer of a Colorado police officer was mistakenly shot by another officer responding to the incident. Arvada police called John Hurley a hero for stopping cop-killer Ronald Troyke. A police statement declared “Mr. Hurley’s actions certainly saved others from serious injury or death.”

Overall, last year, 243 people were shot by “active shooters,” the report says. Of those people, 103 were killed and 140 were wounded. The worst month was June, with a dozen incidents, followed by April with 10. December was the safest month with a single incident and February and October only had two incidents apiece.

Good Guys with Guns

When anti-gun lobbying groups campaign to prohibit legally carried firearms in many places, they deliberately leave good people at the mercy of bad people who don’t know what that word means.

“Each year,” SAF’s Gottlieb noted, “there are tens of thousands of cases in which private citizens use firearms in self-defense. The four incidents in which the criminals were killed represent a small but significant part of this larger story. The bottom line is that our Second Amendment rights are just as relevant today as they have ever been.”

According to the FBI report, 32 of the 61 murderous incidents “occurred in areas of commerce.” You know, public places also known as “target-rich environments.” Another 28 incidents happened in business environments open to pedestrian traffic. This is a good reason for people to be armed in public because violent incidents do not happen on a pre-arranged schedule and criminals or crazy people don’t call ahead to announce they are coming.

Armed citizens may be the only “first responders” available on short notice thanks to politically motivated efforts to defund law enforcement agencies and reduce their manpower.

Once when I was buying a car, while I was sitting with the salesman a man accompanied by a child came into the showroom. He was openly carrying a sidearm, which has been legal in Washington since statehood in November 1889. The salesman asked if it bothered me. “No,” I said, explaining I was also legally armed, and the open carry guy was obviously looking to buy a vehicle, with his kid along for some “dad time.” By no surprise, the salesman departed for home in California, I later learned.

Right, it’s so much safer in California!

Three Blind Mice

A few days before the FBI released its report, three perennial Capitol Hill anti-gunners reintroduced legislation that’s been floating around Congress for a while. It’s the “Federal Firearm Licensing Act,” and its basic premise — that gun owners need a federal permission slip to own or buy a gun — is almost certainly unconstitutional.

Sponsoring this legislation are New Jersey Senators Cory Booker and Bob Menendez, and their Connecticut colleague, Sen. Richard Blumenthal. They were obviously exploiting the Tops supermarket mass shooting of May 14 in Buffalo, N.Y.

Their bill mandates a license from the Department of Justice requiring renewal every five years, “at which point the applicant will have to go through a background check and undergo firearm safety training again,” according to a news release from Booker’s office.

Insiders acknowledge this measure isn’t likely to gain any traction, especially during an election year, and if Republicans take control of Congress in November, the bill is DOA in the new Congress.

But its reintroduction was a good educational experience for many people. The measure notes, “The Attorney General shall issue or deny a license under this section not later than 30 days after the date on which the application for such license is received.

“Each license issued under this section shall be valid for the purchase of a single firearm, which shall be purchased not later than 30 days after the date on which the license is issued,” the bill adds.

Suddenly, the fundamental right protected by the Second Amendment would become a government-regulated privilege to be withheld on a bureaucratic whim.

Menendez, in a prepared statement, said something that doesn’t pass the smell test. “We have a moral obligation to prevent these senseless massacres in our schools, supermarkets, places of worship and shopping malls that are tearing communities and families apart.”

If this guy is so interested in senseless massacres, he wouldn’t be working so hard to disarm law-abiding citizens. He might take a lesson from the FBI report above.

Armed Citizen Scores

I recently ran across a story published by an online news site called TapHaps which further underscored the importance of an armed citizenry.

When four would-be home invaders broke into a home in DeKalb County, Indiana to rob the homeowner, they picked the wrong target. The report says there were two men and two women, and that one of the women held a gun to his head while her cohorts were stealing his belongings and forcing him to write a check for $500 with no name on it.

However, the homeowner “managed to break away from the suspects and grab his shotgun before shooting” two suspects identified as Dyland Morefield and Rameica Moore, killing them. He then held the other two suspects, Shaun Kruse and Tabitha Johnson for police.

The suspects had apparently been at the man’s home the day before “in an attempt to get money from him.” When that failed, they returned.

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