You knew I'd take time to comment on the latest mass shooting, even though I'm still working to unpack my kitchen, with the living room and my office barely touched.
Over the weekend, a good samaritan took out a piece of garbage attempting to kill as many people as he could in an Indiana shopping mall. This of course, brought out all the right wing idiots pointing out how a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun. Conversely, the lefties are screaming that one instance proves nothing. It follows that those who claim to study such things would come out and say how a good guy with a gun almost never stops a bad guy with a gun, based on their data and research. And these are the people who we shall refer to as hacks.
Let me explain. Nowhere in their data do they take into consideration whether an armed civilian was present. I'm ignoring law enforcement because they've proven themselves to be useless with more concern about themselves than the public they're sworn to protect. If these hacks can't tell me whether an armed civilian was present, then how can they claim any insight into the subject. In many cases, mass homicides take place where no one has a gun. Schools, workplaces, etc. All places you're mostly not allowed to carry. In addition to the concentration of black folks, the Buffalo shooter admitted he chose the location of his mass homicide because he knew no one would be carrying a weapon. You know I hate generalities, so I went back and reviewed every mass homicide since the beginning of 2001 to determine whether the venue would have been appropriate for a concealed carry holder. I went with the Mother Goose database and didn't bother filtering the incidents that didn't meet the four fatality criteria. Ordinarily I would but no one else is stopping by to help unpack, so I'm busy.
Of the 16 incidents recorded, only one third could conceivably have a "good guy with a gun" present. And I'm being a bit liberal with the church potluck case. All the others either took place either in a venue where guns wouldn't have been allowed (i.e. school, workplace) or in a jurisdiction where getting a concealed carry permit is incredibly difficult.
HOWEVER, when in a venue where a CCW holder could legally carry, over 42% of incidents ended with bad guy getting shot by good guy civilian. Source - FBI data.
What the hacks also fail to account for are incidents that were about to become a mass event, but were stopped by an armed citizen before that happened. There have been a few of these this year, including one where the citizen used an AR-15 to stop a lunatic with another AR-15. Again, busy unpacking.
I'll throw some of my own thoughts out before I try to finish unpacking the kitchen. What would I do, were I in a mass homicide situation? If the threat was close by and my life was in danger, it's a no brainer that I would engage. However, if I'm in a WalMart and I hear shooting on the opposite side of the store, I'm hunkering down. Sounds like I'm being a coward, right? Well, if you consider that here in NC or previously KS, that it's not unlikely that another patron is legally armed, I don't want to risk getting into a gunfight with that person, because we've mistaken each other for the bad guy. Furthermore, by the time I make it across the store (damn, out of Pop Tarts again), it's entirely possible the cops have begun to roll in. More than one good guy with a gun has been shot by nervous cops fresh on the scene. There was one in I think Memphis as well as one in Wisconsin within the past few years.
Off to see what surprises lurk in various boxes.
