A Deep Dive into Cases Where Civilians Stopped Active Shooters

[Sanders]

We have previously put out our study on the FBI’s active shooting reports. If you watch entertainment television police shows, you would think something always seems to go wrong when guns are used defensively (including shooting bystanders to getting in the way of police to failing to protect the permit holder to continually having the gun stolen and use in a crime to it being used in an accidental shooting). During the ten years from 2014 to 2023, there were 180 active shooting cases (as defined by the FBI) where a concealed handgun permit holder stopped an active shooting attack. We decided to do a deep dive to see how many cases there were out of those 180 cases where a concealed handgun permit holder accidentally shot a bystander (one case, 0.56%), got in the way of police (zero cases, 0.0%), had the handgun taken away (one case, 0.56%), and got themselves killed (two cases, 1.1%). What was more common were cases where the permit holder was injured in saving the lives of others (44 cases, 24%). Fifty-eight of those cases were instances where a mass public shooting was likely prevented. An Excel file with the data for civilians and police is available here.

https://crimeresearch.org/2025/02/a-deep-dive-into-cases-where-civilians-stopped-active-shooters-did-they-accidentally-shoot-bystanders-get-in-the-way-of-police-get-their-gun-taken-away-or-more/

[merc]

This subject is an uncomfortable truth for
the average Rachel Maddow watcher .


MERC
🔱🪓🛡

[10-32]

Good guys with guns stop bad guys with guns. Good guys without guns are victims.

[44044]

Guns are Bad…

[dinkydow]

"Birds gotta eat, same as worms."

[500grains]

Just try to speak kindly to the shooter and show empathy. Then everything will work out fine.

[GimpyPaw]

Too bad they only went back to 2014. In 2012 a shooter at the Clackamas Town Center mall was stopped by a CCW holder. The CCW holder drew on him while he was shooting people. That was enough to make the shooter run away and barricade himself in a stock room of one of the stores, where he later took his own life.

[Sanders]

Too bad they only went back to 2014. In 2012 a shooter at the Clackamas Town Center mall was stopped by a CCW holder. The CCW holder drew on him while he was shooting people. That was enough to make the shooter run away and barricade himself in a stock room of one of the stores, where he later took his own life.

I remember reading about that. Such is what happens many times when one of those spree killers finds out it's a two-way range. If I recall, the CCW guy was embarrassed because his gun was rusty and didn't function properly.

[55chevy]

So, run around carrying a rusty weapon so you can try and bluff your way out of trouble? Sure way to get killed.