Who Stops a 'Bad Guy With a Gun'?

[brooklynite]

New York Times

The lengthy police response to a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, and the death of an armed security guard as part of an attack on a Buffalo supermarket last month have drawn fresh scrutiny to a recurring (and uniquely American) debate: What role should the police and bystanders play in active shooter attacks, and what interventions would best stop the violence?

The debate has moved to Capitol Hill as lawmakers consider gun safety legislation that could increase funding for mental health services, school safety and other measures aimed at keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous people. “What stops armed bad guys is armed good guys,” Senator Ted Cruz suggested in the wake of the Uvalde shooting, echoing many other gun rights advocates over the years.

Researchers who study active shooter events say it can be difficult to draw broad policy conclusions from individual episodes, but a review of data from two decades of such attacks reveals patterns in how they unfold, and how hard they are to stop once they have begun.

There were at least 433 active shooter attacks — in which one or more shooters killed or attempted to kill multiple unrelated people in a populated place — in the United States from 2000 to 2021. The country experienced an average of more than one a week in 2021 alone.

[ck4829]

1. Not a Uvalde cop

Last edited Wed Jul 13, 2022, 04:47 AM - Edit history (1)

Cowardice

[Claustrum]

2. Or the one in Parkland. n/t

[Ocelot II]

3. Not good guys with guns, evidently.

[MarineCombatEngineer]

4. Certainly not me. nt

[AndyS]

5. Wouldn't it be easier to keep the bad guy

from getting a gun to start with? We can do it, we know how.

[ripcord]

6. Get ready for the court to expand concealed carry when they release Braun

[Red Pest]

7. Only 2.77% (12 of 433) of the attacks were stopped by a good guy with a gun that was NOT a cop or

a security guard.

In contrast, bystanders without guns subdued the attacker 9.7% (42 of 433) of the time.

As the article points out, even when the police arrived within a minute of the attack, the shooter was able to fire 30-50 rounds or more and kill or wound many before the police arrive. Let's hear it for military-grade weapons being sold to the public.

Further, in 42.7% (185 of 433) of the attacks, the attacker ended the shooting before the police arrived by leaving the scene (113 times) or by suicide (72 times).

When will the Republican Party in Congress and in the state legislatures act on the facts and not on delusions and lies pushed by the gun lobby? I suppose that the answer is: they will act on the facts when they are no longer elected to office.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

8. Even better, how about we make an effort to decrease the chances of people becoming "bad guys"?