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The FBI’s New “Active Shooter” Report Further Debunks the “Good Guy with a Gun” Myth
A new edition of an annual report by the FBI catalogs a curiously American phenomenon: active shooter incidents. The report lists 40 active shooter incidents in 2020 and shows that the vast majority of them ended because of intervention by trained professionals. Just 3 incidents were stopped by people other than law enforcement. Of those 3, two were armed security guards, and one was an active duty soldier. Those are hardly random citizens going about their day.
No “Good Guys” in Sight
Most active shooters will be arrested for their actions, but the ones that aren’t have an even split of being killed by police and choosing to commit suicide. The arrests listed by the FBI are sometimes delayed, with shooters being caught later in the day, over the next week, or even 47 days later.
The everyday people confronting these shooters are not the mythical “good guy with a gun” that lives so frequently in the imagination of 2nd Amendment fanatics. Only 3 incidents involved someone other than law enforcement ending an active shooter situation. In two of these situations, the people were armed security guards who were paid to be available for situations just like this. In the last scenario, an active-duty soldier spotted the shooter from his car…
