One of the anti-gunners’ favorite lies is that gun owners cannot stop violent criminals from harming others. Instead, the best solution is to pass legislation infringing on law-abiding citizens’ right to keep and bear arms.
This is especially true when it comes to mass shootings – which the left has routinely exploited to scare the public into giving up their Second Amendment rights. However, there is evidence that an armed citizen could be a more effective way to stop a mass shooter than simply waiting for government agents to show up and neutralize the threat.
A new report from the Crime Prevention Research Center, authored by economist John R. Lott and Professor Carlisle E. Moody, takes a look at this question. The researchers examined 512 incidents involving active shooters that took place between 2014 and 2023. The study found that armed civilians with concealed carry permits not only stopped more mass shootings but also reduced casualties than law enforcement.
The report suggests that armed civilians are at lower risk of being injured or killed during these incidents compared to law enforcement.
The data showed that civilians intervened in 179 (34.96 percent) active shooter incidents as police became involved in 158 (30.86 percent) incidents. This makes sense given that armed civilians are more likely to be present in one of these situations than uniformed officers.
“According to police, armed citizens have stopped 57 active shooter events which otherwise were likely to have escalated into mass public shootings,” the report noted.
Civilians, by contrast, can intervene when in places they are allowed to carry concealed weapons before an attacker notices them. They also outnumber on-duty police officers by a wide margin. In 2024, 21.5 million Americans—about 8.2% of adults—held concealed handgun permits (Lott et al., 2024). In addition, 29 states allowed Constitutional Carry, which requires no permit at all. Surveys show that 7.2% of likely voters carry all the time, and another 8.4% carry some of the time.
Compare that to the roughly 671,000 full-time sworn law enforcement officers in 2020… that leaves about 262,522 officers to protect a population of 340 million—less than 0.1% of the population.
The report further found that “Armed citizens reduce the number of people killed by 49 percent while the police increase the number killed by 16 percent.”
It is important to mention that the authors don’t argue that police directly cause an increase in the number of people killed in active shooter situations. Rather, it is the longer response times that allow the shooter to continue killing civilians.
The report further explained that “states with a constitutional carry law experience 16.7 percent fewer people killed in active shooter incidents, presumably because there are more armed citizens available in public places.”
These states also “reduce the number of people wounded” in these encounters by 11 percent.
Police officers are significantly more likely to be killed or injured during an active shooter situation than armed civilians. “The probability of an armed citizen being killed while attempting to stop an active shooter is one percent. The corresponding probabilities for police officers… is 16.5 percent,” the report read.
Civilians had a 1.1 percent chance of losing their lives during a mass shooting and a 25.1 percent chance of being injured. Police officers had a 16.5 percent fatality rate and 60.1 percent injury rate.
The researchers also discussed the ineffectiveness of gun-free zones. They point out that prohibiting people from carrying firearms in a given area increases the risk of mass shootings. The “overwhelming majority” of active shooter events happen in gun-free zones, the report noted. This is because would-be shooters know they will encounter little, if any, resistance.
“These results also suggest a broader conclusion: having armed citizens dispersed throughout public spaces improves public safety,” the authors said.
The numbers align with what most people would consider common sense. As the saying goes: “When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.” An armed citizen at the scene can respond much quicker than waiting for the government to show up, which is the solution anti-gunners prefer.
There is also the reality that sometimes, law enforcement does little to stop a mass shooting even when they do show up. The tragedies that occurred in Uvalde, Texas, and Parkland, Florida, are prime examples of what can happen when police do not do their jobs.
The anti-gunner lobby’s arguments are always built on lies and emotional manipulation. They claim gun control will save lives when gun owners are more likely to use their firearms to protect themselves and others. They argue that mass shootings kill so many people because of the availability of firearms when having more armed citizens in public places would actually decrease the number of casualties.
In the end, the fatal flaw in the anti-gunners’ arguments is that it requires us to rely more on the state to defend our lives than ourselves. This proposition almost always leads to disaster.
