[ “It’s direct, indisputable, empirical evidence that this
kind of common claim that ‘the only thing that stops a bad guy with
the gun is a good guy with the gun’ is wrong."]
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WHO STOPS A ‘BAD GUY WITH A GUN’?  
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Larry Buchanan and Lauren Leatherby
June 22, 2022
The New York Times
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_ “It’s direct, indisputable, empirical evidence that this kind
of common claim that ‘the only thing that stops a bad guy with the
gun is a good guy with the gun’ is wrong." _

Terrified children run from Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas,
during May 24 shooting., (Pete Luna / Uvalde Leader-News)

 

The lengthy police response to a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas,
[[link removed]] and
the death of an armed security guard as part of an attack on
a Buffalo supermarket
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month have drawn fresh scrutiny to a recurring (and uniquely American
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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
[[link removed]] 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 [[link removed]] in
the wake of the Uvalde shooting, echoing many
[[link removed]] other
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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.

The data comes from the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response
Training Center at Texas State University, whose researchers work with
the F.B.I. to catalog and examine these attacks. Unlike mass shooting
tallies that count a minimum number of people shot or killed, the
active attack data includes episodes with fewer casualties, but
researchers exclude domestic shootings and gang-related attacks.

Researchers caution that some older attacks may be missing from the
data, but they feel confident in their overall assessment that
shootings are increasing. What is less clear is how to limit the
damage of these attacks, given how quickly they unfold and how
powerful the weapons used can be.

Most attacks captured in the data were already over before law
enforcement arrived. People at the scene did intervene, sometimes
shooting the attackers, but typically physically subduing them. But in
about half of all cases, the attackers commited suicide or simply
stopped shooting and fled.

“It’s direct, indisputable, empirical evidence that this kind of
common claim that ‘the only thing that stops a bad guy with the gun
is a good guy with the gun’ is wrong,” said Adam Lankford, a
professor at the University of Alabama, who has studied mass shootings
for more than a decade. “It’s demonstrably false, because often
they are stopping themselves.”

Police officers shoot or physically subdue the shooter in less than a
third of attacks.

Most events end before the police arrive, but police officers are
usually the ones to end an attack if they get to the scene while it is
ongoing.

Hunter Martaindale, director of research at the ALERRT Center, said
the group has used the data to train law enforcement that “When you
show up and this is going on, you are going to be the one to solve
this problem.”

Information on police response time is incomplete, but in the
available data, it took law enforcement three minutes, on average, to
arrive at the scene of an active shooting.

Yet, even when law enforcement responds quickly — sometimes within
seconds — or if officers are already on the scene when the attack
begins, active shooters can still wound and kill many people.

“Law enforcement could be one minute out, and if that individual is
proficient with the weapon system they’re using, they can quickly go
through a lot of ammunition,” Mr. Martaindale said. “And if
they’re proficient in their accuracy, you could have very high
victim counts.”

In DAYTON, OHIO, in 2019, an attacker shot 26 people and killed nine
outside a downtown bar in the 32 seconds before a police officer on
duty shot the attacker. A week earlier, at the GILROY GARLIC
FESTIVAL in Northern California, nearby officers engaged an attacker
within a minute of his opening fire, but after 20 people had been
shot. Three victims died and the attacker died by suicide.

“There’s not a lot that can be done to stop someone in the opening
seconds of harming a significant number of people,” Mr. Lankford
said.

And, like in Uvalde, law enforcement does not always bring an attack
to a quick end. When a gunman opened fire at the PULSE NIGHTCLUB IN
ORLANDO, FLA., in 2016, a detective working extra duty shot at the
gunman from outside the club. More police officers began arriving less
than two minutes later. But the police did not enter the club for
several minutes, after the gunman had paused his initial assault.
Police officers ended the attack when they shot the gunman three hours
after the assault began. Forty-nine people were killed and 53 more
were wounded.

Bystanders stop some attackers, more often with physical force than
with a gun.

In the wake of deadly shootings, gun rights advocates often push to
arm more people, citing prominent examples where a “good guy with a
gun” stopped a “bad guy.”

After a gunman shot 46 people in a church in SUTHERLAND SPRINGS,
TEXAS, in 2017, an armed neighbor arrived at the scene and exchanged
gunfire with the gunman, injuring him, until the gunman fled.

But armed bystanders shooting attackers was not common in the data —
22 cases out of 433. In 10 of those, the “good guy” was a security
guard or an off-duty police officer.

“The actual data show that some of these kind of heroic, Hollywood
moments of armed citizens taking out active shooters are just
extraordinarily rare,” Mr. Lankford said.

In fact, having more than one armed person at the scene who is not a
member of law enforcement can create confusion and carry dire risks.
An armed bystander who shot and killed an attacker in 2021 in ARVADA,
COLO., was himself shot and killed by the police, who mistook him for
the gunman.

It was twice as common for bystanders to physically subdue the
attackers, often by tackling or striking them. At SEATTLE PACIFIC
UNIVERSITY in 2014, a student security guard pepper sprayed and
tackled a gunman who was reloading his weapon during an attack that
killed one and injured three others. The guard took the attacker’s
gun away and held the attacker until law enforcement arrived.

When a gunman entered a classroom at the UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA
AT CHARLOTTE in 2019, a student tackled him. The student was shot and
killed, but the police chief said the attack would have had a far
worse death toll
[[link removed]] had
the student not intervened.

ONE IN FOUR ATTACKS ENDS IN A SHOOTER SUICIDE.

In more than a quarter of episodes, the attackers ended the shootings
by turning the guns on themselves.

Many attackers died by suicide before the police arrived. At
a BINGHAMTON, N.Y., immigration services center in 2009, an attacker
shot 17 people, killing 13, before turning the gun on himself. A
middleschooler died by suicide after shooting two fellow students and
a teacher in SPARKS, NEV., in 2013. After shooting 471 people at
the ROUTE 91 HARVEST FESTIVAL IN LAS VEGAS from a hotel room
overlooking the festival, the gunman died by suicide before the police
arrived to his room.

The share of attackers who die by suicide is most likely a fraction of
those who have suicidal expectations, Mr. Lankford said. Based on
evidence attackers leave before attacks, like online posts or suicide
notes, more say they expect to die. Sometimes they expect to provoke
law enforcement to kill them, Mr. Lankford said.

Police officers exchanged gunfire in 2018 with a gunman who shot 12
people at a bar in THOUSAND OAKS, CALIF., before he shot himself.

At VIRGINIA TECH in 2007, a gunman locked doors to the building,
initially stalling the police, before attacking students and
professors, eventually shooting 49 people. But once law enforcement
was able to enter, the attacker shot himself as police officers
approached.

One in four attackers leaves the scene (though most are LATER
CAUGHT).

About a quarter of shootings ended when the attacker or attackers
stopped of their own accord and left the scene, then were apprehended
or died by suicide at another location.

Many attacks that end when the shooter flees are spontaneous; for
example, one may stem from a dispute that escalates when one party
pulls out a gun.

In SAN ANTONIO in 2019, a man had a disagreement with the staff of a
moving company, then opened fire
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the company’s workers before running away. The police apprehended
him later without incident. Last year, a man who was kicked out of a
nightclub in WICHITA, KAN., after a fight returned and shot six
people [[link removed]], killing
one. He fled the scene, and the police arrested him a month later in
Phoenix.

Because these kinds of attacks are generally not planned, attackers
may be more inclined to flee in hopes of getting away, Mr. Martaindale
said.

But many premeditated attacks also ended when the attacker or
attackers left the scene. After a gunman shot 34 people in 2018
at MARJORY STONEMAN DOUGLAS HIGH SCHOOL IN PARKLAND, FLA., he dropped
his weapon and fled the school with other students, bypassing police
officers who had arrived on the scene but had not yet attempted to
intervene. After fleeing, the gunman walked to a Walmart, bought a
drink at a Subway and stopped at a McDonald’s before he was
apprehended
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police on a residential street.

In EL PASO, a gunman shot 45 people, killing 23, in a Walmart before
fleeing the scene. The police arrested him down the road without
incident.

Why attackers stop themselves is a hard thing to know, but Mr.
Lankford, after studying shooters for years, has some guesses. One is
that sometimes, shooters plan for a dramatic confrontation with the
police that does not happen. Another possibility, he said, is that the
reality of their actions sets in.

_Larry Buchanan is a graphics editor and also writes, reports, makes
charts and flies drones. He joined The Times in 2013 and previously
made interactive graphics for The New Yorker. Before that, he lived in
a log cabin in Indiana._

_Lauren Leatherby is a graphics editor based in New York City. She
earned her master's degree in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy
School and studied journalism and international relations at the
University of Arkansas. Previously, she worked at Bloomberg News and
the Financial Times._

* gun violence
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* Gun Control
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* mass shootings
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* Police
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* citizen action
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