Study Shows ‘Good Guys with Guns’ Are Very Effective in Stopping Active Shooter

A new study reveals that “massive errors” in FBI active shooter reports have resulted in the bureau seriously undercounting how many times a “good guy with a gun” has come to the rescue to stop or diminish the destruction of an active shooting.

According to the report from the Crime Prevention Research Center, armed civilians have stopped attacks at a rate far higher than the mere 4.6 percent that the FBI reports.

In fact, in incidents that occurred outside of “gun-free zones,” an incredible 63 percent of attacks were stopped by legally armed citizens last year.

Overall, from 2014 to 2022 the real number stood at 35.7 percent of active shooters stopped by armed civilians, almost eight times the number cited by the FBI.

The CPRC concluded that “law-abiding citizens stopping these attacks are not rare.”

Carl Moody, the CPRC’s research director, also noted that “the data put together by the CPRC show that an armed citizen has yet to accidentally shoot an innocent bystander.”

So why the huge discrepancy between the FBI and CPRC numbers?

According to the CPRC, “the FBI defines active shooter incidents as those in which an individual actively kills or attempts to kill people in a populated, public area. But it does not include those it deems related to other criminal activity, such as a robbery or fighting over drug turf.”

The CPRC also said the FBI failed to note civilian involvement in some incidents and misidentified civilians in others.

One incident that occurred at a Texas church in 2019 is a perfect example of how the FBI bungles its data.

When a gunman opened fire during a church service in White Settlement, Texas, on Dec. 29, 2019, parishioner Jack Wilson pulled out his gun and fatally shot the attacker.

But the FBI did not classify Wilson as a civilian, instead claiming he was a security guard. This, though, was not true.

Wilson was just a member of the church who had volunteered to provide security. He wasn’t a security professional, and he wasn’t even the only member of the congregation who pulled a firearm in response to the shooter.

The CPRC said the FBI’s data is filled with errors like this.

The group also pointed out that the FBI’s numbers are misleading because “they ignore that about half of these attacks occur where guns are banned, so law-abiding citizens who obey those rules wouldn’t have a chance to stop them.”

“Between 2014 and 2022, citizens stopped 104 out of 204 potential or actual mass shootings where we could identify that guns were allowed in the area,” the report said. “So 51% of attacks were stopped by people legally carrying concealed handguns.”

“The numbers indicate if we didn’t have gun-free zones, we would have more people stopping these attacks.”

The FBI has not responded to questions from the CPRC on its active shooter numbers. In fact, the bureau wouldn’t even address the subject when The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler reached out for comment.

Regardless, the corrected data blows away the left’s claim that these incidents are rarely stopped by a “good guy with a gun.”