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UPDATED: A Deep Dive into Cases Where Civilians Stopped Active Shooters. Did they accidentally shoot bystanders, get in the way of police, get their gun taken away, or create other problems? How does it compare to police who stopped these attacks?

We have previously put out our study on the FBI’s active shooting reports. If you watch entertainment television police shows, you would think something always seems to go wrong when guns are used defensively (including shooting bystanders to getting in the way of police to failing to protect the permit holder to continually having the gun stolen and use in a crime to it being used in an accidental shooting). During the ten years from 2014 to 2023, there were 180 active shooting cases (as defined by the FBI) where a concealed handgun permit holder stopped an active shooting attack. We decided to do a deep dive to see how many cases there were out of those 180 cases where a concealed handgun permit holder accidentally shot a bystander (one case, 0.56%), got in the way of police (zero cases, 0.0%), had the handgun taken away (one case, 0.56%), and got themselves killed (two cases, 1.1%). What was more common were cases where the permit holder was injured in saving the lives of others (44 cases, 24%). Fifty-eight of those cases were instances where a mass public shooting was likely prevented. An Excel file with the data for civilians and police is available here.

While civilians with concealed handgun permits stopped 51.5% of the active shootings in non-gun-free zones, police stopped 44.6% of the cases (124 arrested or killed by police, 32 committed suicide when police arrived = 156/350 = 44.57%). Interestingly, police officers were much more likely to lose their lives or be wounded in stopping these attacks than armed civilians. Twenty-seven officers were killed in 19 attacks (7.7% and 5.4%, respectively). That is 5.94 times the rate that permit holders were killed. One hundred officers were wounded in 48 attacks (28.6% and 13.7%, respectively). That rate is 17% higher than for civilians. In four cases, the police shot and killed the wrong person — twice they accidentally shot fellow police officers (Prince George’s County Police Department District 3 Station on March 13, 2016 and Borderline Bar and Grill on November 7, 2018) and twice they accidentally shot civilians (Galleria Mall in Hoover, Alabama on Nov. 23, 2018 and Highlands Ranch, Colorado on May 7, 2019). The bottom line is that the rate of police shooting the wrong person is very low, though it is slightly more than twice the rate that civilians shoot a bystander (1.14% versus 0.56%) . The police accidentally shot other police officers at very slight higher than the rate that civilians shot bystanders.

Link to article

Link to Excel database

Good info, sjtill. The 0.56% occurrence of a civilian shooting a bystander was a good surprise.

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I just added a direct link to the Excel database. This is wonderful ammunition (!) to support CCW and counter the ignorant arguments of the gun grabbers.

I wonder how much of the lower bad outcomes for civilian CCW holders is due to a civilian CCW holder being able to 'pick and chose' when to intervene; they may have the option to just run the other way and take that option, especially if it looks like they might be injured or killed etc., versus a police officer, who has a duty to intervene.

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How does it compare to police who stopped these attacks?

I’d guess that many (most?) of the successful civilian life savings aren’t reported.

Uniformed police also often arrive on the scene with an audible warning and are clearly marked making them a target.
They are also going to be going towards the problem while civilians have many options.
This is interesting and somewhat pleasantly surprising that the civilians have such a good won/loss and accidental record.

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Originally posted by Sacramento Johnson:
versus a police officer, who has a duty to intervene.

False. In Warren v. District of Columbia, the ruling can be best summarized by this one sentence, “fundamental principle of American law that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any individual citizen.”

The background of the case is that two shitstains broke into a boarding house with 4 women - 2 on 2nd floor and 2 on 3rd floor. The shitstains raped the women on 2nd floor and women on 3rd floor called the police multiple times. The police never responded to multiple calls from 3rd floor and shitstains eventually heard the women on the 3rd floor. The shitstains proceeded to rape and beat all 4 women for 14 hours.

The 4 women sued the District of Columbia, and it went all the way through the court system to SCOTUS. A LEO can be fired from their department depending on rules, but won't be subject to criminal proceedings if they don't provide services.

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Originally posted by tatortodd:

quote:

Originally posted by Sacramento Johnson:
versus a police officer, who has a duty to intervene.

False. In Warren v. District of Columbia, the ruling can be best summarized by this one sentence, “fundamental principle of American law that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any individual citizen.”

The background of the case is that two shitstains broke into a boarding house with 4 women - 2 on 2nd floor and 2 on 3rd floor. The shitstains raped the women on 2nd floor and women on 3rd floor called the police multiple times. The police never responded to multiple calls from 3rd floor and shitstains eventually heard the women on the 3rd floor. The shitstains proceeded to rape and beat all 4 women for 14 hours.

The 4 women sued the District of Columbia, and it went all the way through the court system to SCOTUS. A LEO can be fired from their department depending on rules, but won't be subject to criminal proceedings if they don't provide services.

It is understood that an individual citizen doesn’t have an individual right to police services, however when a piece of fecal material like Scot Peterson takes the public’s money as a school resource officer, then hides while children die not too many folks have trouble understanding that he had a duty to respond and he didn’t.

As far as why CCW holders shoot less bystanders than cops there are probably several reasons. It is the cop’s job to solve the problem. They are paid to solve the problem. They are expected to solve the problem. They have qualified immunity if bad things happen while they are solving the problem. It is their job.

A CCW holder’s job is to get himself and his family home safely. If he can be a good witness, that’s great. If he can solve the problem, fantastic, but it isn’t his job.

Consider the situation of a cop in a high speed chase (in a jurisdiction that has policies allowing high speed chases) and though he is acting within policy someone pulls out in front of him and despite his best efforts to avoid the collision it happens and the person who pulled out in front of him is injured or killed as is some third party who was walking down the sidewalk and got clobbered by one of the cars. As long as the cop was acting within policy he is entitled to qualified immunity. He was doing the job the public hired him to do, he was doing it consistent with department policies. As long as his name isn’t Derek Chauvin* he should not be liable for the tragedy.

Now consider a private citizen doing the same chase. It wasn’t his job. If he hadn’t inserted himself into a situation that he was not required or expected to, the collision would not have happened. How do you think that’s going to go for him from a liability standpoint?

The CCW holder may be acting outside the scope of his job in engaging the threat. He has no qualified immunity if things go bad.

Am I arguing that a CCW holder shouldn’t intervene? No. I’m merely suggesting that a prudent CCW holder will understand that he doesn’t have qualified immunity and pick and choose when he intervenes, making darned sure that he only engages when either he and his are in danger they can’t just evade or he is confident that he can stop the threat without causing harm to others for which he will be liable.

*Okay, that was a flip comment. It is my belief that Derek Chauvin acted within policy and was screwed over by gutless politicians and his department brass (but I repeat myself).

Edited to fix typo: s/to/too/

quote:

Originally posted by tatortodd:

quote:

Originally posted by Sacramento Johnson:
versus a police officer, who has a duty to intervene.

False. In Warren v. District of Columbia, the ruling can be best summarized by this one sentence, “fundamental principle of American law that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any individual citizen.”
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100% I cite this case often to my acquaintances who believe all you need to do is call the police and they are required to respond to all 911 calls as "first responders".

I tell them "YOU are the first responder. They write the report and take pictures"

Awesome thread, thank you for posting this article.

Here is stuff I got from my previous LEO Active Shooter Response training.

1. 90% or higher of the victims have already been shot/killed BEFORE the first 911 call is made.

2. Initial response is almost always total chaos: the suspect(s) description are usually a tall/short, slender/heavy, white/black/etc male with longhair/bald head. During a active shooter incident that I was involved in, two callers called on two UNIFORMED police officers with rifles. Description went out over the radio, two white males in black clothing and rifles in a specific area of a mall. The officers who were called and identified as the shooters kept saying they were in the area and did not see anyone matching that description.
3. Off duty and concealed carry people who are in the right place at the right time, and have good target identification have stopped several shootings right away.

Ah yes, the old “active shooter” false narrative.

Most of these shootings are gang violence, drug related violence, or shitbag on shitbag shootings where 4 or more people were injured. That is the DOJ requirements.

Either the media is correct each time they claim “mass shooting” every two days or whatever nonsense, or none of these are active shooters. We can’t have it both ways.

It’s also weird that the two actual active shooters I went to during this time frame aren’t listed on there. Both were stopped by LE, but strangely neither are listed in this “research”???? Why would researchers leave out a major school shooting (two deceased, fourteen injured) and a hotel active shooting do you think? What else did they omit to get the results they presumably wanted?

Yep, courts have ruled that cops have no duty to intervene. But... when I first started the job, it was impressed upon me that I had a "duty of care". And if I did not discharge that duty, I shouldn't be a cop. That meant I had to spend time talking to lonely old people on "prowler" calls, perform welfare checks on suicidal people, start furnaces in the winter and try to find out where confused elderly people actually lived when I found them out in the street at 3 AM.
Its not always about riding to the sound of the guns, its about riding to any need that may arise.
Apology for slight thread drift!

Excellent. People properly engaging in CCW are the quintessential gray man. Just another potential victim to the shooter… until they act to remove the threat, unlike LEO’s who show up like they’ve been announced in a fanfare.

Gearhounds, I love that take. And it emphasizes that it’s CONCEALED carry that provides the unfair advantage.
Unstated is the potential argument in favor of licensed CCW vs. constitutional carry: CCW training may not be rigorous as an OpSpec course, but it does provide both some firearms qualification testing and rationale for arming civilians, as well as emphasis on when NOT to use your concealed weapon. As long as the state is supportive of CCW, I think that’s a plus—-but I understand the arguments for constitutional carry.