What Armed Killers Fear Most: Armed Resistance

“Gun Free Zones” don’t keep deranged gunmen away, they attract them. This is the theme of the latest piece by Independent Institute Research Fellow Don B. Kates Jr., an attorney and criminologist well known in the gun community for his research on firearms and crime. Kates points out that the tragedies of Sandy Hook, Aurora, and Columbine took place in part because the killers were confident they would not encounter armed resistance.

“When confronted by armed police, gunmen sometimes surrender though more often they kill themselves,” Kates writes. “At the risk of belaboring the obvious, what neither terrorists nor lunatics ever do is kill themselves (or surrender) when faced by unarmed victims.”

Kates offers numerous success stories of armed resistance, especially in Israel, where policy changes have armed teachers, school bus drivers, and parent-volunteers guarding children. Incidents of gunmen attacking civilians have fallen sharply. Closer to home, after a shooter killed two unarmed victims at Clackamass Town Center in Portland, Oregon, last December, he encountered an armed gun-permit holder. Instead of attempting to continue his murder spree, he turned his gun on himself. “To reiterate,” Kates continues, “such armed resistance works—unlike other steps which just waste money in order to create a false illusion of safety.”


http://www.independent.org/publications/the_lighthouse/detail.asp?id=498#2482