Encounter at a Central Texas Diner

Waitresses at the diner pose after the encounter in the middle of Texas

I was on my way to the Gun Rights Policy Conference when it happened.

I had been riding along I-20, covering lots of miles on my Suzuki 650, looking for a likely place to stop for lunch.   Sometime after Big Spring, chance met preparedness, and I dropped speed and got off the freeway.   The location appeared a little more rundown than I liked, with boarded up windows in an apartment building next door and a paucity of cars in the parking lot.

I was committed now.  I parked the bike and put on the cover, a useful theft deterrent.   As I entered the restaurant, I thought, this place must be struggling.  There were only a half dozen customers in booths and tables, even though it was 1 p.m.    On the motorcycle, I was carrying a Smith & Wesson 337, a now discontinued titanium and scandium model that holds five shots of .38+P.  Crimson Trace grips added a laser sight.  It was concealed, as Texas law bans the open carry of modern sidearms.

I was given my pick of seats, so I chose a table where I could keep an eye on the bike.  I shed the helmet and armored jacket, and started to rehydrate.

Under the jacket, I was wearing a Gun Owners of America T-Shirt.   By taking off the jacket, I exposed the GOA logo.

Then it happened.  The man at the table diagonally behind me said:  "I like your shirt".    We started talking, comparing notes on the state of the country and the fight to restore the second amendment.   We both had observed that the more people learned about the subject, the more people supported armed citizens.

We discussed the spiking of self defense stories in the national media.  I told him about the blog Gun Watch, and the citizen stopped mass shooting at the Peach House gunfight, that happened about a hundred miles from where we were sitting.   He had not heard of it.   I gave him my card.

He told me of how his wife, Pat, had been called by a neighbor as two men attempted to break into the neighbor's house.   Pat showed up with a pistol, and in fluent Spanish, ordered the two men to sit on their hands until police arrived.   A smashed window demonstrated intent.  The two drunk men claimed it was a mistake.    I had never read of it. 

My new brother in arms insisted on paying for lunch, with as he said, "evil oil money".   He promised that he would be reading the blog.  

Armed citizens tend to be polite, well spoken, well educated, and friendly.  Anyone who has spent time among the gun culture can attest to this.  I may start wearing the GOA T-shirt more often.


 ©2013 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.

NV:Campus Carry Bill Headed to Carson City

Las Vegas CBS KXNT- As the national debate about gun regulation is revived, a Nevada coalition is preparing to ask state lawmakers to overturn a firearm ban on college campuses, two years after a similar bill failed.

The 2011 effort was prompted by the rape of University of Nevada student Amanda Collins in a campus parking garage. Collins was trained and permitted, but unarmed because she was following the law. The same attacker later raped and killed 19-year-old Brianna Denison at an apartment near the UNR campus.

Collins testified for the bill at legislative hearings, telling lawmakers she believed she could have fended off the attack if she’d been carrying her weapon. The bill was successful in the senate, according to Don Turner, President of the Nevada Firearms Coalition. Turner told KXNT on Thursday that there were also sufficient votes to pass it in the assembly, but it was not allowed to come to a vote.

more here

John Lott: Gun Restrictions Leave People Vulnerable and Helpless

When bad things happen with guns, the desire to ban guns is to take away guns is understandable. But doing that can often make problems worse.

For example, it might seem obvious to protect people by banning guns in areas. But law-abiding citizens, not those intent on committing terrorist acts, obey these bans. Instead of making places safer, disarming law-abiding citizens leaves them as sitting ducks. With just one single exception, every public shooting since at least 1950 in the United States in which more than three people have been killed has taken place where citizens are not allowed to carry guns.

This isn't random. If it were, 98 or 99 percent of the attacks would occur in areas where people are allowed to carry concealed handguns for protection. Yet, all these attacks are squeezed into the tiny areas where guns are banned.

Take the Aurora, Colo. tragedy. There were seven movie theaters showing the premiere of the Batman movie within a 20-minute drive of the killer's apartment. Only one banned guns, posting signs warning permit holders that their guns weren't allowed. Yet, the killer didn't go to the theater that was closest to his home. Nor did he go to the largest theater. He went to the single one where he didn't believe that others would be able to protect themselves.

There is a simple way of understanding this point. If a violent criminal were ever stalking you or your family, would you put a sign in front of your home announcing that you didn't own a gun? Probably not. Yet, even though no one puts up those signs in front of their homes, we put up those signs on all sorts of other areas.

more here

AGAINST MONSTERS

The atrocity at the Connecticut elementary school will not be the last such horror, nor was it the first or even the worst. Go back to the year 1764, in what is now Franklin County, Pennsylvania. The first: during Pontiac’s Rebellion in the wake of the French and Indian War, four “warriors” entered a schoolhouse and slaughtered the headmaster and some ten children. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontiac%27s_Rebellion_school_massacre . The worst: in 1927, a crazed monster beat his wife to death, then triggered a bombing in an elementary school in Bath, Michigan, killing some 38 kids and several adults. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disaster .

I’ll repeat what I said in the Wall Street Journal op-ed section and on the Today show in 1999, after the Columbine High School atrocity: if we simply prepared teachers to handle this type of crisis the way we teach them to handle fires and medical emergencies, the death toll would drop dramatically. We don’t hear of mass deaths of children in school fires these days: fire drills have long since been commonplace, led by trained school staff, not to mention sprinkler systems and smoke alarms and strategically placed fire extinguishers that can nip a blaze in the bud while firefighters are en route. In the past, if someone “dropped dead,” people would cry and wring their hands and wail, “When will the ambulance get here?” Today, almost every responsible adult knows CPR; most schools have easily-operated Automatic Electronic Defibrillators readily accessible; and a heart attack victim’s chance of surviving until the paramedics arrive to take over is now far greater.

The same principle works for defending against mass murders…it just doesn’t work HERE, because it is politically incorrect to employ it HERE. After the Ma’alot massacre in 1974, Israel instituted a policy in which volunteer school personnel, parents, and grandparents received special training from the civil guard, and were seeded throughout the schools armed with discreetly concealed 9mm semiautomatic pistols. Since that time, there has been no successful mass murder at an Israeli school, and every attempt at such has been quickly shortstopped by the good guys’ gunfire, with minimal casualties among the innocent. Similar programs are in place in Peru and the Phillippines, with similarly successful results.

Some people see the logic in the Israeli approach. Dave Workman does, as seen here: http://www.examiner.com/article/obama-wants-action-regardless-of-politics-after-gun-free-school-zone-tragedy?cid=db_articles . Ann Coulter does, as seen here: http://www.thewrap.com/media/column-post/newtown-school-shootings-ann-coulter-makes-her-case-concealed-carry-laws-69361 .

Unfortunately, in this country, logic has been buried under political correctness. Those in power whose ego is invested in brie et Chablis values that include scorn for the peasantry they accuse of “clinging to guns and Bibles” will never see that logic. Children will continue to die in gun-free zones hunting preserves for psychopathic murderers, and the cowardly murderers will continue to surrender or kill themselves as soon as armed good guys show up…far too late.

Source

Disastrous Gun Law Sparked School Shootings

From 1900 to the late 1990’s, there were no mass shootings in schools. Lest it be thought that guns were uncommon in schools, that was not the case. Guns were commonly brought to school for shooting competitions, hunting after school, for teachers to trade or show to each other or their students, or for show and tell. Guns were even made in shop class under the supervision of the shop teacher. Guns were common in gun racks in pickup trucks in the school parking lot. Even today, many schools provide special dispensation for students to take off from school for deer hunting season.

During the height of gun control fever during the first Bush Presidency, the Congress passed the Gun Free School Zones act of 1990. It was designed to make it impossible for ordinary people to carry guns most places, because it forbid the carrying of guns within a thousand feet of a school. If you overlap the 1000 foot gun free zones that surround schools in most cities and towns, no one can go about their daily business without intersecting one of these zones at some time.

The Gun Free School Zone act was quickly challenged in the courts, and found to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court under the interstate commerce clause, in U.S. v. Lopez, 1995. The reasoning was simple: If merely possessing a gun within a thousand feet of a school was interstate commerce, and therefore subject to federal regulation, what could possibly be construed as not interstate commerce? Virtually everything would then be controlled by the federal government. As the Constitution means something, the interstate commerce clause must mean something. If all of life can be controlled by the federal government, the clause means nothing.

President Clinton blew a gasket when the Gun Free School Zone act was found unconstitutional. He fiercely lobbied congress to pass a replica act, slightly modified. He threatened to keep congress from adjourning to go home to run for office if they did not pass the replica act. They passed the new Gun Free School Zone act in 1996. Since then, federal prosecutors have been very careful not to prosecute many cases under the act, not wanting to present the Supreme Court with another test case.

The results of the Gun Free School Zone act’s passage have been devastating. The first mass shooting in a school since before 1900 occurred in 1997. As prominent researcher John Lott has noted, mass shooters are attracted to defenseless victim zones. While zones that ban armed citizens are a tiny percentage of the nation’s area, according to Lott, only one of the “successful” (four or more victims) mass shootings in the past thirty years occurred outside of a defenseless victim zone (gun free zone).

Why do mass shooters chose defenseless victim zones? Because they want the fame that goes with the media attention that a mass killer gets, and to get the attention, they have to kill a lot of people. If they are stopped by an armed citizen, they lose their chance to make the “record books”, and there is no point in mass killing.

Armed citizens stop about one in ten of mass killings before they become “successful”, but they are rarely mentioned because of this fact. Most of these life saving actions occur outside of defenseless victim zones.

Mass Killings Stopped by Armed Citizens Link

We have a real world counterexample to the Gun Free School Zone act in Israel. Israelis were confronted with a similar problem after the Maalot massacre in the 1970s They responded by allowing teachers, responsible older students, and volunteer parents to be armed in their schools. They have not had a child shot in a school since.

Israeli School Solution Link

Since the Gun Free School Zone act was passed for the second time in 1996, 13 mass school shootings have occurred. This unconstitutional law has been a disaster and should be repealed.

Note: The Frontier Middle School shooting, which happened in 1996, does not make most lists of mass school shootings becaue only three people were killed before the shooter was subdued by gym coach Jon Lane. It occured in the breif period after the 1990 law was struck down by the Supreme Court and before the 1996 Gun Free School Zone Act was passed.

Dean Weingarten

Update: Ever wonder why we have these insane zero tolerance policies about guns in schools? You know, where an eagle scout and honor student has his life ruined because he tried to do the right thing?

The 1996 Gun Free School Zone act is the reason. If schools do not implement "zero tolerance" policies, they lose federal funding, so school administrators are scared to death of being accused of not following the insane "zero tolerance" rules. Just another cut at cultural genocide of the gun culture (a fair proxy for Western Civilization) by the left.

Correction: It is not the Gun Free School Zone Act of 1996, as listed above, it is the Gun Free School Act of 1994, which is a separate law passed two years earlier, during the Clinton regime.

Clackamas Concealed Carry Showdown – The Full Story

Yesterday, Jason at easybakegunclub.com interviewed Nick Meli, the Oregon concealed carry permit holder who, as we mentioned earlier, confronted Clackamas mall killer Jacob Roberts. The article (reprinted here with permission) reveals new information about Meli’s role in the incident.

The news is a funny thing sometimes. When something shocking comes out, everyone rushes to get more and more information as quickly as possible. When it comes to active shooter or active gunman situations, that rush for information often runs into the chaos of the situation. We saw that with the Newtown, Connecticut shooting where media outlets worldwide put the picture and information of the wrong person up as the gunman only to have egg on their face later. In Portland, Oregon, that same rush for information had the mainstream media skip past the fact that a concealed carrier confronted an active shooter and caused him to abandon his plans, run for a service corridor and stairway and kill himself as these shooters typically do . . .

Full story with pictures here

OH:Home Invader Shot in Boardman

An apparent home invasion erupted into gunfire Saturday evening in Boardman.

The incident occurred around 5:15 p.m. at 61 Terrace Drive. The Boardman Police Department said a group of four people showed up at the home, believed to be looking for something.

Officers said one of the suspects, Keemoni Harris, 22, of Campbell, and the homeowner, James Truman Sr., exchanged gunfire, firing about five shots. Truman wasn't hit, but officials said Harris went to the hospital with three non-life threatening gun shot wounds.

more here

One in Ten Mass Shootings Stopped by Armed Citizens; Most Occur Where Guns are Banned

In the best published study of mass shootings, it was found that 99 had occurred between 1980 and 2010. We know that a number of mass shootings have been stopped by armed citizens. All but one of the “successful” mass shootings occurred in areas where armed citizens are banned. A comparison of mass shootings stopped by 911 response vs mass shootings stopped by citizens indicates that when citizens are able to stop the killing, they prevent 84 percent of the deaths.

Mass shooting study link

Mass shootings Stopped by Armed Citizens

Armed Citizen stopped shooting average 2.3 deaths, 911 response average, 14.3 deaths (84% reduction)

Definitions and precise numbers vary by researcher, but it is clear that at least 10 percent of mass shootings are stopped by armed citizens. I believe this is the minimum number, the actual number may be much higher, because when a citizen stops an intended mass shooting early, it never becomes a successful mass shooting and may never become a news story of note. For example, in the recent Clackamas Mall shooting, an armed citizen may well have cut the killings short without firing a shot. While we can never be certain, a large percentage of mass shooters stop killing and commit suicide when they are confronted with armed force.

Clackamas CCW video

The problem of quantifying mass shootings stopped by armed citizens is exacerbated by the inablility to know the intentions of a dead attacker. Some attackers leave notes, making their intentions clear, as did the Santa Clara shooter in 1999, or the AT&T store shooter in 2010. Some announce their intentions, or otherwise indicate that they intend to kill many people. But these are the rare cases. If an attacker attempts to kill many, but is stopped at the beginning of the attack or after a few shots are fired, it is impossible to know if a mass killing was stopped, or if it was only one of thousands of more ordinary crimes stopped by armed citizens.

Santa Clara Shooting Link

AT&T Store shooting Link

It is clear that the number of mass shootings has decreased as the number of armed citizens has increased. Three decades ago, there were very few citizens with concealed carry permits. Most states did not allow concealed carry. The increase in concealed carry states mostly occurred after 1994, and the bulk of concealed carry permits have been issued after the turn of the new millenium. Even today, less than 2.6% of the population has concealed carry permits, and 30 percent of the population of the country live in states where it is very difficult to obtain a permit, or in the case of Illinois, impossible. The first decade of the millennia showed a remarkable drop in mass shootings, a 44 percent reduction, according to Grant Duwe, a criminologist with the Minnesota Department of Corrections . These numbers are compatible with research published in 1999, that showed a drop in mass shootings with increased concealed carry permits.

Growth of CCW permits:

Current number of CCW permits:

Mass shooting study link

Mass shootings in gun free zones link

Link to paper

While it is too early in this decade to determine if the trend will continue, reducing the number of places that ban armed citizens will likely result in more citizens being able to stop the mass shootings in the early stages, sometimes before any innocents are killed.

Dean Weingarten

Mass Killings Stopped by Armed Citizens

There are several documented cases where armed citizens have stopped mass attacks by gunmen. Let me list a few: The Pearl, Mississippi school shooting was stopped by the vice principal Joel Myrick with a Colt .45, The Appalachian School shooting was stopped by two students with handguns. Both of the above incidents were stopped by the armed citizens threatening the shooter without firing.

Pearl High School Link      October 1, 1997

Appalachian Law School Link  January 16, 2002 

Plans to slay everyone in the Muskegon, Michigan, store and steal enough cash and jewelry to feed their "gnawing hunger for crack cocaine" fell apart for a band of would-be killers after one of their victims fought back.

Muskegon Shooting Link  August 23, 1995

The mass church shooting in Colorado Springs was stopped by the shooter being shot by a church member with a CCW permit.

New Life Church Link    9 December, 2007

The Santa Clara gunshop shooting in 1999 was stopped by an armed citizen after the shooter declared that he was going to kill everyone. Police found a list of intended victims in his car. Only the perpetrator, Richard Gable Stevens was shot.

Santa Clara Gunshop Link     July 5, 1999

The 17 December, 1991, Aniston, Alabama defense where a CCW holder stopped armed robbers who were herding employees, customers, and his wife into a cooler. He shot both robbers, killing one.

 17 December, 1991, 20 innocent lives saved, and it wasn't even news to ABC,  CBS, NBC, or CNN__no bloody innocent bodies for the "film at eleven." What's  more, it never even made it in to the largest Georgia daily newspaper. I was  doing a site inspection of our Warner Robins (Robins AFB) classified/crypto  account at the time.

Aniston Shoney's Shooting Link  


July 13, 2009, in Virginia at the Golden Food Market: The gunman tried to shoot several people, was stopped by a CCW carrier.

Golden Food Market Shooting Link

Just recently, 29 July, 2012 in Early Texas, armed citizen Vic Stacy shot and stopped a deranged man who had just murdered two neighbors and was firing at police with a rifle. Stacy made a very long shot with his revolver, three times as far as the perpetrator was from the police officer, who had an AR-15 type rifle.

Early Texas Peach House Shooting Link

 Updated link to Peach House Shooting one Year Later

That sounds like a very good story... but it never made the national news.
I wonder who made the decision to spike that story.
Of course, when a mass shooting is stopped by an armed citizen, there are not as many victims. This leads to the charge that it would not really have been a “mass shooting”.

I have added this incident at the request of a reader:
Abraham Dickman had a history of anger against employees of the AT&T store in New York Mills, New York. On May 27th, 2010, he walked into the store with a .357 and a list of six employees. He shot the first employee, but was stopped from further attacks when Donald J. Moore, an off duty police officer who was allowed to carry his own handgun when not on duty, drew and fired his .40 caliber, killing Mr. Dickman before he could fire any more shots.

AT&T store Link

Here is another likely candidate.
College Park, GA, May 4, 2009.
Two gunman entered a party and ordered the men separated from the women. Then they started counting bullets. “The other guy asked how many (bullets) he had. He said he had enough,” said Bailey.
When one of the assailants prepared to rape a girl, a student was able to access a handgun and engage the two attackers in a firefight, driving one off and killing the other before the thug could rape his girlfriend.
“I think all of us are really cognizant of the fact that we could have all been killed,” said Bailey.

College Park Link

Another off duty police officer stopped the Trolley Square shooting with his personal handgun. He stopped the killing and contained the shooter until police reinforcements arrived and ended the situation.  February 12, 2007

Trolley Square Shooting Link

Winnemucca NV shooting, 25 May, 2008
The shooter, Ernesto Villagomez, entered the Players Bar and Grill and killed two people. He reloaded and was continuing to shoot when a citizen with a concealed carry permit shot him and stopped the killing.

Winnemuca Shooting Link

Parker Middle School Dance Shooting  April 24, 1998
14 Year old Andrew Jerome Wurst Killed one person and wounded three others when he was confronted by James Strand who subdued Wurst with a shotgun and held him until police arrived.

Parker Middle School Dance Shooting Link

Destiny Christian Center Shooting, April 24, 2012
Kiarron Parker rammed his car into another in the church parking lot, got out and attempted to kill multiple church members. He was only able to kill one before a member of the congregation, the nephew of the lady killed, and an off duty police officer, drew his handgun and shot Parker, stopping the killing.

Destiny Christian Center Shooting Link

Tyler Courthouse shooting, 2005 While police officers were involved in this shooting before and after Mark Alan Wilson intervened, no more people were killed after he shot the shooter, who had body armor, and who was able to return fire and kill the CCW holder, Wilson.

Tyler Courthouse Shooting Link

Clackamas Mall Shooting  11 December, 2012
I include this story because it is recent and has been getting some interest on the net. This case is not as clear as the others listed. This incident is similar to the more common defensive uses of guns because the mere display of the gun was enough to defuse the situation. We can never know if the shooter decided to commit suicide because he was confronted by Nick Meli, the CCW holder, as the shooter is dead. However, many mass shooters commit suicide when they know that armed resistance is at hand.

Clackamas Concealed Carry Showdown Link
 

I have added this link as suggested by Doug Kuiphoff in the comments.  I do not think that it qualifies as a mass shooting stopped, because the potential shooter says that he did not intend to shoot anyone, but to kidnap some people.  Still, it is an interesting story, so here is the link:

 SC:Boiling Springs Freewill Baptist Church event

Added, from 9 September, 2012.  Consider that the Plymouth shooting incident happened just three months before Sandy Hook.  Mark Ktytor, a concealed carry permit holder, stopped a likely mass killing before it reached enough victims to officially quallify.   From the citizensvoice.com:

"Mark Ktytor?" the latest in the stream of reporters asked, trying to put a face to the name of the man investigators credited with preventing a fatal bar shooting last weekend from escalating into a massacre.

 Link to Plymouth, PA Shooting story

 This is  the oldest incident that I have found.  I include it because it is in the "modern era".   It occurred in 1915, in Brunswick, Georgia.  It is a bit unusual in that 20 or more people were wounded and at least five killed.  The citizen who finally stopped the slaughter obtained the pistol used from a hardware store during the attack.  The shotgun was actually a double barreled model.

Angered by losses in a real estate deal, Monroe Phillips, a lead business man, ran amuck today with an automatic shotgun and killed five men and wounded twenty others before he himself was killed. Phillips was shot dead by E.C. Butts, a lawyer, while he was trying to fire upon citizens who appeared in the street.

Link to 1915 Brunswick GA Mass Shooting story

Link to the 1915 NYTs Article 



Link to Doctor Stops Murderer at Phildelphia Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital 24 July, 2014 


ATLANTA — A mental-health caseworker is dead and a doctor and his patient wounded after a bizarre gunfight at a gun-free-zoned hospital in Yeadon, Pa., near Philadelphia, Thursday. As police prepare murder charges against the wounded patient, focus is shifting to the gun-toting psychiatrist who stopped the mayhem, likely saving other lives.

Prosecutors say Dr. Lee Silverman opened fire on Richard Plotts, after Mr. Plotts shot his caseworker and barged his way toward Dr. Silverman’s office desk after gaining access to Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital. Silverman crouched down behind his desk and fetched his gun, which he then fired at Mr. Plotts, wounding him several times before he was subdued.

Comment on some of the media coverage of a rare firearms defense in a gun free zone

 Doctor Stops Murderer at Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital 24 July, 2014 

Falah Barbershop shooting May 22, 2015 at West Philadelphia. 

A 40-year-old man was inside Falah Barber Shop Inc. on the 600 block of Preston Street shortly before 3 p.m. Sunday when police say he began fighting with another person inside.

 "The person who responded was a legal gun permit carrier," said Philadelphia Police Captain Frank Llewellyn. "He responded and I guess he saved a lot of people in there."

Link to Philadelphia Barbershop shooting stopped by Armed Citizen with CCW Permit   

Uber driver Shoots Gunman who is shooting into Crowd in Chicago, 19 April, 2015

The driver had a concealed-carry permit and acted in the defense of himself and others, Assistant State's Attorney Barry Quinn said in court Sunday.
A group of people had been walking in front of the driver around 11:50 p.m. Friday in the 2900 block of North Milwaukee Avenue when Everardo Custodio, 22, began firing into the crowd, Quinn said.


The driver pulled out a handgun and fired six shots at Custodio, hitting him several times, according to court records.

Link to Uber Driver Hero in Chicago article

 Los Altos Skate Park Shooting

The mass shooting took place on 22 March, 2015.  It took a while for the police to figure out what happened from cell phone video, but apparantly a criminal gang attempted to steal a skateboard, then opened up on the mass of skate boarders when they attempted to retrieve the stolen item.   At least three people were shooting illegaly, hitting six innocents, paralyzing one, until a legal handgun carrier was able to fire back, killing one of the aggressors,  17 year old Jaquise Lewis.  That stopped the attack.

 Link to Los Altos Skate Park Shooting


 31 May, 2015  Conyers Georgia Magnet Bottle Shop Shooting

The active shooter came into the shop with pistol drawn and immediately started fireing.  He killed two people before Todd Scott drew his openly carried pistol, a .40 caliber Smith & Wesson, and returned fire.  The active shooter exited the store, and returned to his parents home, where he wounded both of them.  The police arrived, and the active shooter was killed.   Sheriff Eric Levett called Todd scott a hero who saved lives.

Link to Conyers Georgia Magnet Bottle Shop Shooting

Link to Gun Watch article on Open Carrier Stops Mass Killing



Compiled by Dean Weingarten