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On Nov. 5, 2009, 12 soldiers and one civilian were killed, and more than two dozen others were wounded, when a gunman walked into the Soldier Readiness Processing Center at Fort Hood and opened fire. Using not an assault rifle but a 357 magnum, with 40,000 trained soldiers on the base which is also the second biggest armory in America who took the guy out?

The military swat team on the base that was called in and wounded him 10 minutes after his shootings.

What I am really asking is there a printed story or proof of any armed bystander in the USA besides an off duty policeman ever stopping a multiple homicide?

JasonR
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toro
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  • related: http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/q/14098/6876 also there really isn't a notable claim here. – Ryathal Dec 19 '12 at 18:32
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    Just because this happened on a military base, doesn't mean the soldiers were armed. The soldiers are not allowed to carry their firearms just anywhere and anytime on base. Actually, the opposite is true; their weapons are closely monitored and stored away from the soldiers except when they need them. – Dunk Dec 19 '12 at 20:15
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    @Dunk - you are more than right. The target was specifically chosen to be a location where soldiers WERE unarmed. – user5341 Dec 19 '12 at 20:36
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    I really don't get this. Compare with: what is the cost of armed bystanders, and how many innocents have they killed by mistake? – Sklivvz Dec 20 '12 at 00:04
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    @Sklivvz: that is a valid but distinct question. – President James K. Polk Dec 20 '12 at 00:17
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    There is only one question: are armed bystanders beneficial or not? However the current question is slanted. – Sklivvz Dec 20 '12 at 00:19
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    It should be noted that military bases, like Fort Hood, are among the most tightly-controlled areas on the planet when it comes to guns. The possession by any soldier of both a weapon and its ammunition is tightly controlled, and on the overwhelming majority of military bases, only MPs are allowed to possess weapons in a "ready-to-fire" state anywhere other than on the firing range (and weapons entering and leaving that range, if any do at all, are checked and cleared). – KeithS Dec 20 '12 at 21:53
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    @Sklivvz - There are plenty of questions. A specific question may thoroughly illuminate a particular topic or not, and if not, the precise answer to it may or may not illuminate the facets of the topic that you personally find in congruence with your views. If you see a notable claim that claims the net cost outweighs the net benefits of civilian firearm ownership (or vice versa), ask that in a separate question (though it may be a dupe at a vague remembrance). There are plenty of questions on Skeptics that are slanted, both explicitly and to allow an answer most beneficial to someone's POV. – user5341 Dec 21 '12 at 03:09
  • This is veering off to debate and should probably be closed. – DJClayworth Dec 22 '12 at 18:28
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    @KeithS: The *really* interesting question is why firearms are very strictly regulated and controlled on military bases - the one place where you would reasonably expect them to be and where the personnel are mostly trained professionals. As compared to essentially every other place in the States... – fgysin Jun 24 '15 at 22:46
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    @fgysin - You'd be surprised. First off, Ft. Hood is Stateside, with thousands of miles of ocean between us and the Taliban or ISIS. Stateside troops are not expected to have to grab a gun and start shooting at a moment's notice. Second, the Army does a lot more than dispense freedom from M-16s; plenty of enlistees never fire a shot in anger, especially if their job keeps them Stateside. The Navy and Air Force have even higher percentages of members who are "combat personnel in name only", and would only have to grab a gun and fight directly if the base or ship were overrun. – KeithS Jun 26 '15 at 22:52
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    @KeithS - All you say is true, but nevertheless I assume that at least 90% of military personnel went through at least some basic training that involves firearms? At any rate, they for sure know their way around a gun better than the average civilian, but STILL have very strict gun safety rules in place. Why on earth would a military base need stricter gun rules, than say, a school or supermarket? – fgysin Jun 28 '15 at 17:04
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    In a sentence, because the military is about control. The CO of each base has discretion regarding personal firearms carry policies on his base, and every CO knows that if anyone were to use a personal weapon the way Hassan did, it's his ass if he had allowed it. So, a general order banning them is seen at most facilities as a CYA measure. This is the mentality behind most "gun-free zones"; a law banning them looks good on paper but as my edited answer shows that's about all the good they do. – KeithS Jun 29 '15 at 15:28
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    It has not been noted yet, so I'll point out that the Ft Hood shooting did NOT use a .357 magnum, but rather an FN Five-seveN, which fires an entirely different caliber bullet - quite tiny, as a matter of fact. – WhatRoughBeast Dec 15 '15 at 16:33
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    @fgysin - "Why on earth would a military base need stricter gun rules, than say, a school or supermarket?" Because, traditionally, military bases are peopled almost exclusively by adolescent/young adult males who have been selected for willingness to use violence and encouraged in tribal loyalty. Add a culture which encourages both alcohol use and macho values, and extremely tight control of firearms is a very good idea. Schools and supermarkets just aren't the same. – WhatRoughBeast Dec 15 '15 at 16:43
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    I find it instructive to look a the 2011 incident in Arizona where Gabrielle Giffords was shot in a supermarket parking lot in suburban Tucson. The shooter had time to get off at least 31 rounds before being taken down by a little old lady and a 74-year-old retired Army Colonel, both unarmed. I've not been able to find the size of the crowd, but about 1 in 30 Arizona citizens has a concealed carry permit, so if there were any sizeable crowd that day (there were at least dozens) then there would have been an "armed citizen" there. (We know that one "carrying" individual arrived late.) – Daniel R Hicks Mar 01 '18 at 13:38

7 Answers7

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A Slate article covers this very subject. As might be expected for such a highly-charged controversial subject, the results are contradictory and inconclusive.

An investigation by Mother Jones concluded that no more than 1.6 percent of mass shootings were ended by armed civilians. On the other hand, gun advocates argue that it’s hard to know how many more shootings would have become mass murders had civilians not been on the scene to end them early.

and

Academic studies on the issue have not reached consensus. A 1999 study by John Lott of the University of Maryland and William M. Landes of the University of Chicago, often cited by conservatives, found that “shall issue” laws allowing concealed handguns “reduce both the number of [multiple victim] shootings as well as their severity.” However, a review of studies on the topic found the evidence to be inconsistent and inconclusive. A recent Washington Post fact-check similarly found the current evidence to be too murky for representatives like Gohmert to cite as fact.

References backing those statements up can be found in the article.

DJClayworth
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  • Innnnteresting. Two respected Skeptics.SE users with conflicting answers! One explanation: The source [Mother Jones](http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mass-shootings-map) article explicitly excludes shootings with less than 4 victims (excl. shooter), whereas @DVK's source calculates the average number of victims in a civilian-stopped shooting is 2.2, so clearly uses a different set of inclusion criteria. – Oddthinking Dec 20 '12 at 03:52
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    The TLDR of mine is "don't know" so not too much conflict. But the Slate article is specifically about *mass* shootings so not perfectly on topic. – DJClayworth Dec 20 '12 at 04:15
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    Frankly, drawing ANY conclusion about effectiveness of armed civilians at stopping mass shooting based on "how many of such incidents happened out of total mass shootings" is idiotic. Because most mass shooting happen in "gun free" zones where there is almost no likelyhood of an armed civilian being around, by design. Now... could that last fact be more than a coincidence? Naaaaaaah. – user5341 Dec 20 '12 at 15:23
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    The ONLY valid study would be "How many mass shootings happened where an armed civilian was present, and was able/vs/unable to stop the mass shooting"; or comparing the #s between stopped shootings limited to the areas of near-certain presence of an armed civilian at any given time. – user5341 Dec 20 '12 at 15:26
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    @Oddthinking I don't see a conflict: Cruril's answer says, "it has happened occasionally (i.e. a non-zero number of times)"; and DJClayworth's answer says, "no more than 1.6 percent of mass shootings were ended by armed civilians". – ChrisW Jun 22 '15 at 20:31
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    @DVK - excellent point; given current laws and policies, we're unlikely to ever get unbiased, statistically-significant data on how effective an armed civilian is at stopping a gunman, because no mass shooting since Charles Whitman's U.T. rampage in 1966 has occurred at a venue where the average citizen could legally carry a firearm, and in fact the overwhelming majority have occurred in "gun free zones" such as grade schools, colleges, malls, movie theaters, post offices, immigration centers, military facilities, etc. The few that didn't happen in such areas targeted family gatherings. – KeithS Jun 26 '15 at 23:54
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    @user5341: Correlation is not causation. Perhaps the known lack of guns attracted mass shooters. Or perhaps mass shooters are attracted to high profile targets, and people had proactively protected them by banning guns there. Or perhaps, after earlier mass shootings at high profile targets people had reacted by banning guns there. – Paul Johnson Feb 23 '18 at 22:05
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    @user5341 - The claim that "most mass shootings happen in 'gun free' zones" is a phony one. Feel free to post the question on this site if you want to explore it further. To all - The words "study by John Lott" are almost always followed by "statistical garbage" and "debunked." Not attacking the answer, just adding some context. – PoloHoleSet May 25 '18 at 16:46
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...is there a printed story or proof of any armed bystander in the USA besides an off duty policeman ever stopping a multiple homicide?

The answer is "Yes".

  1. First, a smaller list. Look at this article, listing 4 cases, two of them in schools:

    http://www.naturalnews.com/038404_massacres_gun_owners_defense.html

  2. Now for a bigger list - this one contains 8 incidents, 6 by armed civilian and 2 by civilians helping police with their firearms.

    There was a recent controversy when someone posted a meme on facebook, "claiming the average number of people killed in mass shootings when stopped by police is 18.25, and the average number of people killed in a mass shooting when stopped by civilians is 2.2".

    That statistics was challenged, therefore the meme poster decided to do the job properly.

    http://dailyanarchist.com/2012/07/31/auditing-shooting-rampage-statistics/

    He explicitly detailed a more thorough research, listing all of the known facts.

    The tally?

    With 15 incidents stopped by police with a total of 217 dead that’s an average of about 14.29. With 17 incidents stopped by civilians and 45 dead that’s an average of 2.33.

    To make the statistics even cleaner, he separated civilian stops between armed and unarmed civilians

    ... within the civilian category 11 of the 17 shootings were stopped by unarmed civilians.
    If you compare the average of people killed in shootings stopped by armed civilians and unarmed civilians you get 1.8 and 2.6 but that’s not nearly as significant as the difference between a proactive civilian, and a cowering civilian who waits for police.

    He also points out that the statistics could be even worse if not for the fact that many mass shootings aren't actually stopped by the police, but that the shooter kills himself; AND that at least 2 of the police ones were where a police was very greatly assisted by armed civilians.

user5341
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    In fairness, the police are only ever involved in mass shootings when they continue for an extended period of time, so it's natural those events would have a higher fatality rate. Still, this pretty clearly answers the question in the affirmative. – Ask About Monica Dec 19 '12 at 22:32
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    @kbelder - police are always involved in mass shootings, just don't always arrive on time before it stops (e.g. by suicide). – user5341 Dec 19 '12 at 22:52
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    @kbelder ... leading of course, to the catchy anti-gun-control argument against "why do you need guns, when police will protect you": "**When Seconds Count, The Police Are Only Minutes Away**" – user5341 Dec 19 '12 at 22:53
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    Definitely interesting, but with such tiny sample sizes I'd feel a little uncomfortable trusting those rates too much. A single new incident could sway the numbers quite a lot. – Doug Kavendek Dec 21 '12 at 16:00
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    What you've proved here is that the police are called to more serious incidents. I'm pretty sure if you studied it that fires put out by citizens with a fire extinguisher are less costly than those put out by the fire department. You shouldn't conclude from that that citizens with a fire extinguisher are more effective than the fire department. – DJClayworth Dec 21 '12 at 19:41
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    @DJClayworth - sorry, you made a very bad analogy. The argument being made is "Citizens should not be allowed to own a fire extinguisher because we have fire departments with fire trucks". Just because you have a fire truck that can douse the fire which spread to entire building, it's significantly less costly if the fire is put out by a fire extinguisher while it is burning one garbage can. – user5341 Dec 22 '12 at 06:07
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    @DougKavendek - The rates merely confirm an obvious logical model. If someone wants to shoot a bunch of people, having an armed guy to take them out in the vicinity will let them shoot a lot less people than allowing 5-10-15 minutes till the police arrives and manages to storm the facility. – user5341 Dec 22 '12 at 06:09
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    @DVK I'm not making that argument. The argument as I understand it is whether citizens or police are more effective at preventing shootings. My point is that this data contributes nothing useful to that debate. – DJClayworth Dec 22 '12 at 18:28
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    @DJClayworth - the argument is different. Does having armed civilians reduce the death toll compared to not having them. The data is pretty unambiguous on that. – user5341 Dec 25 '12 at 10:56
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    Sorry, but until you reference reputable sources (i.e. not naturalnews) then this answer is wrong. – Tim Scanlon Dec 27 '12 at 04:15
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    Mass shooting makes the biggest news, but frankly, they're irrelevant when talking about gun control. They happen every few months or years, while everyday there's a bunch of random shootings, gang conflicts, angry spouses, careless parents, etc that I believe makes up the larger amount of gun related incidents and is a more real threat than the rarer mass shootings. Death by mass shooting is lottery, death by "more boring" gun incidents are statistic. – Lie Ryan Feb 22 '13 at 07:24
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    @TimScanlon: As much as Natural News is not reputable, the details here are easily checked. Rather than ad hominem, show that they are wrong. – Oddthinking Jun 22 '15 at 21:30
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    Natural News cites the [Pearl High School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_High_School_shooting). Wikipedia reveals the bystander used his firearm to stop the shooter from fleeing, not to stop the shooter from killing more people. – Oddthinking Jun 22 '15 at 21:32
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    Natural News cites the [Appalachian School of Law shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_School_of_Law_shooting) where two off-duty police officers were able to "prevent more killings". Wikipedia reveals that (most sources claims that) the shooter was out of ammunition when subdued. – Oddthinking Jun 22 '15 at 21:36
  • [Follow up question](http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/28152/did-a-michigan-jewellery-store-keeper-successfully-scare-off-his-attackers-with) – Oddthinking Jun 22 '15 at 21:53
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    @Oddthinking - re: ASoL: (1) "A report by another witness's hometown newspaper, a month after the shooting, suggested that the gun still held three cartridges". (2) Moreover, the way I read the "empty" line, it's mostly sourced from police spokesperson, not facts - and police has a clear incentive to NOT portray things in a way positive for "vigilantes" so that statement is suspect. I'd feel entirely more comfortable believing either side if material proof was cited by either side (photos, unbiased and independent witnesses). Or, say, forensic evidence counting spent shells. – user5341 Jun 24 '15 at 10:47
  • @Oddthinking - ... note that there were 6 victims, and based on Wiki, presumably at least 16 bullets available. I don't see any links to police report detailing this, but the fact that the wounds were reported point blank indicates unlikelyhood of tons of misses. – user5341 Jun 24 '15 at 10:55
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    @Oddthinking - re: Pearl: true, this makes it a much weaker example. However, since he **already** killed someone off school premises (his mother), unless there's evidence he intended not to shoot anyone else once he left school, merely "stopped when he was leaving the school" isn't conclusive enough to claim no lives were saved. – user5341 Jun 24 '15 at 11:00
  • @Oddthinking Sorry for pinging on an old post, but I think when details are easily checked and the OP chooses to use a disreputable site to summarize them, then we are left with an answer that fails to do what answers should do in the first place, which is *point to reputable sources that summarize the details*. Readers shouldn't have to try and verify the details because they're coming from a junk source. I think the OP should edit, according to your comments that apparently did the work they should have done in the first place. That's why I've withheld an upvote. –  Aug 27 '20 at 19:09
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Armed Bystander stops a stabbing.

Police say a bystander who happened to be a concealed handgun license holder pulled his weapon and ordered Barron to drop the knife. Barron surrendered and was taken into custody by the bystander and a school district officer.

From a blog.. Don't know how factual it is though as it is a personal account.

It happened in a town where I used to live. Back in 1997, a kid took a gun to the high school in Pearl, Mississippi, and started firing. He killed two students and wounded seven, then fled the building. Hearing the shots, assistant principal Joel Myrick ushered a few kids into the safety of his office, then ran to get his .45 automatic from his car in the parking lot (state law allowed him to have it there). By the time Mr. Myrick got back, the shooter was in his own car, trying to get away.

"I just pointed at him and I said--I said, freeze," Mr. Myrick told Nightly News the next day. He continued, "I said, don't move. And I could see his--the whites of his knuckles on the steering wheel. And I came up and I grabbed the door, and I opened the door. I said, don't you do anything, you know. I said, I'm going to shoot you. And he got out, he laid on the ground, and then put my foot on the back of the neck."

Man with Conceal and carry permit stops shooting.

Deputies say about 2:25 a.m., 30-year-old Ernesto Villa Gomez walked into the bar and starting shooting. 20-year-old Jose Torres and his 19-year-old brother Margarito Torres were killed. When Villa Gomez was reloading his semi-automatic gun, a man from Reno took out a gun and shot Villa Gomez. That man has a concealed weapons permit.

App State law school Shooting. I'll sum this one up. It did involve an two students who were off duty officers, a county sheriff and a police officer. They confronted the man who had shot several people and he dropped his gun at that point and was subdued by several other students.

This posting lists 2 of the events I have listed as well as two more. One did involve a former police officer.

Most of these the shooter was stopped after someone was killed, but in this example, the shooters were stopped before anyone was killed.

In December 1991, two armed men burst into a Shoney's restaurant in Anniston, Ala., and held the patrons and employees at gunpoint, herding them into a walk-in refrigerator. The robbers kept the manager behind for his assistance as they looted the restaurant. One patron, however, also remained behind. Thomas Glenn Terry had opted against being locked in a refrigerator, hiding from the attackers under a table.

As one of the armed robbers ransacked the cash register, another patrolled the restaurant. When he came across Mr. Terry, he pulled his gun. But unlike the recent victims in Atlanta, this victim was armed. Using his own legally concealed handgun, Terry shot and killed the robber. The other armed robber, busily holding the manager at gunpoint, then opened fire on Terry. Terry shot back, mortally wounding the second robber. The two dozen hostages were released unharmed. Only the criminals -- who had been armed with stolen guns, by the way -- didn't make it out alive.

So in summation, Yes it does happen. When a shooting is stopped I am willing to say that it would get much less coverage. How often do you hear about good Samaritans vs criminals? Bad news brings more attention than good news. Bad news can cause sensationalism more so than good news, which will lead to increased viewer or reader numbers.

Cruril
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    Any comment on the reason for the downvote? – Cruril Dec 19 '12 at 19:19
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    Arguably, in your second case, having a gun prevented the killer get away, but it didn't prevent anyone getting killed, and in the last case, the armed men apparently weren't intending to kill anyone. – Benjol Dec 20 '12 at 09:07
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    That is true. In the second case you could argue that he stopped the kid from killing anyone else, since he had already killed people. In the last case, even though you don't know if they weren't going to kill anyone, you don't know if they would have either. A man with a concealed carry permit stopped a crime that could have resulted in several murders. – Cruril Dec 21 '12 at 00:50
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    The trouble with giving examples is that they present an incomplete view. Unless you also show examples where the presence of armed good guys failed to prevent attacks. Eg the 20th century saw two presidents shot despite armed guards (not sure whether McKinley counts as he didn't like security). The Florida school had an armed guard on site at the time of the shooting. – matt_black Feb 23 '18 at 13:03
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    @matt_black The question currently asks for examples. Probably should have made that complaint there, or in your answer as a lesser "frame flip". –  Aug 27 '20 at 19:13
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Armed bystanders sometimes help, but not often

The FBI have addressed a related question using a large sample (160) of "active shooter" incidents from 2010 to 2013.

The report is available and is called A Study of Active Shooter Incidents in the United States Between 2000 and 2013.

The study excludes many types of gun crime (like drug related shootings) but tries to include all incidents where the public were put at risk by perpetrators with some desire to hurt them. These incidents are particularly relevant as they are the type where injury to innocent citizens is more likely to occur (as opposed to being a side effect or where the injured are likely to be other criminals).

For the 160 incidents, 5 were ended via action by armed citizens and 2 by off-duty law enforcement officers. Three times as many incidents (21) ended when unarmed citizens restrained the shooter. Two-thirds of the incidents ended before law enforcement arrived at the scene.

The majority of all incidents (90) ended with the shooter fleeing or committing suicide.

The conclusions from these statistics are that armed civilians can and have stopped some incidents. But, perhaps more importantly, armed civilians are a very small contribution to citizen safety (unarmed civilians stop 3 times more incidents). The "good guy with a gun" is a small contributor to public safety.

matt_black
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    Unarmed civilians stopping three times more incidents says more about how many are armed than the value of weapons. Many incidents occurred where civilians aren't allowed to be armed and even those that didn't sheer chance will say many didn't involved an armed civilian at all. – Loren Pechtel May 12 '16 at 18:38
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    +1, but the summary here is "good guys *without* guns stopped shooters" rather than "good guys *with* guns didn't stop many shooters". I imagine people of such valor should be able to do even better in a fair fight (i.e. they have guns too). As Loren said above, "good guys with guns" as a "small contributor to public safety" really only points to the fact that there are apparently *very* good guys out in the wild that don't carry guns. It seems a very safe assumption that they'd have used a gun if they had one, and perhaps have drastically changed the outcome. –  Aug 27 '20 at 19:19
  • @fredsbend "do even better in a fair fight" makes logical sense, but the only judgement about whether that is *relevant* has to come from real-world statistics as logical ideas are often a dramatically oversimplified version of how the real world works. After all, in a world where everyone carried weapons, bad guys would always shoot first somewhat negating the value of the good guy. – matt_black Aug 27 '20 at 20:11
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    @matt_black Yes, maybe. That's why I gave the +1, for a pretty well-balanced answer that *doesn't* makes sweeping judgments. –  Aug 27 '20 at 20:15
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Armed citizen stops liquor store robbery in Nashville area

Yes.

EDIT: To elaborate on my answer, it will be highly unlikely that we ever get a statistically-significant, unbiased set of data on mass shootings (or any shooting) in modern times to make the determination of whether an armed bystander reduces loss of life in such situations. This is for one very good reason; the overwhelming majority of mass shootings in modern history have occurred in locations where the intended victims were not allowed to carry weapons either by law or workplace policy.

To back that up, here's CNN's list of the 25 deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history: http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/16/us/20-deadliest-mass-shootings-in-u-s-history-fast-facts//. Let's go down the top 10 one by one:

  1. Virginia Tech massacre, Blacksburg VA, 2007 - 32 dead. Occurred on the campus of Virginia Tech University, a gun-free zone by state law.
  2. Sandy Hook Elementary, Newtown CT, 2012 - 27 dead. Occurred primarily in a gun-free zone by Federal law (one victim, Adam Lanza's mother, was killed in their home).
  3. Luby's massacre, Killeen TX, 1991 - 23 dead. Texas did not allow public carry of handguns at the time. Susanna Gratia Hupp, present at the scene during the shootings, had left her firearm in her vehicle as required. This incident is notable as prompting adoption of concealed-carry in Texas.
  4. McDonald's shooting, San Ysidro CA, 1984 - 21 dead. California has not allowed public carry of loaded weapons since the Black Panthers protest march in 1967.
  5. U.T. Bell Tower shootings, Austin TX, 1966 - 18 dead. Occurred on a college campus where firearms were rare; however, this event is notable as civilians on the scene had access to firearms while the shooter was active. Nearby residents retrieved hunting rifles from their homes and returned fire alongside police and Texas Rangers, limiting Whitman's choice of targets after the initial killing spree.
  6. Ft. Hood shooting, Ft. Hood TX, 2009 - 13 dead. Ft. Hood does not allow anyone not on active MP detail or participating in live-fire training exercises to carry a firearm.
  7. ACA immigration center shooting, Binghamton NY, 2009 - 13 dead. The building was a gun-free zone, and New York is notoriously selective about handgun permit issuance.
  8. Columbine massacre, Littleton CO, 1999 - 13 dead. Elementary schools, as stated previously, are gun-free by federal law.
  9. Wilkes-Barre massacre, Wilkes-Barre PA, 1982 - 13 dead. George Banks targeted primarily family members, many of whom were sleeping, in multiple locations. This is a notable exception to the pattern of gunmen targeting strangers, and George Banks was ruled incompetent to be executed for the killings, but was not adjudged legally insane until after his conviction.
  10. Camden shootings, Camden NJ, 1949 - 13 dead. Camden is a suburb of Philadelphia on the NJ side of the Delaware River, and New Jersey's gun laws have never been permissive. Howard Unruh was adjudged legally insane as a result of the shootings of 12 people while walking around his neighborhood. It is very likely he suffered from what we now know as PTSD stemming from his service in WWII, and was also harrassed for allegedly being gay.

The remaining 15 are the Washington Navy Yard (GFZ), the Aurora theater shooting (GFZ, notable as the shooting occurred in the only theater within 20 miles so marked), the Atlanta day trader shootings (private businesses, effectively GFZs), a family shooting in Alabama (family-targeted), the Red Lake High School shooting (GFZ), the Jacksonville GMAC shooting (GFZ), the Seal Beach massacre (California), the Hartford Distibutors shooting (private business effectively GFZ), the 2010 Appomattox shooting (GFZ), the Carthage nursing home shooting (GFZ), the Omaha mall shooting (GFZ), the SFO law office massacre (California, and San Fran to boot), the Standard Gravure shootings in 1989 (private business, effectively GFZ), and the 1982 killing of 8 people including the shooter at a Miami machine shop (the shooter was killed by an armed civilian while attempting to flee the scene).

So, the situations in the top 25 where citizens could have had guns but didn't primarily involved family members, and in the limited number of cases where civilians had access to guns, they used them, demonstrably limiting the effectiveness of the shooter in one case and ending the threat in another.

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Yes. As yet another example,

Uber driver, licensed to carry gun, shoots gunman in Logan Square.

Authorities say no charges will be filed against an Uber driver who shot and wounded a gunman who opened fire on a crowd of people in Logan Square over the weekend.

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.

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According to Police: 2 shot at Oklahoma restaurant; civilian kills gunman

a man armed with a pistol walked into an Oklahoma City restaurant at the dinner hour and opened fire, wounding two customers, before being shot dead by a handgun-carrying civilian

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