First, a couple of observations.
Mr. Olshaker is probably quite good at profiling, probably a very competent author and compelling storyteller (he was in a Netflix series it seems, which is no small feat). Looking at his own provided background, he seems to have nothing in the way of actual first hand knowledge of weapons, tactics or use of force. I'm not attacking him over this, simply pointing out that he has no real experience in the topic he's discussing here. If you'd like to read the thoughts of someone who has done a lot with law enforcement, is a compelling writer and public personality, and also DOES HAVE first hand experience with these topics, I'd recommend Larry Correia's blog:
https://monsterhunternation.com/2015/06/23/an-opinion-on-gun-control-repost/
Olshaker relies entirely on summarizing a single source: a Mother Jones article from 2012. In fact his own article is written is such a way that I'm not sure if he's even added much of anything of his own thought to this article.
He also doesn't seem to have much understanding of the topic in general, as he appears to buy into several false assumptions about law enforcement, spree killers and armed citizens in particular.
Anyway, let's go over a few points.
At the very beginning Olshaker, summarizing Mother Jones, notes that there's a "catch" to the idea that armed citizens being able to mass murderers. Most often, mass shooters are stopped by people who turn out to not be 'armed citizens' but rather current, ex or off duty law enforcement. Apparently cops aren't citizens in Olshaker's eyes.
Now I want to pause here a moment and think about the problem here. See if you can see it. Let's keep going.
The problem is that for a mass murderer to be a 'mass murderer', there have to be a bunch of dead people or at least a lot of people shot in this case that will end up dead (the FBI definition of a 'mass shooting incident' being 4 or more dead excluding the attacker. This generally means that if an armed person is right there when the attack happens and intervenes, there usually ISN'T a 'mass shooting' recorded, because the attacker didn't have time to kill a bunch of people.
Do you see the problem now? A lot of what Mother Jones is doing here is taking any incidents where the killer was stopped BEFORE he committed mass murder, excluding them by definition, leaving almost no other incidents other than when a killer was entirely unopposed, and saying 'See? Armed citizens don't stop anything!' As an example, the recent incident in the West Freeway church would NOT have been counted because the attacker got his face blown off by a civilian before he could kill a bunch of people, even though the killer was carrying a lot of ammo and was intent on maximizing his kill count. It's a neat trick once you notice.
Olshaker also seems to fall into the trap that many people who have little exposure to firearms stumble into: the idea that only cops have the ability to handle firearms with any degree of competence and skill in a fight. That somehow the reality that your average cop may fire two or maybe three magazines worth of rounds at a stationary paper target once or twice a year at close range to 'qualify' somehow transforms them from what must be some complete bumble-f*ck rube into Sgt. Riggs from Lethal Weapon.
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| The average CCW holder I guess, according to Olshaker |
It's a conceit held by people who don't actually shoot. I might write more on this later, but for now I just want you to remember this: being a cop doesn't mean you can shoot for shit. There are a good many who can. There are also just as many who should't be allowed around anything more lethal than the hand held stop sign they give crossing guards. This is because departments don't really spend money on training them to shoot much. It's viewed as extremely expensive and after all, that's what they have a dedicated SWAT team for, right?
Olshaker the gives several examples of how mass killers are only stopped by police. Let's look at a couple that he provides.
He mentions the "2002 shooting at the Appalachian School of Law in Grundy, Virginia, in which armed law students took out the shooter" and then points how those two students were current and ex law enforcement. See? Those silly non-supercops just can't handle these sorts of things! But, his surface reading of the incident betrays either bias or laziness on his part. We need to consider a few things about this incident.
First of all, it's in 2002. This was only a couple of years after Virginia actually began allowed concealed carry permits to be issued to anyone who met criteria. Prior to that, Virginia was what was called a 'May Issue' state. That is, the local sheriff 'may' choose to issue you a concealed carry permit if you could show cause that you were under a demonstrable, serious threat, or he 'may' instead choose to give you a middle finger. Almost always it was the latter as it was entirely up to his discretion. Was there an exception? Well of course there was, and that exception was for... wait for it... current or ex-law enforcement. In fact, in most departments, active law enforcement is REQUIRED to carry a firearm even off duty. So the chance that anyone other than a cop or ex could could have even HAD a legally carried firearm on their person is drastically and artificiality limited.
He goes on to mention a 2005 shopping attack in Tacoma where he says that the killer was confronted by a "brave civilian with CCP" (apparently Olshaker doesn't understand that cops are 'civilians' as well, since they are not military, but whatever,) and the killer shot and paralyzed him. I actually partially agree with our author on this one. While technically true that the armed guy confronted the killer with a 'CCP' (concealed carried pistol), it's not really accurate. The defender drew his CZ pistol, had a clear shot to take down the person who was ACTIVELY KILLING OTHER PEOPLE but then, according to his own testimony, didn't want to shoot a 'kid' (Dominick Maldonado, the shooter, was a then 20 y/o man with fucking facial hair. KID?), so he holstered his own gun, approached the killer, who was in the act of shooting a rifle at other people, and told him to put it down. What possessed him to pull such a dumbshit move I don't know. Perhaps he thought if he could just give him a hug, everything would be ok. And yes, it was a dumbshit move, don't even try to debate me on that. Lesson here: if you do not have the fortitude to actually USE a weapon you intend to carry, leave it at home and don't bother.
The last one I want to go over (as this is getting way too long already), is the Tyler courthouse shooting. Here, our author takes a very complex case and sums it up with only these words "a civilian who was an accomplished firearms instructor tried to stop a man on a rampage at the county courthouse in Tyler, Texas. The offender shot the civilian dead with his AK-47." See? The implication is that the accomplished instructor was just a typical bumblefuck, dumbass civvy, in over his head, and didn't have the super-commando black belt gun samurai training that all cops magically know. He should have know better and left it to cops who are just magically awesome at this stuff!
It's really this entry that convinces me that Olshaker is not making honest mistakes here, but rather lying by omission to promote an agenda. Honestly, there isn't any other good explanation available for his treatment in this case, as anyone who even reads the Wikipedia entry would know. Briefly summarized, the killer showed up outside a courthouse wearing an overcoat (that's an important fact, btw), took a rifle and killed his ex-wife and shot his son. The cops burst out and proceed to unload at him with their service pistols before being forced to retreat. Now here's an important point: there is some conflict on how many rounds the cops fired at this point. Some reports say about 8 rounds each, and some say they emptied an entire mag each before having to fall back to reload. Either way, they shot a LOT. And they hit nothing but air. Let me repeat that: Our super samurai delta force awesome cop commandos... hit NOTHING. That is in the official report.
Now the CCW holder mentioned above rushed out with his 1911, took aim at a range of over 50 feet, and fired once, striking the killer squarely as he was standing over his son about to finish him off and causing him to stagger. Our hero advanced and continued to engage, striking the killer several more times full in the chest until the killer struck him with a 7.62 round, killing him. The attacker then fled and was chased down later by police. The boy who was wounded survived, btw. Mark Wilson, the CCP holder, had saved his life. The killer's bulky, long coat had concealed the fact that the killer was wearing body armor, which is why the .45 rounds hadn't killed him. Had the cops tagged him with their service pistols they wouldn't have had much effect either, but they, the only ones with the REAL skills, as we are informed by Olshaker, didn't even manage to hit him once.
Summarizing a lot of the other incidents: Most of these mass shootings take place, specifically, where legal concealed carry is OUTLAWED specifically. Why do you suppose that is? Kinda makes you think, eh?
Now I want to make a few general comments about cops and CCW in general:
There are four main reasons why you don't see people like me, who are not connected to law enforcement (who HAVE to carry) who carry concealed take down all mass shooters.
First, we're actually kind of rare. There are comparatively not that many people who have permits. So yes, there DO need to be WAY more of us.
Second, among people who DO have CCW permits, quite often they don't carry their weapon much, for various reasons. So not only do there need to be more of us, those additional people need to actually carry their weapon.
Third, mass shootings are so rare that they qualify as mere statistical anomalies.
That last point will probably trigger outrage by some people. "My GOD! How can you say the public slaughter of people is a mere 'statistical anomaly' you monster!?" Well, because it's true. According to both the FBI and the CDC, there have been around 900 people murdered by mass shooters, total, in the last 40 years. That sounds enormous, right? Not really. We're a nation of ~380,000,000 people and that's over 40 years. It works out to about 22 people per year. To get a sense of scale, over 61,000 people died of the common flu in 2018 ALONE. Do you spend your days in pants-shitting terror that you're going to die from the flu (which I guarantee you've been sick with quite a few times already, amiright?)
Fourth, it's not my job or my responsibility to possibly throw my life away to save your ass. Now that may sound selfish, but the simple truth is my obligation is first to my family. If I'm at a public place with my family and some 'sperg whose mommy didn't tell him she loved him enough times decides to try to show the world how angry he is while you're there, I'm not going to turn to my wife and children and say "Good luck to you all, hope ya make it, daddy's going to go try to be a hero!" No, I'm going to get them out or, worst case, bunker down and protect THEM. They are my responsibility. Now if you feel outraged that I won't go out of my way to try to save you there, ask yourself why I should risk getting shot up when you don't even consider putting effort into protecting your own life? Because if you've made the conscious decision not to be able to defend yourself, that is exactly what you've done. You may have a what you feel is a good reason for that, but it doesn't change the effect of your decision. That's on you, bro. Now some other CCW holders think differently on this than I do, but this is how I think.
Now if I MUST close to engage such a killer, then I will. If I determine there is a chance I can maneuver and easily shoot him in the back, then I might do that as well. But it isn't my job to play Junior Danger Ranger. CCW holders carry and practice to defend themselves if necessary. They didn't sign up to go out like Neo in the Matrix lobby scene.
Now when it comes to cops, I think I've made the point that just because they pinned on a badge as a reward for not being able to complete the Firefighter qualification (oh calm down all you cops, it's just a joke!) doesn't mean they are actually 'trained', 'competent' or even have the correct 'mindset' as Olshaker likes to say to be able shoot effectively. Two recent events showcase this quite well.
In Dec 2019 a bunch of cops from Miami-Dade, and by a bunch I mean 18 cops total, just unloaded their weapons, blasting away at a UPS truck, killing two suspects, the driver whom they had kidnapped and an innocent bystander who just had the shit luck to be in Florida that day. I guess they didn't get the super secret, gun-fu samurai skills and mindset that Olshaker seems to think they all have. The other is the Parkland officer who, when the mass shooting was underway, turned coward and hid outside while a bunch of children were killed. He must have skipped samurai class too, I guess. Compare that with the West Freeway Church shooting mentioned above where a civilian (yes, a civilian, he was NOT in the FBI as was first reported) took the killer down before he could cause real damage.
BTW, Olshaker's article was published in 2012. Since then there have been quite a few shootings where civilians have taken them down. Olshaker hasn't bothered making an update to reflect this. I wonder why...
A final note on the killers themselves. Look, these spree killers are not Delta Force, Navy Seals, Green Berets or anything. Randy Stair, the guy who fired 50 rounds from a 12ga at people locked into a grocery store with him and only managed to kill 2 people. These people are losers who are playing out a fantasy. The simple, verifiable fact is that in these situations the killer will continue until he's done all he wants and then usually offs himself, OR, until he is met with force. These killers don't go to get into a firefight and do battle. They attack shopping malls that have anti-concealed carry signs out front so they can just murder people. If they wanted a fight they'd attack a police station.
You don't need to be a John McClain from Die Hard to defend yourself from a 'sperg whose idea of fighting came from playing Call of Duty. Have a little perspective.
