The Patriot Post® · Study: Armed Citizens Often Thwart 'Active Shooter Events'

Reviewing FBI crime statistics, Jacob Paulsen of ConcealedCarry.com recently found that “in 94 percent of cases, armed citizens successfully intervene during what the bureau calls ‘active shooter events.’” The FBI defines an “active shooter event” as “one or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area.” Paulsen based his research on FBI records from 2000 through 2017, but he does note an important caveat: “The FBI does not include domestic shooting or gang-related shootings in its reports.” He also adds, “For the FBI to define an incident as an Active Shooter incident both law enforcement personnel and citizens have to have the potential to affect the outcome of the event based upon their responses to the situation.”

So, to get down to the specifics, Paulsen found that 283 events met the FBI’s active shooter classification and of those events an armed citizens was present at 33. He further explained that in those 33 cases, “armed citizens were successful at stopping the active shooter 75.8 percent of the time (25 incidents) and were successful in reducing the loss of life in an additional 18.2 percent (6) of incidents.” By Paulsen’s calculation, that means “armed citizens are successful 94 percent of the time at active shooter events.”

But don’t count on this study getting any mainstream media coverage. Leftmedia outlets are only interested in promoting anti-Second Amendment activists’ grossly inflated and fallacious “mass shootings” statistic.