Elisjsha “Eli” Dicken, the young man who stopped a massacre in progress Sunday evening at Indiana’s Greenwood Park Mall, isn’t a Good Samaritan. He’s a hero. On this we hope everyone can agree.

We mention this because those on the Left are having a tough time coping with this story about a good guy with a gun stopping a bad guy with a gun — so much so that they’ve taken to the Bible to help them denounce those who they feel are being a bit loose with the meaning of the New Testament parable of the Good Samaritan.

First, the background, as reported by the Associated Press: “A 20-year-old man likely assembled a rifle in the bathroom of a suburban Indianapolis shopping mall before shooting five people in the food court, killing three of them before an armed shopper fatally shot him, authorities said Monday. [The assailant] continued shooting people until he was shot and killed by 22-year-old Elisjsha Dicken, of Seymour, a city about 45 miles south of Greenwood, who was shopping with his girlfriend.”

Said Greenwood Police Chief James Ison of Dicken: “His actions were nothing short of heroic. He engaged the gunman from quite a distance with a handgun. He was very proficient in that, tactically sound, and as he moved to close in on the suspect, he was also motioning for people to exit behind him. He has, to our knowledge — he has no police training and no military background.”

In a subsequent statement, issued Tuesday, Ison added these details: “The time lapse between the moment that Jonathan Sapirman exited the restroom and began shooting, and when he was shot by the civilian was only fifteen seconds, not two minutes. The surveillance video shows Sapirman exit the restroom at 5:56:48 p.m. He was neutralized by Dicken at 5:57:03 p.m.”

Well, okay, say those on the Left, but don’t you dare call him a Good Samaritan!

“The Good Samaritan paid for an unknown immigrant’s health care out of pocket,” tweeted “comedian” John Fugelsang. “The Good Samaritan did not shoot anyone. Jesus was not a fan of killing for any reason, including self-defense. But if these ammosexuals had ever read the Bible, they couldn’t support the GOP or NRA.”

Whatever, dude. Try telling that to the grateful families of the non-victims in Greenwood Park Mall.

“The term ‘Good Samaritan’ came from a Bible passage of a man from Samaria who stopped on the side of the road to help a man who was injured and ignored,” shrieked CBS4 traffic anchor Justin Kollar on Twitter Monday. “I cannot believe we live in a world where the term can equally apply to someone killing someone … my God.”

Kollar is right about his Scripture, which we find in Luke 10:25-37. But we hope that’s his only quibble. Indeed, we hope Kollar understands that had Elisjsha Dicken not been there at that particular mall at that particular moment — and, as it turns out, in violation of the mall’s policy, which bans even the lawful carrying of weapons — we’d be covering a story with a far different and far more horrific outcome.

When will we learn our lesson about “gun-free zones”? When will we learn that sociopaths bent on mass destruction don’t give a rip about our anti-gun policies and ordinances and laws? Take New York, for example, which the Supreme Court recently blessed with a constitutionally correct ruling in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, a ruling that struck down the state’s encroachment upon our First Civil Right, the right to defend ourselves, and our Second Amendment right, the right to keep and bear arms.

No matter, though. New York’s elected officials are making sitting ducks out of the state’s citizens by attempting an end run around the Supreme Court’s ruling. Sure, you can have a permit, New York now says, but you can’t carry a gun pretty much anywhere.

An AP story on the Indiana incident tried to tell us that good guys with guns almost never stop bad guys with guns. “Rare in US for an active shooter to be stopped by bystander,” blared the headline.

But author and crime researcher John Lott knows different. And so do we. As Lott writes in Newsweek, “These heroic acts happen much more frequently than most imagine, because they rarely get national news coverage.”

Lott continues: “According to my research, there have been at least 10 similar cases over the last year, and 21 since the beginning of 2020. And there is no reason to believe those tallies are comprehensive, given how little media coverage is usually devoted to these heroic acts.”

“I join all Hoosiers,” said Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb, “in being grateful for the quick, heroic actions taken by an individual citizen and first responders on Sunday evening in Greenwood, surely preventing further loss of life and injuries.”

The governor is certainly correct. If only there’d been an Elisjsha Dicken inside that school in Uvalde, or that grocery store in Buffalo, or that transportation terminal in San Jose, or that FedEx facility in Indianapolis, or that supermarket in Boulder, or that bar in Dayton, or that Walmart in El Paso, or that city building in Virginia Beach, or that bar in Thousand Oaks, or that Synagogue in Pittsburgh, or that church in Sutherland Springs, or that …

*UPDATED with a quote from the governor and an additional thought on exercising one’s right to bear arms, and with new information about how long it took Elisjsha Dicken to stop the shooter.