The Guns of Columbine4/12/2013

In the midst of the first national debate on gun control since 1994, andwidespread allegations that the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban was ineffective, Ithought I’d share the story of how one several-times-banned gun made itsway illegally into the hands of two 17-year-olds, circumventing state andfederal laws in the long and tortuous process.

The other weapons used by Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris – a Hi-Point 9959mm carbine with thirteen 10-round magazines, a sawed-off Savage 67H 12-gauge pump shotgun, and a sawed-off Stevens 311D double-barreled shotgun(the boys also had 99 home-made explosives and 4 knives) – were allpurchased for them by Dylan Klebold’s girlfriend, 18-year-old Columbinestudent Robyn Anderson, who accompanied the two 17-year-olds to theTanner Gun Show outside Denver, shopping with their cash. She was what iscalled a “straw purchaser”, but it would not have been necessary, since youthswere allowed to buy rifles and shotguns in Colorado and no backgroundchecks are necessary when guns are sold by individuals rather than federally-licensed gun dealers.

Hi-Point 995 9mm Carbine

Federal law forbids gun dealers to sell shotguns or rifles to anyone youngerthan 18. It also forbids “straw” sales to someone obviously acquiring guns forpeople ineligible to buy them. But those prohibitions apply only to licensed

firearms dealers.

But the weapon that did the most lethal damage at Columbine HS was anIntratec TEC-DC9 9mm submachine pistol, with 52-, 32- & 28-roundmagazines. Originally a fully-automatic handgun designed for the ApartheidSouth African government to compete with the Israeli Uzi, it became a semi-automatic pistol manufactured by its Swedish designer and an expatriateCuban living in Little Havanna, Miami, Florida in the early 1980s.

Intratec TEC-DC9

Twice banned by the ATF, first because of its easy conversion to fullyautomatic and then because it included a two-hand “assault grip” designedfor easy spraying of bullets, the manufacturer kept tweaking the design tostay just within the legal boundaries (though two employees were sentencedto a year in jail when they tried to sell fully automatic versions to anundercover ATF agent in 1994).

The company also used rather questionable advertising to promote the gun,with one ad referring to its “excellent resistance to fingerprints” and anotherthat used a human head and heart as bull’s-eyes, with gun smoke pouringfrom both.

Needless to say, it became a hot item at many gun dealers and gun shows and

was the kind of gun that appealed to Soldier of Fortune reader Luigi Ferri, adisgruntled client of the Pettit and Martin law firm in San Francisco. The gunwas among those banned in his home state of California after Patrick Purdyshot up a Stockton schoolyard in 1989 with an AK-47, killing five children. SoFerri went to Nevada, where he bought two TEC-DC9s.

On July 1, 1993, Ferri stepped off the elevator on the 34th floor of a SanFrancisco building and into Pettit and Martin’s law offices, armed with histwo TEC-DC9s, ammunition magazines with 40 to 50 bullets and a .45-caliber Norinco pistol, and walked from room to room and floor to floor,firing barrages of 9mm bullets, finishing off some victims with the Norinco,killing eight people and wounded six others, before shooting himself.

In a civil lawsuit that followed, plaintiffs’ witness James Alan Fox, a criminal-justice expert at Northeastern University in Boston, using federal gun-tracingstatistics from 1990-94, concluded that TEC-9 owners were five times morelikely to commit murder than other handgun owners. He also found thatmore TEC9s had been traced from crime scenes than any other assaultweapon for five consecutive years.

Three weeks after the San Francisco massacre, US Sen. Dianne Feinsteincalled for a ban on assault weapons, including the TEC-9 and TEC-DC9. Sheco-sponsored a bill outlawing the manufacture of 19 guns, all other “copycat”guns and the production of magazines holding more than 10 bullets. It didnot, however, prohibit owning or selling assault weapons, and manysemiautomatic pistols and rifles were exempted from the manufacturing ban.

The exceptions were holes big enough to push the 2nd Amendment through:at the time, there were roughly 1.5 million assault weapons and more than 24million high-capacity magazines in private hands. And, in the year it tookCongress to debate and just barely pass the Assault Weapons Ban (by acouple of votes in each house), production and sales of such weapons soared.By 1997, Carlos Garcia, the manufacturer of the TEC-9, moved into a new14,516 square foot waterfront home in the Miami suburb of Coral Cables with

a backyard dock suitable for his 37-foot boats.

During that final flurry of production, the manufacturer, Navegar, produced aTEC-DC9 stamped as its 76,305th unit.

Three years after the manufacture of TEC-DC9s was banned, a farm-supplystore called Zanders in Baldwin Illinois, one of the nation’s largest gundistributors, sold one stamped with the serial number D076305.

Royce Spain, who owned Just Guns, a tiny storefront sandwiched between abar and a burrito shop, often bought guns from Zanders, and in 1997 hebought that particular TEC-DC9. He never particularly liked TEC-9s. Hedidn’t consider them reliable. Yet he probably sold more TEC-9s thananything else. “It was one gun you could make money on”, he said.

Spain rarely sold a gun at his storefront, Just Guns, which was hardly everopen. He spent his weekdays hunting for deals at pawn shops and hisweekends at gun shows, where he made about 95% of his sales.

Federal regulations require a licensed firearms dealer to have a businesslocation with regular hours. Failing to operate the business as licensed can begrounds for revocation. But there are 104,000 licensed firearms dealers in theUnited States, or 130 for every ATF inspector, and a gun store that rarelyopens may go unnoticed.

When Spain decided in 1998 that Just Guns was not paying his bills, heconverted about 30 store guns to his personal collection and turned themover to his friend and gun show dealer Larry Russell. One was gun No.D076305.

Federal regulations require firearms dealers to keep records of each sale andcall for a criminal background check of each customer, including those at gunshows. But when a gun dealer goes out of business, he can put any remainingguns into his personal collection and sell them without records or background

checks. He also can let a friend sell those guns on consignment.

Selling TEC-DC9s is illegal in Denver, which has banned their possession. Butthey are sold legally at the Denver Merchandise Mart just outside the citylimits, where the Tanner Gun Show is held 10 times a year.

Russell took Spain’s guns to a Tanner show in August of 1998. By then Spainno longer had a federal firearms license. Neither, at the time, did Russell.Because sales by unlicensed vendors at gun shows are not regulated, Russellwas able to sell the TEC-DC9 legally, and anonymously, to a young manlooking for a high-powered handgun.

The buyer was Mark Manes, a 22-year-old computer technician whosemother, ironically, is a member of Handgun Control Inc.

Manes did not own his new assault weapon for long. Phillip Duran, a friendwho worked at a Blackjack Pizza parlor, told him “two guys” at the pizza placewere looking for a TEC-9. On Jan. 23, 1999, at another Tanner Gun Show,Duran introduced Manes to the two guys. They were both 17, too young tobuy a handgun legally, but Manes offered to sell it for $500, and they agreed.

That night, Manes sold the gun at the house where he lived with his parents,on a suburban street not far from Columbine High. The buyers were DylanKlebold and Eric Harris.

As of three months after the Columbine High massacre, the TEC-DC9 was theonly gun investigators have managed to trace from its manufacturer, throughall its sellers and buyers, to Harris and Klebold.

In Colorado, Mark Manes and Phillip Duran were arrested on felony chargesof selling a handgun to minors. They are the only people who faced chargesrelated to the Columbine High massacre.

Straw purchaser Robyn Anderson, a National Honor Society member, wasinterviewed “as a witness and she is not considered a suspect” in the

Columbine tragedy.

While gun violence did fall in the 1990s during the Assault Weapons Ban, thiswas likely due to other factors. Assault weapons were never a huge factor ingun violence to begin with, and were used in only 2% to 8% of gun crimes.Large-capacity magazines were more important – used in as many as aquarter of gun crimes. But, again, the 1994 law left more than 24 millionmagazines untouched, so the impact was blunted.

Did the law have an effect on mass shootings? That’s possible, though notcertain. As this chart from Princeton’s Sam Wang shows, the number of

people killed in mass shootings did go down in the years the ban was in effect(save for a surge in 1999, a year that included Columbine):

Because mass shootings are relatively rare, it’s difficult to tell whether thiswas just a random blip or caused by the ban. Still, the number of massshootings per year has more than doubled since the ban expired, with theannual death toll nearly tripling.

Following implementation of the ban, the share of gun crimes involvingassault weapons declined by 17% to 72% in Baltimore, Miami, Milwaukee,Boston, St. Louis, and Anchorage. (Christopher S. Koper, “An Updated

Assessment of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban: Impacts on Gun Marketsand Gun Violence, 1994-2003”, Report to the National Institute of Justice,US Department of Justice.)

During the ban, the Virginia State Police saw a clear decline in the percentageof crime guns with large capacity magazines, reaching a low of 10% in 2004.After Congress failed to renew the ban, that percentage steadily climbed; by2010, nearly 22% of crime guns in Virginia had large capacity magazines. (USDept. of Justice and the Washington Post)

When Maryland imposed a more stringent ban on assault pistols and high-capacity magazines in 1994, it led to a 55% drop in assault pistols recoveredby the Baltimore Police Department. (“The Maryland Ban on the Sale ofAssault Pistols and High-Capacity Magazines: Estimating the Impact inBaltimore”, 87 Am. J. of Public Health 2, Feb. 1997)

A Justice Department study of the assault weapons ban found that it wasresponsible for a 6.7% decrease in total gun murders, holding all other factorsequal. The same study also found that “Assault weapons aredisproportionately involved in murders with multiple victims, multiplewounds per victim, and police officers as victims.” (Jeffrey A. Roth &Christopher S. Koper, “Impact Evaluation of the Public Safety andRecreational Firearms Use Protection Act of 1994”)

Thirty-seven percent of police departments reported seeing a noticeableincrease in criminals’ use of assault weapons since the 1994 federal banexpired. (Police Executive Research Forum, Guns and Crime: Breaking NewGround by Focusing on the Local Impact, May 2010)

The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence examined the impact of theAssault Weapons Ban in its 2004 report, “On Target: The Impact of the 1994Federal Assault Weapon Act”. Examining 1.4 million guns involved in crime,“in the five-year period before enactment of the Federal Assault Weapons Act(1990-1994), assault weapons named in the Act constituted 4.82% of the

crime gun traces ATF conducted nationwide. Since the law’s enactment,however, these assault weapons have made up only 1.61% of the guns ATF hastraced to crime.”

In my own analysis of 120 mass public shootings in the US since 1982, 22%occurred in the 13 years prior to the Assault Weapons Ban, 22% during theten years of the ban, and 57% in the 9 years since the ban’s expiration – or 2.4times as many per year (though this may, in part, be an artifact of better newsreporting or internet archiving in recent years).

I also found that of those 120 mass public shooting incidents, 48% involvedeither assault weapons or high-capacity magazines (often in semi-automaticpistols) or both. And, of the 31 rampage shooting incidents in schools since1984, 22 of them (71%) involved such weapons.

So, while the NRA and gun rights supporters argue that only a tinypercentage of gun crime in the US involves the weapons that we tried to banin 1994 (a “Swiss cheese” ban that had more holes than substance) and thatObama would like to ban again, the majority of the most heinous massshooters use these high-capacity weapons as the tool of choice for inflictingthe most carnage in the least amount of time.

Avid “sports” shooters argue that they can change magazines so quickly thatbanning large-capacity magazines won’t make any difference (if that weretrue, then why would they be fighting it?). But, in at least three massshootings, unarmed civilians were able to subdue the perpetrator when theywere trying to change magazines: the 1998 Springfield OR Thurston HighSchool shooting, the 1993 Long Island Railroad shooting, and the 2011Tucson AZ Gabriel Giffords shooting.

There is also evidence that potential victims were able to hide or escape whenrampaging shooters were changing magazines, including at Columbine HighSchool (1999), Northern Illinois University (2008), and Sandy HookElementary School (2012).

The NRA and gun rights advocates also insist that if more “good guys” werepacking heat, more “bad guys” could be stopped. The record, however,doesn’t seem to support this. In most such cases, either the shooter was donewith the deed or out of ammunition, or the “civilian” interveners were off-duty police or former military with the training to react properly. In othercases, even with highly-experienced gun owners, the results were tragic forthemselves.

At a shopping mall shooting in Tacoma, Washington in 2005, a civilian with aconcealed carry permit named Brendan McKown confronted the assailantwith his handgun. The shooter pumped several bullets into McKown,wounding six people before eventually surrendering to police after a hostagestandoff. A comatose McKown eventually recovered after weeks in thehospital.

At a courthouse shooting in Tyler, Texas in 2005, a civilian named MarkWilson, who was a firearms instructor, fired his licensed handgun at a manon a rampage. Wilson was shot dead by the body-armored assailant, whowielded an AK-47 semi-automatic assault rifle.

And, at the Gabriel Giffords shooting in Tuscon Arizona in 2011, momentsafter the shooter, Jared Loughner, was tackled by an unarmed and wounded74-year-old man and a 62-year-old Gifford aid while trying to reload (hisdropped magazine grabbed by a 61-year-old woman), a concealed carrypermit holder arrived on the scene with his gun in his hand and nearly shotone of the men who had disarmed Lougher. The would-be rescuer said he sawone of the men holding the Glock handgun, and at first thought he was thekiller. “I was really lucky,” the concealed gun carrier said later in an interviewwith Fox and Friends. “I could have easily done the wrong thing and hurt a lotof people.”

Such actions in chaotic situations don’t just put the well-intentioned citizen atrisk. According to Robert McMenomy, an assistant special agent in charge inthe San Francisco division of the FBI, they increase the danger to innocent

bystanders. They also make law enforcement officers’ jobs more difficult. “Ina scenario like that” he said “they wouldn’t know who was good or who wasbad, and it would divert them from the real threat.”

Further, there are more reported incidents of unarmed bystanders stopping arampaging killer than anyone with a gun. This occurred in the 1995 City ofIndustry CA postal shooting, the 1985 Springfield PA shopping mall shooting,the 1998, Springfield OR Thurston High School shooting, the 1993 LongIsland Railroad shooting, the 2011 Tucson AZ Giffords shooting, and the 2012Washington DC Family Research Council shooting.

While gun apologists cite several surveys that claim anywhere from 100,000to 2.5 million defensive uses of guns per year in the US, a 2009 University ofPennsylvania School of Medicine study, published in the American Journal ofPublic Health, found that people with a gun were 4.5 times more likely to beshot in an assault than those not possessing a gun.

And a study of defensive use of firearms by the Department of Health Policyand Management, Harvard School of Public Health in 2000, had a team ofthree criminal court judges evaluate each reported incident and determinedthat at least 50% were aggressive uses and likely illegal.

I could go on at length to counteract every argument made by gun-rightsadvocates, because none of them hold up under scrutiny (and my essay TheReal Second Amendment explains the history, meaning, intent and legalinterpretation of the Constitutional right to bear arms), but the fact that a halfdozen national polls show a 90% majority of Americans across the politicalspectrum (including 87% of gun owners and 74% of NRA members) in favor– at least – of universal background checks while Congress struggles withpassage of even this common-sense policy, shows just how powerful the NRAlobby still is and how fiercely the small minority of 2nd Amendmentextremists defend America’s tradition of self-defense and fear of government.

It’s rare for that large a majority of Americans to agree on anything, but our

democracy is held hostage to mercenary interests and corporate profits, andit’s not clear than any meaningful gun reform will emerge from DC –certainly not the kind of holistic package of legislation that is needed to havea substantive effect on a problem that has risen to crisis proportions.

More Guns – Less Crime?

Gun advocates routinely cite John Lott to justify their insistence that civilianguns reduce crime, and base this contention on Lott’s 1997 study andsubsequent 1998 book, More Guns, Less Crime, which claims that “shallissue” concealed carry permits reduce violent crime rates everywhere they’reavailable.

However, John Lott is probably the most discredited gun violence researcherin the US, was the subject of an ethics inquiry by Northwestern UniversityProfessor of Law James Lindgren after failing to produce evidence that heactually conducted a 1997 survey on defensive gun use, and admitted tofabricating a false on-line persona of a past student who defended hisresearch in many internet discussions.

But, more importantly, almost the entire body of gun violence researchcontradicts the thesis of his articles, book and many public appearancessupporting gun “rights”. Here is a sampling:

The Relationship Between Gun Ownership and Firearm Homicide Rates inthe United States, 1981–2010 by Michael Siegel, MD, MPH, Craig S. Ross,MBA, and Charles King III, JD, PhD, Am J Public Health, September 12, 2013

This largest study ever performed on the topic found that for each percentagepoint increase in gun ownership, the firearm homicide rate increased by0.9%. This was true over a 30-year period in all 50 states, after correcting forother known causal factors.

Comparing data from 27 developed countries, we found that the number ofguns per capita per country was a strong and independent predictor offirearm-related death in a given country, whereas the predictive power of themental illness burden was of borderline significance in a multivariable model.Regardless of exact cause and effect, however, the current study debunks thewidely quoted hypothesis that guns make a nation safer. – Gun Ownershipand Firearm-related Deaths, Sripal Bangalore, MD, MHA, Franz H.Messerli, MD, The American Journal of Medicine, October 2013

For most contemporary Americans, scientific studies indicate that the healthrisk of a gun in the home is greater than the benefit. The evidence isoverwhelming for the fact that a gun in the home is a risk factor forcompleted suicide and that gun accidents are most likely to occur in homeswith guns. There is compelling evidence that a gun in the home is a risk factorfor intimidation and for killing women in their homes. On the benefit side,there are fewer studies, and there is no credible evidence of a deterrent effectof firearms or that a gun in the home reduces the likelihood or severity ofinjury during an altercation or break-in. – Risks and Benefits of a Gun in theHome, by David Hemenway, PhD, Professor of Health Policy at the HarvardSchool of Public Health and director of the Harvard Injury Control ResearchCenter and the Harvard Youth Violence Prevention Center. American Journal

of Lifestyle Medicine, 2011

Based on a review of the available scientific data, the dangers of having a gunat home far outweigh the safety benefits. Research shows that access to gunsgreatly increases the risk of death and firearm-related violence. A gun in thehome is twelve times more likely to result in the death of a householdmember or visitor than an intruder. The most common cause of deathsoccurring at homes where guns are present, by far, is suicide. Many of theseself-inflicted gunshot wounds appear to be impulsive acts by people withoutprevious evidence of mental illness. Guns in the home are also associatedwith a fivefold increase in the rate of intimate partner homicide, as well as anincreased risk of injuries and death to children. – Guns at Home IncreaseDangers, Not Safety, by Dr. Lippmann and co-authors, Southern MedicalJournal, Feb 2010

After adjustment, individuals in possession of a gun were 4.46 times morelikely to be shot in an assault than those not in possession. Among gunassaults where the victim had at least some chance to resist, this adjustedodds ratio increased to 5.45. On average, guns did not protect those whopossessed them from being shot in an assault. – Investigating the LinkBetween Gun Possession and Gun Assault, by Charles C. Branas, PhD,Therese S. Richmond, PhD, CRNP, Dennis P. Culhane, PhD, Thomas R. TenHave, PhD, MPH, and Douglas J. Wiebe, PhD, American Journal of PublicHealth, November 2009, Vol. 99, No. 11

Results show that regardless of storage practice, type of gun, or number offirearms in the home, having a gun in the home was associated with anincreased risk of firearm homicide and firearm suicide in the home. – Guns inthe Home and Risk of a Violent Death in the Home: Findings from aNational Study by Linda L. Dahlberg, Robin M. Ikeda and Marcie-joKresnow, American Journal of Epidemiology, Volume 160, Issue 10, 2004

The results show strong correlations between the presence of guns in thehome and suicide committed with a gun, rates of gun-related homicide that

involved female victims, and gun-related assault. – Guns, Violent Crime, andSuicide in 21 Countries, by Martin Killias, John van Kesteren, MartinRindlisbacher, Canadian Journal of Criminology Volume:43 Issue:4 October2001

For every time a gun in the home was used in a self-defense or legallyjustifiable shooting, there were four unintentional shootings, seven criminalassaults or homicides, and 11 attempted or completed suicides. – Injuries andDeaths due to Firearms in the Home, by Kellermann, Somes, Rivara, Lee,Banton, Journal of Trauma, 1998

Instead of conferring protection, keeping a gun in the home is associated withincreased risk of both suicide and homicide of women. – Risk Factors forViolent Death of Women in the Home, by Bailey JE, Kellermann AL, SomesGW, Banton JG, Rivara FP, Rushforth NP, New England Journal of Medicine,1993

We found an 8-fold increase in intimate partner femicide risk associated withabusers’ access to firearms… A small percentage (5%) of women lived apartfrom the abuser and owned a gun, however, and there was no clear evidenceof protective effects. – Risk Factors for Femicide in Abusive Relationships:Results From a Multisite Case Control Study, by Cambell et al, AmericanJournal of Public Health, 2003

The present study, based on a sample of eighteen countries, confirms theresults of previous work based on the 14 countries surveyed during the firstInternational Crime Survey. Substantial correlations were found between gunownership and gun-related as well as total suicide and homicide rates. – GunOwnership, Suicide and Homicide: An International Perspective, by MartinKillias, 1993

Positive correlations were obtained between the rates of household gunownership and the national rates of homicide and suicide as well as theproportions of homicides and suicides committed with a gun. – International

Correlations Between Gun Ownership and Rates Of Homicide And Suicide,by Martin Killias, Dr. iur., Lic. phil., Canadian Medical Association Journal#148 1993

Legislation allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons does not reducecrime. More Guns, More Crime, by Mark Duggan, University of Chicago andNational Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 7967, October2000, Journal of Political Economy, 2001, vol. 109, no. 5

My results suggest that shall-issue laws have resulted, if anything, in anincrease in adult homicide rates. – Concealed-Gun-Carrying Laws andViolent Crime: Evidence from State Panel Data, by Jens Otto Ludwig, JCPRWorking Papers from Northwestern University/University of Chicago JointCenter for Poverty Research, 1998

“The most consistent finding to emerge from both the state and county paneldata models conducted over the entire 1977-2006 period is that aggravatedassault rises when RTC laws are adopted. For every other crime category,there is little or no indication of any consistent RTC impact on crime.” – TheImpact of Right to Carry Laws and the NRC Report: The Latest Lessons forthe Empirical Evaluation of Law and Policy, by Abhay Aneja, John J.Donohue III, Alexandria Zhang, NBER Working Paper No. 18294, Issued inAugust 2012

Other studies contradicting the More Guns – Less Crimeconclusion of John Lott:

Ian Ayres, Yale Law School, and John Donohue, Stanford LawSchool, Shooting Down the More Guns, Less Crime Hypothesis, StanfordLaw Review, 2003.

Jens Ludwig, Georgetown University, “Concealed-Gun-Carrying Laws andViolent Crime: Evidence from State Panel Data”, International Review of Lawand Economics, 1998.

Dan Black and Daniel Nagin, D” Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. 27, No. 1, pp.209–213 (January 1998).

Tomislav V. Kovandzic and Thomas B. Marvell, Right-To-Carry ConcealedFirearms and Violent Crime: Crime Control Through Gun Decontrol?Criminology and Public Policy 2, (2003) pp. 363-396.

John J. Donahue III, Stanford Law School,The Final Bullet in the Body of theMore Guns, Less Crime Hypothesis, Criminology and Public Policy, 2003.

John Donohue and Ian Ayres. More Guns, Less Crime Fails Again: TheLatest Evidence from 1977–2006, Econ Journal Watch 6.2 (2009): 218-238.

Also, these recent studies disprove the assertion that “an armedsociety is a polite society”:

Drivers who carry guns are 44% more likely than unarmed drivers to makeobscene gestures at other motorists, and 77% more likely to follow themaggressively. – Is an Armed Society a Polite Society? – Guns and Road Rage,

Hemenway, Vriniotis & Miller, Accident Analysis & Prevention, 2006

Among Texans convicted of serious crimes, those with concealed-handgunlicenses were sentenced for threatening someone with a firearm 4.8 timesmore than those without. – When Concealed Handgun Licensees Break Bad:Criminal Convictions of Concealed Handgun Licensees in Texas, 2001–2009, Phillips, Charles D.; Nwaiwu, McMaughan, Darcy, Edwards & Lin,American Journal of Public Health, 2013

“Guns are used to threaten and intimidate far more often than they are usedin self defense. Most self reported self defense gun uses may well be illegaland against the interests of society.” – Gun use in the United States: resultsfrom two national surveys, D Hemenway, D Azrael, M Miller, Department ofHealth Policy and Management, Harvard School of Public Health, InjuryPrevention, 2000

“If someone is shooting at you, it is generally better to shoot backthan to cower and pray.” – Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic, 12/2012

In response to the attack on Congresswoman Gabby Giffords in Phoenix,Rush Limbaugh opined: “One bystander armed with a concealed carrypistol could have ended this.”

Ironically, moments after the shooter, Jared Loughner, was tackled bywounded 74-year-old retired Army Colonel Bill Badger and 61-year-oldretired nursery wholesaler and Gifford campaign volunteer Roger Sulzgeberwhile trying to reload and had his dropped magazine grabbed by 61-year-oldbusiness woman Patricia Maisch, a concealed carry permit holder named JoeZamudio arrived on the scene with his gun off safety and his hand wrappedaround it in his pocket, and nearly shot one of the men who had disarmedLougher. The would-be rescuer said he saw one of the men holding the Glockand at first thought he was the killer. Zamudio grabbed the man’s arm andshoved him into a wall before realizing he wasn’t the shooter. And one reasonwhy Zamudio didn’t pull out his own weapon was that “he didn’t want to beconfused as a second gunman”. “I was really lucky,” Zamudio said later in aninterview with Fox and Friends. “I could have easily done the wrong thingand hurt a lot of people.”

Such actions in chaotic situations don’t just put the well-intentioned citizen atrisk, of course. According to Robert McMenomy, an assistant special agent incharge in the San Francisco division of the FBI, they increase the danger forinnocent bystanders. They also make law enforcement officers’ jobs moredifficult. “In a scenario like that,” he said, “they wouldn’t know who was goodor who was bad, and it would divert them from the real threat.”

The argument for armed citizen intervention, however, has roots in anaphorism pushed by John W. Campbell that “an armed society is a politesociety.” based on a romantic view of the Wild West that had no basis inhistorical fact. The most famous Western towns, such as Tombstone,Deadwood and Dodge, all outlawed the carrying of firearms within townlimits.

Fortunately, cowering and shooting back aren’t the only two options. And, infact, rampage shootings almost always end in one of three ways: (1) policeintervention, (2) the gunman’s suicide or (3) the shooter being tackled bysome brave bystander while he reloads.

There are many cases of unarmed civilians successfully stopping ashooter, but not a single case of a concealed carry civilian – whowas not military, police or a security guard – ending a massshooting that would not have ended otherwise or was not alreadyover.

Of 104 “active shooter” events from 2000-2010 studied by J. Pete Blair, PhD, Director of Research, Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training,Texas State University, half ended before police arrived and more were endedby civilians subduing the perpetrator than by police either subduing orforcing surrender. The majority who stop pre-arrival of law enforcement endby suicide, while after police arrive almost as many are shot as killthemselves.

October 30, 1985, Springfield, PA: Sylvia Wynanda Seegrist opened fire at ashopping mall, killing three people and wounding seven others before beingdisarmed by a Volunteer Firefighter/EMT who was shopping at the mall.

Colin Ferguson, 35, opened fire on an eastbound Long Island Rail Road trainas it approached a Garden City station on December 7, 1993. Threepassengers tackled him while he was reloading after he had killed 6 and

injured 19 with a Ruger 9 mm pistol he had bought legally in California.

May 20-21, 1998, Springfield, OR, Kipland Philip “Kip” Kinkel, 15, killed 4(his parents the day before and 2 students) and wounded 25 at Thurston HighSchool with a Ruger 22 semi-automatic rifle (and two handguns) with a 50-round magazine, before he was finally tackled to the ground by other studentswhile trying to reload.

July 10, 1995, City of Industry, CA: Bruce Clark, postal clerk pulled out a .38revolver and at close range fatally shot his supervisor twice, once in the upperbody and once in the face. Two employees reportedly took the gun away fromBruce Clark and held him until police arrived.

On July 27, 2008, a politically motivated shooting took place at theTennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee.Motivated by a desire to kill liberals and Democrats, gunman Jim DavidAdkisson fired a shotgun at members of the congregation during a youthperformance of a musical, killing two people and wounding seven others. Theshooter was stopped when five church members restrained him.

January 8, 2011, Tucson, AZ, Jared Lee Loughner, 22, killed 6 (including afederal judge and civilians ranging in age from 9 to 79) and wounded 13(including US Rep. Gabriel Giffords) at an outdoor constituent meet-and-greet at a Tucson grocery store. He first shot Rep. Giffords in the head fromabout three feet away and then turned to the crowd, firing over 30 rounds injust 15 seconds, with a Glock 19 9mm semiautomatic pistol equipped with a33-round large capacity ammunition magazine. Loughner was tackled by awounded 74-year-old retired US Army Colonel while attempting to reload hisfirearm with another large capacity ammunition magazine while a 61-year-old woman grabbed the magazine.

On August 15, 2012, a gunman attempting to enter the Family ResearchCouncil’s Washington, D.C. headquarters shot a security guard in the arm.The 46-year-old injured guard helped wrestled the gunman to the ground

until police arrived and placed the gunman under arrest.

On January 9, 2013, a 16-year-old boy armed with a shotgun opened fire in aCalifornia high school classroom on Thursday, critically wounding a fellowstudent and shooting at another before a teacher and a campus supervisortalked him into surrendering the weapon.

There are very few publicized instances of armed citizens, who arenot current or former military or police, successfully interveningto stop a massacre.

In 1997, a disturbed high-school student named Luke Woodham stabbed hismother and then shot and killed two people at Pearl High School in Pearl,Mississippi. He then began driving toward a nearby junior high to continuehis shooting spree, but the assistant principal of the high school, Joel Myrick,a US Army Reserve Commander, aimed a pistol he kept in his truck atWoodham, causing him to veer off the road. Myrick then put his pistol toWoodham’s neck and disarmed him.

On January 16, 2002, a disgruntled former student at the Appalachian Schoolof Law in Grundy, Virginia, had killed three people, including the school’sdean, when two students, both off-duty law-enforcement officers, retrievedtheir weapons and pointed them at the shooter, who ended his killing spreeand surrendered.

In December 2007, a man armed with a semiautomatic rifle and two pistolsentered the New Life Church in Colorado Springs and killed two teenage girlsbefore a church member, Jeanne Assam – a former Minneapolis police officerand a volunteer church security guard – shot and wounded the gunman andkept him pinned, who then killed himself. (The hero later came out as aLesbian and was thrown out the New Life Church.)

Mass killers stopped by unarmed civilians: 1995 City of Industry CApostal shootings, 1985 Springfield PA shopping mall shootings, 1998

Springfield OR Thurston High School shootings, 1993 Long Island Railroadshootings, 2011 Tucson AZ Giffords shootings, 2012 Washington DC FamilyResearch Council shootings.

Mass killers stopped by unarmed civilians while trying to changemagazines: 1998 Springfield OR Thurston High School shootings, 1993Long Island Railroad shootings, 2011 Tucson AZ Giffords shooting.

Potential victims who hid or escaped mass shootings duringreloading: Columbine High School (1999), Northern Illinois University(2008), Sandy Hook Elementary School (2012).

by Robert Riversong: may be reproduced only with attribution fornon-commercial purposes

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See also:

Lead, Crime & Societal Breakdown – A Cautionary Tale of UnintendedConsequences

Guns, Race, the Law & Public Opinion – The Trayvon Martin, GeorgeZimmerman Case

Ceremonial Violence – School Rampage Shootings

The Isla Vista Rampage & The Abuse of Tragedy for Ideological Agendas

The NRA Story: From Rifle Club to Extremist Gun Rights Lobby: How theNational Rifle Association evolved from a Shooting Club to a TerroristOrganization

District of Columbia v. Heller – A Radical Decision that Created a Middle

Path

The Real Second Amendment

Guns In America – Just the Facts

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