": RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: GUEST,Lighter - PM
Date: 16 Dec 12 - 10:59 AM

How many times in real life has an armed intruder, bent on mass murder, been taken out by an armed civilian (or even a police officer) before he could kill anybody?

I'll rephrase that. How many times does it even *appear* that a hero has prevented a mass killing by drawing down faster than the heat-packin' bad guy?

Or even managed to *cut short* a shooting spree by nailing the gunman when he wasn't looking?

Come on, guys. How many?"

Well, here's a few that come to mind:

The Fort Hood shooting. Maj Nidal was shot and put out of action by a Military Police woman.

The Dawson College shooting in Montreal. The first cops on the scene went in immediately instead of waiting. My recollection is that the shooter killed himself when the police arrived. I don't think he was in the act of killing people when the police burst in but the point is that the police were on the scene, armed and prepared to shoot him.

Newtown, Connecticut. The police response seems to have been very rapid and according to accounts I have read, Lanza killed himself whe he heard the police nearby, and he had enough ammunition to kill every student in the school. Once again, armed intervention by the police saved lives.

Now if the Guest's point is that there is no recorded instance of a pistol-packing civilian preventing a mass murder by killing the bad guy, he might have a point. I would certainly like to hear about any cases where it did happen. However, he didn't limit his comment to civilians. He specifically mentioned "even a police officer", as if armed intervention by trained and determined people can do no good, which is patent nonsense.