FBI Data Shows Armed Citizens Have 94% Success Rate Stopping Would-Be Mass Shooters

As the nation mourns the latest tragedy in “gun free zone” Chicago, a recent report compiled by Jacob Paulsen at ConcealedCarry.com shows that armed citizens facing possible mass shooters are able to stop the potential massacre 94% of the time. Paulsen’s study is inspired by John Lott’s consistent analysis of crime and gun laws.

While sourcing data from the FBI and giving a prefrace, Paulsen reports on ConcealedCarry.com:

We thought it would be interesting to see if the overall percentage of events at which an armed citizen was present was increasing given the rise in concealed carry permit holders and gun owners nationwide. The data set is low enough that it is hard to draw any strong conclusions when you are looking at 33 incidents out of 283 over an 18 year period.

It is worth noting that there may be more than 33 incidents in which an armed citizen was present given that we have no way of knowing if an armed citizen chose NOT to engage and run the other way. That may not even be known to law enforcement. Our objective here is to look at incidents in which an armed citizen was clearly present and to some degree engaged the active shooter.

Looking at the 283 total Active Shooter events in our data pool, an Armed Citizen was Present and Engaged the Active Shooter in 33 total incidents (11.7%). This is all inclusive regardless of who the armed citizen was or their direct potential for stopping the shooter.

More