Armed civilian puts down mass shooter at an Indiana mall.

 

The mall where the shooting occurred. WTHR. 

An armed civilian put down a mass shooter that killed three people and wounded two more in Greenwood Indiana. WTHR. The shooter was armed with a rifle and was killed by what police are describing as a "good Samaritan". Witnesses said the shooter fired his rifle 20 times before he was killed. There is no motive for the shooting at this time. The civilian has been described as a 22 year old man and was carrying his firearm legally. 

My Comment:

This is a breaking news story with information developing. Some of the numbers could change, but it does seem like the death count is going to stay the same. It is unfortunate that three people died in this incident but I am not sad at all about the shooter getting wasted. 

Obviously this shows that the right person at the right time can end a mass shooting. A lot more people could have been killed in this incident if the good Samaritan, as the police are dubbing him, was not there. The shooter had several magazines and, if witnesses are correct and the shooter only had fired 20 shots, he had a lot of ammo left. 

Indiana recently revised their laws so that any law abiding citizen can carry a firearm if they can legally posses one. It's unclear if the hero had a permit or didn't but he was carrying his handgun legally. It's also unclear if the hero would have been carrying a firearm if he hadn't been able to carry without a permit. 

This case is a devastating indictment of anti-gun arguments that we hear so often. They claim that there aren't any "good guys with guns" and this is an obvious counter-example. They also claim that someone with an AR can't possibly be taken out by a guy with a pistol and this too proves that wrong. And it also shows that gun free zones are better targets for shooters as if this attacker had chosen a gun free zone nobody would have been able to stop him until police showed up. 

Speaking of police, this is a further indictment of the Uvalde police response to the shooter there. In that case police had long guns, body armor and ballistic shields and still took more than an hour to put the shooter down. The civilian here was able to put the shooter down without any of those things and with nothing but a pistol. 

As for the shooter himself, I don't really want to speculate about his motive. Doing so probably fuels these shootings. And it doesn't really matter. He's dead and I would be perfectly fine with it if we never even learned his name, let alone his motives. 

I do think that publicizing cases where mass shootings are put down by armed civilians is a good thing. Not only does it encourage people to purchase and carry firearms, meaning that more of these shootings will be put down, it also means that potential mass shooters will think twice about trying a mass shooting...