Perusing the accounts of armed citizens acting as their own first responders is endlessly interesting. Each case is different. As we read them, we find ourselves wondering what we would have done, and then asking if the citizen made the best decisions possible in the worst-case scenario.
Consider an April 2 incident in Shaler, Pa. A resident of an apartment building noticed a man who did not live in the complex dumping a pickup bed full of garbage into the complex’s private dumpster. This resident told the man to stop. The encounter escalated from an argument to a fight. The resident reportedly tried to retreat into his apartment and to shut the door. The man, however, pursued the resident, pushed through the door, and attacked him. The resident was able to draw a holstered handgun from his waistband and to shoot the attacker once in the arm. The then-wounded attacker was later charged with felony aggravated assault and burglary.
It could be argued that the armed citizen in this case should have called the police or the complex’s manager to report the incident rather than confront the person. Avoiding possibly violent encounters is always good advice; however, as all the factors involved are not yet known, it is not fair assume this resident should have foreseen this violent situation.
Others violent incidents are less avoidable.
Consider an April 10 incident in Woodland Hills, Calif. An armed citizen heard noises outside of their residence and found that two men were trying to steal the homeowner’s Chevrolet Camaro late at night. “The homeowner confronted the suspects, who were described as wearing black hoodies, and gunfire was exchanged,” reported KTLA. The thieves fled.
Bullet holes were left in the front door of the home and spent shell casings were scattered on the ground. It is not reported if the homeowner called 911 before confronting the would-be thieves. These car thieves were attempting to steal property. It is not clear who shot first. Like nearly all of these incidents, the crime needs to be investigated and possible adjudicated before the full picture might become clear.
In another incident on April 14 in Nashville, Tenn., a convicted felon who was in illegal possession of a handgun began shooting at a vehicle. The driver being attacked shot back and struck the attacker. Police arrested the attacker after he showed up bleeding at a nearby hospital. He was charged with four offenses, including aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. No one else was harmed in the incident.
It will take a police investigation and likely court proceedings to determine what occurred in this case, but again the actions from the armed citizen potentially saved his life. This was just one of more than a million armed citizen incidents—most of which end without a shot being fired—that occur each year in the U.S.
In all of these incidents, it could arguably have turned out much worse for the victim had they not been armed.
To put an exclamation mark on that point, another incident on April 18 in Phoenix, Ariz., could have ended much worse for a victim had they not been armed. In this incident, an armed resident confronted and shot a man who had forced his way inside a home around 3 a.m. Police initially detained the armed citizen, but they released him when it was clear that evidence from the scene corroborated his self-defense account.
Few of these incidents are reported by national news outlets, but they are often reported locally. It is worth repeating that the 2021 National Firearms Survey—a massive survey of 54,000 American armed citizens—determined that armed citizens use their guns defensively about 1.67 million times annually; and that, indeed, “in most defensive incidents (81.9%) no shot was fired.”
It is also worth saying again—even though so many in the media won’t—that as gun sales and ownership rates have gone up in this country, the murder rate has largely been falling. It is not fair to say that gun sales in general have a direct correlation to the murder rate—it is much more complicated than that—but it also is not honest to say, even though gun-control groups do, that the opposite is true.
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