United States/Greenwood Mall, Indiana – -(AmmoLand.com)- Second Amendment supporters have every right to trumpet the success of constitutional carry at the Greenwood Mall. An armed citizen acted as the proverbial Good Samaritan in stopping a horrific act. Since the would-be mass shooter is dead, we will never know if it was an act of madness or one borne from criminal intent.
That being said, let’s also have a serious talk. Eli Dicken was incredibly brave in acting as he did to take on a rifle-armed assailant with a pistol. He was also quite skilled. He also was lucky. We may never know what exact combination enabled Dicken to save the lives he did, but we ought to acknowledge it was a combination of all three.
But while constitutional carry was mostly successful in mitigating the harm the would-be mass shooter inflicted, Second Amendment supporters also need to be clear on one other point:
Things should never have gotten to the point where the prevention of a horrific mass shooting – and its aftermath – came down a Good Samaritan’s courage, skill, and luck.
We’ve fought to protect our rights – and it is a necessary fight. But we can’t just keep asserting the Second Amendment in the aftermath of mass shootings. At some point, we need to figure out how to prevent these events to the greatest extent possible in the most constitutionally sound manner possible.
Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and John Barrasso (R-WY) have a good start with the Safe Kids, Safe Schools, Safe Communities Act of 2022, introduced last month. While it funds further improvement to NICS (albeit those improvements probably would have prevented Sutherland Springs), it also provides more security and mental health professionals for schools to try and detect those whose metal health problems could lead to them committing s horrific act.
In some ways, the legislation doesn’t go far enough. Quite frankly, the establishment of a program similar to the one that armed pilots in the wake of 9/11 for teachers adopted by the state police in the 50 states is long overdue. So is actually enforcing some of the laws on the books, which would have prevented Parkland – the shooter there was reportedly caught with ammo on school grounds.
Anti-Second Amendment extremists will peddle their list of “solutions” to Americans: Gun bans, limits on carrying firearms in public, and they will also point to the Supreme Court’s recent rulings as obstacles and tell Americans the court must be packed to ensure “balance.”
If we don’t have solutions – if we’re not fighting for those solutions – then it will only be a matter of time before we lose every gain we have fought for, including the Heller and Bruen decisions. If Second Amendment supporters are to defeat anti-Second Amendment extremists via the ballot box and in the courtroom at the federal, state, and local levels, they need to make gun bans look unreasonable.
About Harold Hutchison
Writer Harold Hutchison has more than a dozen years of experience covering military affairs, international events, U.S. politics and Second Amendment issues. Harold was consulting senior editor at Soldier of Fortune magazine and is the author of the novel Strike Group Reagan. He has also written for the Daily Caller, National Review, Patriot Post, Strategypage.com, and other national websites.
Harold says, “… But we can’t just keep asserting the Second Amendment in the aftermath of mass shootings.” That is one quarter correct in a in a backward way. We should be asserting the Law of Self Defense, which includes defense of others.
Let’s get rid of gun free zones, honest people obey the law, criminals don’t.
The responder did every thing right and nothing wrong.
HLB
Harold sees a need for solutions, but has none. It’s really simple,Harold. When they say there are too many guns, we say they are wrong and have it backwards. Our position is that there are too many criminals and then challenge them to find the root causes of the real problem – too many criminals !
“If we don’t have solutions – if we’re not fighting for those solutions – then it will only be a matter of time before we lose every gain we have fought for, including the Heller and Bruen decisions.” I really shouldn’t have to tell you this Harold, but the “solution” we bring to the table is called deterrence. Even a violent sociopath doesn’t want to die for nothing. If he is convinced of a reasonable chance of encountering armed victims, he will displace to a softer target. That is why, as Dr. John R. Lott has demonstrated, 94% of mass… Read more »
Constitutional carry wasn’t a factor, Eli Dicken has an Indiana lifetime concealed carry permit.
Harold, the Parkland shooter had numerous encounters with law enforcement up to and including 2 with the FBI. He was let off repeatedly for racist political reasons. It was the policy of the Obama (in)Justice Compartment to withhold federal funds from departments that arrested too many black or hispanic kids. So the pressure to let him go, as he was hispanic, was strong. The other side of “enforce existing laws” I have talked about repeatedly. Here in PA in 2014 the state police began prosecuting all background check denials that were not appealed. Not one person so prosecuted has turned… Read more »
“C’mon, man!” — Brandon You slay me, Harold! An American citizen uses his creator endowed Right to Keep and Bear Arms, exactly as the Founders intended, and drops an active shooter in his tracks, thereby preventing an unknown number of deaths and injuries, and you’re upset because the Second Amendment wasn’t used properly? Did Shannon Watts coach you through writing this article? “I don’t know who needs to hear this but when a 22-year-old illegally brings a loaded gun into a mall and kills a mass shooter armed with an AR-15 after he already killed three people and wounded others… Read more »
False premises equal false conclusions. Let me explain. Yes, we need to keep careful track of those prohibited and NICS is one way to do that. But the NICS is flooded with people who have fifty year old simple possession of marijuana charges and tax evasion felonies and yes, a former President, Willy Jeff who should be in there as a federal perjury award winner. When everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. I attribute that statement to the now deceased Colonel Wesley J. Fox, USMC (MH). The good Colonel knew how to set priorities. We need to learn… Read more »
“Safe Kids, Safe Schools, Safe Communities Act of 2022” With a name like that, what could “possibly” go wrong? Sounds like another layer of unaccountable bureaucracy, piled on to other “great” ideas such as School Resource Officers, to get more and more kids into “the system” at an early age so that they might eventually be declared as “prohibited persons” regarding gun ownership. In school, I would have probably been deemed “weird” enough to qualify for admission to such a program. I owned three handguns and reloaded using my biological dad’s reloading equipment, powder, primers, and bullets. I had shitty… Read more »