Let’s Talk About The Greenwood Mall

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.