The New American by Bob Adelmann
Ed White, a journalist for the Associated Press covering the story of an armed citizen stopping a shooting in an Indiana mall in July, said such an incident is very rare:
A bystander’s decision to shoot a man who opened fire at an Indiana mall was a rare occurrence of someone stepping in to try to prevent multiple casualties before police could arrive….
It isn’t common for mass shootings to be stopped in such fashion. From 2000 to 2021, fewer than 3% of 433 active attacks in the U.S. ended with a civilian firing back, according to the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training Center at Texas State University.
In covering the same incident, The Washington Post echoed the refrain, calling it “a rare instance of [an] armed civilian ending a mass shooting,” adding:
The Greenwood incident is unique, however, because it became one of the rare instances of an armed civilian successfully intervening to end a mass shooting, adding more fuel to a national debate about the role of bystanders during an active shooter attack.
The Post’s journalists referred to data captured by the FBI as the basis for their reporting…
