Civilians Using Guns to Defend Against Multiple Shootings
· Reason
News accounts report that the Bend, Oregon school shooting Thursday was stopped in part by an armed civilian. From the N.Y. Times (Anna Griffin, Aaron West, Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs & Chelsia Rose Marcius):
A man in a red pickup truck was driving by and saw the teenager throw his shotgun over the fence and start to climb it, the police said. The driver "verbally confronted" the gunman, who paused to open fire at him, pelting the truck with shots….
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Outside, Kaylub Giamanco, a father of two girls at the school, had seen the red pickup get shot while driving by on his lunch break. He swerved onto the sidewalk and ran inside.
He found the gunman wrestling with the teacher who tried to stop him and shot him several times with a .40-caliber handgun that had been legally secured in his truck, the police said. The suspect, who died, was carrying 44 more rounds of ammunition.
Readers might want to know: How often do civilians use guns to help stop shooters who pose ongoing threats to multiple people? (By "civilian," I mean here someone other than a police officer or a security guard; off-duty military members qualify for my purposes.)
Obviously, an exact count is hard to gather, and some cases will be ambiguous. Sometimes, it may not be clear whether the shooter was planning to keep attacking. Sometimes, it may not be clear, at least from press accounts, whether the defender succeeded in stopping the shooter (for instance, by scaring the shooter away). Sometimes a civilian and a security guard or a police officer might step in together. And sometimes news accounts may err. Any count is thus a judgment call, and also likely incomplete because not all incidents make the news.
Still, thanks to a Crime Prevention Research Center spreadsheet, I can say that in 2025 there appeared to have been at least a dozen such incidents. The CPRC report says there were 23; I went through the list, checked the linked news accounts, and tried to exclude ones that seemed just like one-on-one self-defense situations or matters where the defender seemed clearly unsuccessful. (One-on-one self-defense is of course worthy on its own, but it's not what I'm discussing here.) With those exclusions, and trying to be relatively conservative in what I counted, I ended up counting 12 to 14 such incidents in 2025, depending on how you evaluate some of the more ambiguous ones.
Nor does 2025 appear to be unusual. According to the CPRC report, there were roughly the same number of incidents (or in some years, even more) in 2020-2024 as in 2025. I expect that conservative counts for those years would likewise be comparable to my count for 2025.
None of the 2025 defensive gun use incidents were at a school, but gun possession is generally illegal in schools, so it's unsurprising that law-abiding gun owners can rarely stop such shootings. They can of course enter the school after the shooting starts, as the man in the Oregon shooting did, but that involves a higher degree of difficulty.
The 2025 incidents, with the date, state, city (and link to news article), and excerpt from the news article:
1/12/25 Neb. Omaha [County Attorney] Kleine said [a] man was acting in self-defense and saving the lives of others when he shot and killed Brandon Jones around 3 a.m….According to Kleine, Jones was asked by management to leave the club. Jones angrily left the club. He got a gun, went back to the club, brandished the gun and started firing it while making threats, Kleine said. Kleine added Jones' gunfire hit several people.
The man, whom Kleine declined to identify, returned fire, striking and ultimately killing Jones outside the club, which had a large crowd of people inside…. 1/17/25 Fla. Palm Beach [T]he sheriff's office received multiple 911 calls … saying an employee had shot two other coworkers ….
[T]he supervisor said he was in his upstairs office and heard multiple gunshots, prompting him to grab his firearm and head downstairs to the location of the shooting. He told detectives he got to their workstation and saw Edwards [the shooter] holding a firearm and standing over [one of the victims] while attempting to reload the weapon. The supervisor said he told Edwards to drop the gun while he and other employees pushed the suspect to the ground and called 911. 2/15/25 Tex. Houston [A] man opened fire on a crowd of people after a child's birthday party…
Deputies say several people in the crowd returned fire, hitting Thompson multiple times… 3/31/25 Tex. San Antonio Investigators said that two groups of people were arguing on the [bar] patio, which then boiled over into a fight.
Vela, who was in the parking lot, allegedly saw the fight, pulled out a handgun, and opened fire on the brawl. A bystander pulled out his own gun and fired back, fatally striking Vela. That bystander was also wounded by Vela's gunfire, and was rushed to the hospital in critical condition.
In total, the bystander, two women, and one man at the scene were all injured by the gunfire. 5/20/25 Ariz. Peoria [A bar] employee called 911 to request that police help with an intoxicated patron, Franco, who refused several requests to leave. While officers were en route, police say Franco went to the parking lot, grabbed a handgun from inside his car and started firing shots in the air and into the bar….
Two men on a nearby park bench saw what was happening and intervened. Police say Franco then pointed his weapon at the two men, who were also armed, and a gunfight ensued. Franco was shot in the chest, while the two other men weren't hurt…
[Police officer] Babros commended the men who intervened before any other innocent people were hurt… 6/10/25 Wash. Kettle Falls Stevens County 911 dispatch received calls … [saying] that there was a subject walking down the road with a rifle and had pointed the rifle at them, yelled threats and fired more shots….
Two nearby armed residents heard the disturbance and tried to de-escalate the situation. They observed West fire his rifle in the direction of a man …. That is when the neighbors fired their weapons, killing West…. 6/22/25 Mich. Wayne Police said the suspect exited his Nissan truck wearing a tactical vest, armed with a long gun and a handgun, when he approached the church building and began firing his weapon….
At least two staff members shot the gunman, causing fatal wounds. One staff member, a member of the security team, was shot once in the leg by the suspect. [I included this because it appeared to involve a non-security-guard and a security guard working together; it's impossible to know what would have happened had the security guard been the only armed defender. -EV] 6/28/26 Ga. Atlanta [A] fraternity had a permit for an event at Coan Park on Woodbine Avenue on Saturday…. [A] random man walked up and got into an argument with some of the fraternity brothers. As they tried to calm him down, witnesses said the man started shooting. Pearson was shot in the head, according to police. He died at the scene….
Atlanta police said others who had their concealed carry permit fired back at the man, who was taken to the hospital in critical condition… 8/2/25 Ill. Harvey A Concealed-Carry License holder fatally shot one of two gunmen who injured a young child and four others in south suburban Harvey on Saturday night, officials said….
Two armed men opened fire at the gathering, injuring five of the guests…. A CCL holder who was present returned fire, killing one of the suspects and injuring the other. 8/6/25 Iowa Glenwood Dennis Burnell killed two people, set his own house on fire, and fired dozens of rounds into nearby homes before dying days later from burn injuries. Investigators later determined Burnell had hundreds of rounds of ammunition he intended to use across the neighborhood…
One of the homes struck by bullets belonged to Senior Airman Harrison Friar. Friar said he quickly secured his family inside, then grabbed his personal firearm and confronted the attacker… Investigators say Friar fired two shots, hitting Burnell in the leg and forcing him to retreat.
They credit his actions with giving law enforcement the critical time needed to contain the situation and preventing further loss of life… 8/18/25 S.C. Union [Police officers] responded to a report of gunshots …. When officers arrived, they found 28-year-old Ieshaun Dunn … lying in the grass … [with] a gunshot wound near the heart…
After a thorough investigation, it was concluded by authorities that this was a case of self-defense. According to police, Dunn fired a gun at a group of people and gunfire was returned, leading to Dunn's death… 9/13/25 Tenn. Murfreesboro Tavarious Chambers is charged with six counts of attempted first-degree murder and tampering with evidence after detectives say he opened fire at a reunion on Saturday, September 13th, striking two people.
According to the preliminary investigation, the reunion event was ending when Chambers arrived at the park pavilion dressed in black and wearing a ski mask. Police say he fired multiple shots in the direction of four adults and two small children. Two people were struck by gunfire. One of the victims fired back in self-defense. [It is not evident whether the defensive gun use was effective in scaring Chambers away or otherwise distracting him from the shooting. -EV] 10/25/25 Utah West Valley City [P]olice responded to reports of a shooting … where a Halloween party attended by teenagers and young adults was being held …. Allen Montelongo … was driving by the party and fired at a group of people standing in the roadway. A 16-year-old male from Sandy was hit multiple times by the gunfire, according to police.
Someone in the group returned fire, police said, hitting Montelongo and causing him to crash his car into a fence. He was later pronounced dead on scene… 12/2/25 Ga. Conyers Conyers Police Capt. Quantavis Garcia said a man opened fire inside the Chiquitos Cantina and Grill … and customers inside shot back at the suspect.
"It played out like a movie. We believe the citizen bystanders who discharged their firearms acted in self-defense and ultimately saved lives inside of that restaurant," Garcia said. Police say no one was injured in the shooting…
This of course doesn't tells us a lot by itself about the debates about gun control and gun rights. But it is a reminder that multiple shootings are indeed sometimes (and not that rarely) stopped by good guys with guns.
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