Has the failed Uvalde police response debunked the 'good guy with a gun' narrative?

UVALDE, Texas — That 376 armed and trained law enforcement officers took well over an hour to confront and kill the murderer of 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde provided a wide opening for advocates of further gun restrictions to debunk the claim that more guns are the answer to stopping mass shootings.

However, just moments after the committee of the Texas House on Sunday finished publicly explaining its report that pointed out failure after failure by those officers at Robb Elementary School on May 24, an armed and far less trained bystander 1,258 miles away in Greenwood, Indiana, shot and killed a gunman who had already killed people at a shopping mall and would likely have tried to kill even more.

Elisjsha Dicken, the man who killed the Indiana mall shooter, was called heroic and prompted political leaders, Second Amendment defenders and others to once more invoke the words of National Rifle Association President Wayne LaPierre in the days following the Dec. 14, 2012, mass shooting that left 26 dead at Connecticut's Sandy Hook Elementary School: “The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”

The competing narratives from the two incidents 54 days apart will likely do little to bridge the yawning divide that separates the most vocal proponents of gun rights and the activists who want more restrictions on who may own firearms and the types of firearms that remain commercially available.

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But some on both sides of what has emerged as one of the most polarizing issues in contemporary politics acknowledge that the "good guy" argument is too complex and nuanced to be used as a rubberstamp solution to gun violence.

"I think, frankly, both sides are inclined to use cliches or bumper stickers," said former Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, who as a Republican state senator in the mid-1990s was the driving force behind the first law that allowed law-abiding Texans to publicly carry concealed handguns.

"There is something called a good guy with a gun," he added. "And, of course, there are problems associated with it. The problem we have is that there's a lot of good guys with guns who probably aren't very proficient in their use of a firearm."

Perhaps a well-trained armed teacher inside Robb Elementary might have been able to act as Dicken did at the Indiana mall, Patterson said, and that might have given the hesitating law enforcement officers time to act more quickly.

However, a study by the FBI and the Active Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training Center at Texas State University concluded that citizen heroics are far more the exception than the rule during mass shootings.

Between 2000 and 2021, there were only four occasions across the country when an armed civilian was able to step in and shoot dead a mass gunman, the study found.

The statistic is a sobering reminder that would-be victims cannot count on random strangers carrying guns to save them from tragedy, said Nicole Golden, the executive director of Texas Gun Sense, which lobbies for additional limits on firearm availability.

"Our leaders at every level of government are responsible for our public safety," Golden said. "And an important element of that is ensuring that dangerous weapons do not end up in the hands of dangerous individuals."

Stephen Willeford, the NRA member who opened fire on the shooter who killed 25 people at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, Texas, in 2017, strenuously disagreed. He said the inaction by law enforcement at Robb Elementary and the swift action by the Indiana civilian underscore his argument.

"Uvalde proves that you are your own first responder and that you need to be armed and you need to be ready because police don't necessarily come to save you," said Willeford, who uses his unwanted fame to advocate for gun rights. "We need to do away with gun-free zones all together.

"The guy in Indiana was in a gun-free zone," he added. "Because he ignored the rules, he was able to stop a mass shooter (who was) loaded for bear and ready to kill lots of people. This 22-year-old young man was able to take him out."

More on the Indiana mall shooting: Armed bystander praised for intervening

Uvalde report and 'NRA Math': Why nearly 400 'good guys with guns' couldn’t stop one bad guy

Jaclyn Schildkraut, a criminal justice professor at State University of New York at Oswego, said she's skeptical that most civilians — even if they've taken firearm training — can be counted on to keep cool under such stress.

"There's a difference between shooting at a paper target that's not moving and completely stationary in front of you and is X number of yards away, and then actually (firing during) a tactical response," said Schildkraut, who co-authored a 2022 study for Texas State's ALERRT center that examined the advisability of arming teachers.

Armed civilians who draw weapons can also pose a danger to themselves, she added.

"If you're a police officer, you walk into a room and you see two people with a gun and you have a split second to make a decision of who's the good guy, who's the bad guy, before you drop one of them," Schildkraut said. "How do you know you're going to get that right?"

Patterson, who left public office in 2015, said the more likely scenario would be, as in the Indiana mall case, that an armed civilian who acts limits the opportunity for further bloodshed.

"A citizen doesn't have to shoot the threat dead," Patterson said. "The mere presence of of resistance, maybe even gunfire, immediately changes the dynamic. No. 1, the shooter has to pay attention to the person that's shooting at them now instead of killing other people."

More: Exclusive video from inside Uvalde school shows officers' delayed response to mass shooting

In terms of practical politics, the police response in Uvalde is likely to tarnish the "good guy" slogan that has cemented itself into the gun rights debate ever since LaPierre invoked it after Sandy Hook, said University of Houston political science professor Brandon Rottinghaus.

Some political figures will no doubt continue to use it, Rottinghaus said, but its salience among mainstream voters may have diminished since Uvalde.

"It's politically powerful to suggest that arming citizens can be an effective deterrence to mass shootings," he said. "But realistically, that notion just doesn't hold up. It's only just a political crutch."

John C. Moritz covers Texas government and politics for the USA Today Network in Austin. Contact him at jmoritz@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @JohnnieMo.

This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: After Indiana mall and Uvalde shootings, are more guns the answer?