New York Times
The more that sensational gun violence afflicts the nation, the more that the myth of the vigilant citizen packing a legally permitted concealed weapon, fully prepared to stop the next mass shooter in his tracks, is promoted.
This foolhardy notion of quick-draw resistance, however, is dramatically contradicted by a research project
showing that, since 2007, at least 763 people have been killed in 579
shootings that did not involve self-defense. Tellingly, the vast
majority of these concealed-carry, licensed shooters killed themselves
or others rather than taking down a perpetrator.
The death toll includes 29 mass killings
of three or more people by concealed carry shooters who took 139 lives;
17 police officers shot to death, and — in the ultimate contradiction
of concealed carry as a personal safety factor — 223 suicides. Compared
with the 579 non-self-defense, concealed-carry shootings, there were only 21 cases in which self-defense was determined to be a factor.
