Some Mass Shooting Survivors Want More Good Guys With Guns

Rob Young was a six-year-old student at Cleveland Elementary School in Stockton, California, when a gunman opened fire on the playground in 1989, killing five children and injuring 30 others, including Young. The shooting led to California's first ban on certain semiautomatic rifles, but Young, who became a law enforcement officer, disagrees with the idea that stricter gun control laws are the solution to preventing mass shootings. Instead, he believes that a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun, citing the example of the Stockton shooter ending his rampage when he realized armed police had arrived. Young's views are shared by Zachary Poston, who survived a mass shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, in 2017, in which 26 people were killed. Poston credits Stephen Willeford, a neighbor who shot the gunman, with saving his life. Willeford, who was armed with an AR-15, shot the gunman six times, and the killer eventually took his own life. Poston and Willeford both believe that access to guns did not cause the massacre and that the solution to preventing mass shootings is not stricter gun control laws. Gun control groups, however, disagree, arguing that a federal ban on assault weapons would save lives and that the majority of Americans support such a measure. Massad Ayoob, a firearms instructor, argues that gun control activists often ignore the stories of survivors who were saved by someone with a gun. Michael Collazo, a police officer who engaged a mass shooter at a school in Nashville, also believes that armed resistance can be an effective way to stop a shooter. Young and others who have survived mass shootings or have experience in law enforcement argue that violent crime comes from violent criminals, not from guns, and that the most effective way to stop violent crime is to stop violent criminals. They also point out that police response times are often too slow to prevent mass shootings, and that allowing law-abiding citizens to carry guns can be an effective way to prevent or stop such attacks.