Good guys with guns: busting the gun control myth that armed citizens are more danger than help. First a few examples, second Colorado's FASTER program.
The culture (and media) wants you to think that good guys with a gun are a myth.
I'll give you a quote from the Stossel video on the topic linked first below. It's from about the 6:05 mark.
"There haven't been good guys with a gun who stop mass shootings. It's the kind of thing you learn from reading comic books."
And, as you can see in the Stossel video, or as you are aware from watching things out there in the world, fictional portrayals of good guys with guns all to often show them to be at best inept: carelessly blasting away, either directly causing harm or "forcing" the bad guy to fire which then causes harm.
It would be nice to have firm ground to stand on in figuring out where the truth is about "good guys with guns", but such data is often not kept. Study after study on gun control and policy, a paucity of research on defensive uses of firearms.
It would be nice to have news stories about the times when a civilian with a gun has stopped a crime or violence in proportion to the number of times this happens vs. the times a gun is used to commit crime, but, as with the data, this is almost never reported by our media.
I want to help provide you with some resources and stories so you can do the job our media should be doing. Besides the Stossel link first below, you'll find the link to the list of when armed citizens stopped active shooter incidents linked second (along with a link to the group that keeps the list--their "About" page--linked third so you know from whom you're getting your information).
Keep those handy and look at some stories. Use them when you talk about gun violence.
Oh, and stick around for the second post where I'll share a group that is training people how to use firearms for defense, the FASTER training in Colorado.
https://crimeresearch.org/2024/07/updated-cases-where-armed-citizens-have-stopped-active-shooter-incidents/
https://crimeresearch.org/about/
FASTER trainees are Colorado's good guys with guns
The previous post was to help you bust up the myth that defensive use of firearms either doesn't exist, doesn't help in gun violence situations, or makes things worse.
This post is bringing the idea of defensive use of firearms home to Colorado.
Colorado has a program called FASTER (see the first link below) that trains people to use firearms to stop mass shootings in schools. I took a screenshot of some of the basics from their website and attached as screenshot 1.
Why have this program? As the name suggests, seconds matter in active shooter incidents (whether at a school or elsewhere). Time equals lives. And, if you live out in a rural area, the police can be minutes away, points echoed in the quotes you'll see in the RMPBS article about FASTER linked second below.
I want you also to take a second and watch the video in the RMPBS link below. The whole things is worth your time, but focus in at about the 2:55 mark where they compare the requirements of the FASTER program to that of POST program (POST being the program police recruits are required to pass).
As with post one, keep what you see and read close. When we talk about programs like FASTER, it's not giving teachers a gun at their summer inservice and hoping that when they're panicked and run in to stop a shooter their careless blasting away might hit the perpetrator. FASTER participants equal or exceed police requirements.
Good guys with guns. If you're interested in learning more, contact FASTER through their website below.
https://fastercolorado.org/
Related:
I wanted to highlight a quote from the RMPBS story on FASTER I reference in the post above. Quoting:
"[Co-founder of Colorado Ceasefire Eileen] McCarron added that introducing more guns through programs like the FASTER Colorado training will further the 'normalization of guns' in the United States, which she advocates limiting access to."
Further the normalization of guns
Further the normalization of guns
Further the normalization of guns
Funny. I didn't know they weren't normal, and I wonder at a group (who incidentally gets grant money from CDPHE's Office of Gun Violence Prevention--see link below) that would think differently.
I reached out to Colorado Ceasefire to see if Ms. McCarron was still associated with them and also to see if I understood the statement correctly. I will update when and if I hear back.