Armed Citizens Stopped Shooters 12 to 14 Times in 2025
Armed civilians stopped ongoing shooting threats at least a dozen times in 2025, according to a count by Bearing Arms columnist Tom Knighton. He built his number from a Crime Prevention Research Center spreadsheet that listed 23 incidents. After checking the linked news reports and throwing out weak cases, he landed at 12 to 14. His point is blunt: these stops happen about once a month, and most never make national news. The recent defenses in Twin Falls, Idaho, and Bend, Oregon, fit that pattern. Critics keep calling armed intervention rare. The numbers say otherwise.
Key Details
Knighton's count excludes police officers and security guards. He counts off-duty military members as civilians. He also drops one-on-one self-defense cases and incidents where the defender clearly failed. The totals depend on how a reviewer reads the ambiguous cases, which is why he gives a range instead of a single figure.
- 2025: CPRC listed 23 incidents. Knighton counted 12 to 14 after exclusions.
- 2020 to 2024: According to the CPRC data, incident totals in those years roughly matched 2025, and some years ran higher.
- White Settlement, Texas: A gunman armed with a shotgun stood up during a church service and opened fire. A volunteer security guard shot him in the head and ended the attack before the body count rose enough for the Gun Violence Archive to log a mass shooting.
- Greenwood Park Mall, Indiana: Three people died before an armed civilian stopped the attacker.
- Twin Falls, Idaho, and Bend, Oregon: Armed citizens stopped shooters in both cases, and Knighton cites them as recent examples of the same pattern.
Knighton also points out that the stops often happen in seconds. Luck plays a role in how many people get hurt before a defender acts. He does not claim that every case went cleanly, and he acknowledges that press accounts sometimes err.
Background
The Gun Violence Archive defines a mass shooting as four or more people shot, not counting the shooter. A defender who stops an attack after one or two victims never triggers that threshold, so the incident disappears from mass shooting statistics. The White Settlement case shows this gap in action. Without the video that spread online, most people would never have heard of it.
The Crime Prevention Research Center, founded and led by economist John Lott, has tracked defensive gun uses and public shootings for years. Gun control groups routinely dispute its methods and conclusions. Knighton admits his count is a judgment call and likely incomplete.
The legal backdrop matters too. In New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022), the Supreme Court struck down New York's may-issue carry permit scheme and set a text-and-history test for gun laws. Oregon, meanwhile, has fought for years over Measure 114, its permit-to-purchase requirement, through the state court system. Anti-gun advocates in Oregon have pushed the claim that armed defense is a rare, mostly theoretical event. Knighton's count directly challenges that claim.
Why It Matters for Gun Owners
If you carry, these numbers describe your real job. Most defensive situations do not involve a long gunfight. They involve a fast decision with multiple people in the frame. Carriers in Oregon, Idaho, Texas, and Indiana should expect that a shooting may start with bystanders close by and no clear view of the shooter's intent. Training that covers target identification, backstops, and moving while drawing matters more than range scores alone.
Legal exposure rises with every shot fired in a crowd. Know your state's use-of-force statutes and duty-to-retreat rules before you carry. In Oregon, the permit-to-purchase fight means buyers face more paperwork and delay, which pushes some owners toward out-of-state purchases and reduces the number of armed people in the room. That gap is exactly what Knighton says the data warns against.
Pay attention to how media report these events. A defender's action that stops a crime at two victims may get no coverage at all. If you are part of one of these stops, document what you saw, call the police, and talk to a lawyer before you talk to reporters.
DownRange Analysis
Knighton's count does not settle any constitutional question, and it should not. Under Bruen, the government must point to a historical analogue for a firearm regulation. Arguments about how often defenders stop shooters carry little weight in that framework. Courts applying the text-and-history test have no reason to weigh the frequency of defensive gun use. The count still matters in public debate, because it demolishes the premise that armed intervention is a fantasy. Gun owners should use the data in that debate and keep the legal arguments anchored to history.
For the market, the implication is simple. Demand for training and concealed carry should keep rising among people who read these stories and realize how fast a shooting unfolds. Right now, get a current carry permit if your state requires one, take a force-on-force or scenario-based course, and practice shooting from a holster while moving. Review your state's use-of-force law this week. Then carry the gun you will actually practice with, every day.
