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A study from the Crime Prevention Research Center shows that civilians actually stop more active shooters than police.
According to the CPRC, concealed carry permit holders stopped 51.5 percent of active shootings, compared to 44.6 percent stopped by police. CPRC looked at active shooter scenarios in non-gun free zones between 2014 and 2023.
Police were also found to be almost six times more likely to be killed and 17 percent more likely to be wounded than armed civilians.
Part of the motivation for the study came from watching cop shows on television. John R. Lott Jr., president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, said cop shows tend to show when things go wrong a lot of the time when a concealed carry permit holder tries to stop a crime with their firearm.
“Either they accidentally shoot a bystander or they themselves are killed or they get in the way of police,” Lott said. “So, we wanted to get a measure on how frequently those types of problems occur.”
The FBI does have data on active shooting cases where a gun is fired off in public. These cases range from someone being shot at and missed all the way up to a mass shooting, but the FBI’s crime statistics do not differentiate between concealed handgun permit holders and law enforcement.
From 2014 to 2023, CPRC researchers found that armed civilians stopped 180 of 515 active shooting cases and committed fewer mistakes than law enforcement. For instances that happened where people were allowed to carry, permit holders were found to have stopped 158 of the 307 cases.
“If you compare that to the police, it’s about 44 percent, so they actually are stopping these attacks at a higher rate and part of the main reason that’s going on there is the police have a very difficult job,” Lott explained.
So, the study from Crime Prevention Research Center tells a different one than the common narrative usually told on TV. It also proves that police have a very difficult job.
When in uniform, it’s easier for an attacker to seek out the police officer.
“If you’re an attacker and you see a police officer in uniform at a place, you have tactical advantages,” said Lott. “You can wait for the officer to leave before you engage in the attack, you can move on to another target yourself, or if you decide you’re going to attack there, the first person you’re going to try and take out is going to be a police officer.”
In the 156 cases stopped by law enforcement, an officer accidentally shot the wrong person in four cases. Fellow officers and civilians were each shot and killed twice, more than double the rate of civilians accidentally shooting a bystander (1.1 percent). Further research shows that 27 officers were shot and killed while trying to stop an active shooter, a much higher rate than the rate for permit holders.
“They in fact are killed at a much higher rate than civilians with permitted concealed handguns,” Lott said of police officers.
Another one hundred offices were wounded, a 28.6 percent rate, compared to 24.4 percent for permit holders.
And yet, many on the left want to disarm citizens and institute more gun control measures, going completely against the second amendment.
“Under the Biden administration, they had all sorts of gun control rules that are being undone and rescinded by the Trump administration,” Lott said.
The study also found that of the 180 total instances where an armed civilian stopped an active shooting, there was just one case where a permit holder accidentally shot a bystander (0.56 percent) and in no cases did the armed civilian interfere with police.
Jarett Lewis, “CPRC Study: Concealed Carriers Stop More Active Shooter Cases Than Police,” NewsRadio 740 KTRH, March 16, 2025. Also published at other radio stations across the country such as WOAI (San Antonio, Texas) and KOIL (Omaha, Nebraska).
By taking their safety into their own hands, civilians managed to prevent 58 mass shootings between 2014 and 2023, according to the CPRC. “These findings highlight a reality that is often ignored: responsible gun owners save lives,” argued the organization’s president, John R. Lott.
Can a good citizen with a gun stop a shooting? The question is at the heart of the debate over the Second Amendment, which guarantees the “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms.”
Some cases where the question found a positive answer are nationally known, such as that of Elisjsha Dicken, a 20-year-old who prevented a massacre in Indiana. Those who advocate for more controls on gun ownership, however, claim these are isolated incidents. The “Good Samaritan”Dicken, as he became known, would then, as in the parable, be a unique case.
A new study by the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) based on cases reported by the press across the country seeks to disprove this argument. In areas where guns are allowed to be carried, ordinary Americans stopped more shootings and with fewer mistakes than police.
‘Good citizens’ vs. uniformed agents
Between 2014 and 2023, armed citizens stopped 180 of 515 active shootings. Considering only areas where carrying guns is allowed, the figure stood at 158 incidents out of 307. That is, in those areas, licensed citizens thwarted more than 51.5% of the attacks. The other 44.6% were stopped by police. . . .
The phrase made famous by the NRA, “Good guys with guns, stop bad guys with guns,” now has the statistics to back it up.”
A new study by the Crime Prevention Research Center found law-abiding gun owners stopped more active shooter crimes than police.
Dr. John Lott is our guest to break down the numbers that prove law-abiding gun owners are not only using their guns in a safe way, but they make everyone around them safer too.
And the Dept. of Education is getting closer and closer to being shut down all together.
A groundbreaking study reveals that law-abiding gun owners thwart active shooter incidents more frequently than police. Join Dr. John Lott as he analyzes this compelling data and its implications for public safety. . . .
Gun owners come from all demographics of income, race, gender, and culture. Further, according to The Crime Prevention Research Center, concealed carry permit holders are the most law-abiding demographic in the United States. Set the example of being a perfectly normal member of society who owns a gun and is not a danger to anyone. . . .
Mikial, “Fifteen Reasons to Own a Gun,” USA Carry, March 17, 2025.
However, pro-gun investigators have argued that the 1994 assault weapons ban has not had much of an impact on crime. One example is research from pro-gun economist John Lott that found, “there was no drop in the number of attacks with assault weapons during the 1994 to 2004 ban. There was an increase after the ban sunset, but the change is not statistically significant.” . . .
firearm researcher John Lott’s Crime Prevention Research Center has compiled numerous cases of defensive gun uses from media reports and law enforcement records, suggesting that even lower-bound estimates likely undercount the true frequency of such incidents . . .
Whenever a state passes a concealed carry law, the left regales us with scare stories about how it’s going to revert to “the wild west,” with vigilantes shooting people left and right. That never happens, and now, a study by the Crime Prevention Research Center suggests that armed citizens actually stop more mass shootings than police do, and make fewer mistakes.
The study of mass shooter scenarios between 2014 and 2023 found that in places where citizens were allowed to carry firearms, there were 307 mass shootings, and permit holders stopped 158 of them. In all of those, only one innocent bystander was shot. But in the 156 mass shootings stopped by police, two officers and two bystanders were accidentally shot and killed.
Researcher John Lott Jr. said the study proves that “concealed handgun permit holders aren’t reckless vigilantes, but they are law-abiding citizens who step up in moments of crisis when seconds matter and police are minutes away.”
We’d say it also suggests that we need better training of police.
Mike Huckabee, “Blowing Away Liberal Narratives,” MH, March 20, 2025.
One thing everyone should always be cautious with is being too quick to support conclusions that meet your own biases. If you like what you’re seeing out of a study, take a moment to be skeptical. Bad studies are bad studies, only when they support gun rights, they’re examined far more closely than those that go the other way.
But we all know the truth. We know that guns save lives.
And now, we’ve got yet another data point to prove it thanks to a study that doesn’t actually suck.
People legally carrying concealed firearms stop more mass shootings than police do, nationally-known gun rights researcher John Lott claims.
That’s proof that Wyoming made the right decision in repealing its gun-free zones, gun rights advocate Mark Jones of Buffalo told Cowboy State Daily.
However, gun control advocate Devin Hughes of Washington, D.C., argued that Lott’s research and conclusions are flawed, and having more firearms around increases danger.
In a recent article by Lott published in The Federalist, he claims that 51.5 % of active shootings between 2014 and 2023 were stopped by civilians with permits to carry concealed firearms.
Police stopped 44.6% of those shootings, Lott claims. . . .
We’ve long seen that gun-free zones are really criminal empowerment zones, but with the seemingly increased frequency of mass shootings in recent years, that has also highlighted that these are the preferred targets for those planning massacres.
And why wouldn’t it be? The last thing a person planning such a thing would want is to get popped by some schmoe he thought was a target right up until the schmoe in question presents a firearm and starts dumping more than a hundred grains of attitude adjustment into him. So, he picks targets where that’s unlikely to happen.
Lott found that when they don’t, though, and decide to skip a gun-free zone, they end up being killed by armed citizens more often than by police. . . .
CPRC Study: Concealed Carriers Stop More Active Shooter Cases Than Police [More]
You can review the data and the methodology for yourself.
Gun-grabbers would rather the citizens who stopped aggressors had been unarmed and that the attackers had succeeded so they could dance in the blood and demand more.
David Codrea, “An Inconvenient Truth,” The War on Guns, March 19, 2025.
