News accounts report that the Bend, Oregon school shooting Thursday was stopped in part by an armed civilian.
asserted
shooting → report → civilian
From the N.Y. Times (Anna Griffin, Aaron West, Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs & Chelsia Rose Marcius):
A man in a red pickup truck was driving by and saw the teenager throw his shotgun over the fence and start to climb it, the police said.
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police → drive → it
The driver "verbally confronted" the gunman, who paused to open fire at him, pelting the truck with shots….
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who → confront → shots
Outside, Kaylub Giamanco, a father of two girls at the school, had seen the red pickup get shot while driving by on his lunch break.
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pickup → see → break
He swerved onto the sidewalk and ran inside.
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He → swerve → sidewalk
He found the gunman wrestling with the teacher who tried to stop him and shot him several times with a .40-caliber handgun that had been legally secured in his truck, the police said.
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police → find → truck
The suspect, who died, was carrying 44 more rounds of ammunition.
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who → die → ammunition
Readers might want to know: How often do civilians use guns to help stop shooters who pose ongoing threats to multiple people?
uncertain
who → want → people
(By "civilian," I mean here someone other than a police officer or a security guard; off-duty military members qualify for my purposes.)
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members → mean → purposes
Obviously, an exact count is hard to gather, and some cases will be ambiguous.
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cases → gather → ?
Sometimes, it may not be clear whether the shooter was planning to keep attacking.
uncertain
shooter → plan → ?
Sometimes, it may not be clear, at least from press accounts, whether the defender succeeded in stopping the shooter (for instance, by scaring the shooter away).
uncertain
defender → succeed → shooter
Sometimes a civilian and a security guard or a police officer might step in together.
uncertain
civilian → step → ?
And sometimes news accounts may err.
uncertain
accounts → err → ?
Any count is thus a judgment call, and also likely incomplete because not all incidents make the news.
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incidents → make → news
Still, thanks to a Crime Prevention Research Center spreadsheet, I can say that in 2025 there appeared to have been at least a dozen such incidents.
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I → say → 2025
The CPRC report says there were 23; I went through the list, checked the linked news accounts, and tried to exclude ones that seemed just like one-on-one self-defense situations or matters where the defender seemed clearly unsuccessful.
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defender → say → situations
(One-on-one self-defense is of course worthy on its own, but it's not what I'm discussing here.)
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I → discuss → what
With those exclusions, and trying to be relatively conservative in what I counted, I ended up counting 12 to 14 such incidents in 2025, depending on how you evaluate some of the more ambiguous ones.
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you → try → ones
Nor does 2025 appear to be unusual.
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2025 → appear → ?
I expect that conservative counts for those years would likewise be comparable to my count for 2025.
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counts → expect → 2025
None of the 2025 defensive gun use incidents were at a school, but gun possession is generally illegal in schools, so it's unsurprising that law-abiding gun owners can rarely stop such shootings.
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owners → abide → shootings
They can of course enter the school after the shooting starts, as the man in the Oregon shooting did, but that involves a higher degree of difficulty.
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that → enter → difficulty
[County Attorney] Kleine said [a] man was acting in self-defense and saving the lives of others when he shot and killed Brandon Jones around 3 a.m….
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he → say → Jones
According to Kleine, Jones was asked by management to leave the club.
uncertain
Jones → accord → club
Jones angrily left the club.
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Jones → leave → club
He got a gun, went back to the club, brandished the gun and started firing it while making threats, Kleine said.
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Kleine → get → threats
Kleine added Jones' gunfire hit several people.
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gunfire → add → people
The man, whom Kleine declined to identify, returned fire, striking and ultimately killing Jones outside the club, which had a large crowd of people inside….
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which → decline → people
[T]he sheriff's office received multiple 911 calls … saying an employee had shot two other coworkers ….
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employee → receive → coworkers
[T]he supervisor said he was in his upstairs office and heard multiple gunshots, prompting him to grab his firearm and head downstairs to the location of the shooting.
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he → say → shooting
He told detectives he got to their workstation and saw Edwards [the shooter] holding a firearm and standing over [one of the victims] while attempting to reload the weapon.
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Edwards → tell → weapon
The supervisor said he told Edwards to drop the gun while he and other employees pushed the suspect to the ground and called 911.
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he → say → 911
[A] man opened fire on a crowd of people after a child's birthday party…
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man → open → party
Deputies say several people in the crowd returned fire, hitting Thompson multiple times…
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people → say → Thompson
Investigators said that two groups of people were arguing on the [bar] patio, which then boiled over into a fight.
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which → say → fight
Vela, who was in the parking lot, allegedly saw the fight, pulled out a handgun, and opened fire on the brawl.
uncertain
who → see → brawl
A bystander pulled out his own gun and fired back, fatally striking Vela.
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bystander → pull → Vela
That bystander was also wounded by Vela's gunfire, and was rushed to the hospital in critical condition.
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bystander → wound → condition
In total, the bystander, two women, and one man at the scene were all injured by the gunfire.
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bystander → injure → gunfire
…and 50 more, not listed.
The Aporia
