By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
While the gun control lobby is currently observing “Gun Violence Awareness Month” with media support, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms suggests there should be an equal month-long recognition of the role legally armed private citizens have played in public safety.
“Not once have we heard a peep from the gun ban crowd when a legally-armed private citizen intervenes to save lives from mass killers, or protect themselves and their families from violent criminals,” noted CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “Whether it was a would-be mass casualty incident at an Indiana mall, an attack at Price Chopper in Missouri, a retired Marine partnering with a Massachusetts state trooper to stop a Cambridge gunman, or a citizen stopping a fleeing attempted killer on a Seattle street, these incidents are universally ignored and swiftly swept under the nearest rug by anti-gunners and their cheerleaders in the media.”
The four incidents to which Gottlieb alluded are:
- The May 26, 2026 shooting at the Pleasant Hill, Missouri Price Chopper during which the killer, identified as Allen Prince, opened fire, killing one person and wounding a teen, turned the gun on himself when he was confronted by two armed citizens. Allen survived and now faces murder and assault charges.
- The May 11, 2026 incident in Cambridge, Mass., when a man identified as Tyler Brown, 46, a convicted felon from Boston opened fire on a busy street. A state trooper was joined by an armed private citizen and former Marine to shoot back and subdue the suspect.
- A May 2025 incident in downtown Seattle involving a teen would-be killer who opened fire on a trio of other young people, and who was fatally shot by an armed citizen who simply happened to be standing nearby and witnessed the incident.
- The Greenwood Park Mall shooting in July 2022 during which 22-year-old Elisjsha Dicken, who was legally armed, shot and killed the suspect. Local community leaders honored his courageous act.
Gottlieb, who has co-authored several books about armed self-defense, says armed citizens have acted as first responders on several occasions, and that they continue to make a difference where public safety is concerned.
The Montana-based Crime Prevention Research Center has monitored armed citizen intervention for several years, and has done research on defensive gun uses. The CPRC issues annual reports on licensed concealed carry.
While anti-gunners observe an entire month devoted to violent crime involving firearms, they continually combine suicide data with homicides, and call it all “gun violence.”
“This term ‘gun violence’ was invented by the gun prohibition lobby, and lapped up by the media,” Gottlieb observed in a statement to the media. “A gun doesn’t have a brain to hate with or a finger to pull its own trigger. We’ve recently seen high-profile stabbings on subways, yet nobody talks about ‘knife violence.’ When people driving under the influence cause fatal traffic crashes, we never hear about ‘car violence.’ Only the firearm is singled out for demonization, as if to transfer responsibility from the perpetrator to the gun he or she misused.”
One piece of information which never seems to get mentioned in media reports is that more people are murdered annually by being beaten or stomped, bludgeoned or stabbed than are killed with rifles or shotguns of any kind, according to FBI crime data.
“We should recognize the heroic acts of armed citizens,” Gottlieb said. “Instead of blaming guns for violent crime, let’s be honest and place the responsibility where it belongs, on the violent offenders. Likewise, anti-gunners need to stop equating suicide with violent crime, and combining the numbers for a more dramatic effect. Not only is it dishonest, it smears those with emotional problems by lumping them in with criminals.
“Perhaps next year,” he said, “we can recognize the contributions armed citizens have made to public safety across the country. Gun owners can wear brightly-colored T-shirts to their state capitols, where governors will sign proclamations, make speeches about the Second Amendment, and the media will reject anti-gun rhetoric and report accurately about the right of self-defense.”
