Most folks have offered unqualified praise for Kaylub Giamanco, the armed citizen in Bend, Oregon who stopped the shooting at Silver Rail Elementary School, but there are a few notable exceptions. Gun control groups have taken a "yes, but" approach to Giamanco's actions, acknowledging his courage but complaining that it shouldn't have been necessary (or in the case of March for Our Lives, that he wasn't fast enough to prevent any shots from being fired).
Then there's this mentality: sure, Giamanco acted heroically, but that's because he's not your typical gun owner.
People around the country are applauding an Oregon father who stopped a school shooter and saved lives at his children’s school.
But a psychotherapist and a firearms training instructor in North Carolina said that the average gun owner probably couldn’t do what he did.
David Bailey worked as a certified firearms instructor in North Carolina for 50 years.
He’s never had to shoot an attacker, but he trains for it almost every day.
“Shooting paper (targets) is easy. Taking someone else’s life because you have to — it’s not so easy,” said Bailey.
In Bend, Oregon, the community is calling a 36-year-old father a hero for killing a school shooter.
Police said Kaylub Giamanco spotted the shooter and chased him into the school.
The attacker had already killed three students and a teacher when Giamanco shot and killed him.
“It is a gift. It is a blessing to some degree that this is a person who knew ‘I know exactly what to do. I have trained for these situations,’” said Dr. Charryse Johnson.
Johnson is a psychotherapist and owner of Jade Integrative Counseling in Charlotte.
“Your average gun owner does not have that kind of training and repetition and practice,” said Johnson.
I don't think David Bailey actually came right out and said the average gun owner couldn't have responded as Giamanco did, but there's no question that Johnson believes Giamanco isn't your typical gun owner.
Is there any evidence of that? Giamanco hasn't done any interviews, but his mother has said he's "been around firearms for much of his life." The Guardian reported that in 2018, Giamanco posted on Facebook that he "just had the honor of going shooting with a group of guys who served in combat together in Iraq," and that they taught him "military shooting drills and told lot of great stories."
That appears to be the only reference to training on Giamanco's Facebook page, at least that I've been able to find. So how does Johnson know how much training, repetition, and practice Giamanco had before he spotted a guy with a shotgun entering the school where his daughters attend class?
For all we know Kaylub Giamanco could be at the range every afternoon, once a week, once a month, or once a year. Without him providing those details we're left to guess, and I just find it weird that a psychotherapist in Charlotte, North Carolina would be so sure of the training regimen of a guy she's never met who lives 3,000 miles away.
What is a "typical" gun owner, anyway? Is it someone who owns a gun but rarely if ever trains with it? Is it someone who enjoys plinking with friends and family? Someone who hunts on a regular basis? A competitive shooter? With about 80 million of us around the country, is it even possible to have one "typical" kind of gun owner?
Johnson's comments make it sound like Giamanco must spend a lot of time at the range, and anyone who isn't constantly training would be unsuccessful at stopping a shooter in a similar situation. I disagree.
Yes, there is something to be said for muscle memory and being able to operate almost on auto-pilot because you've trained for this exact scenario time and again. I would argue, though, that there's something even more important.
When he saw a threat, Giamanco ran towards the danger instead of running away. Maybe that was because his own daughters were inside that school. Maybe he would have chased after the killer even if his own kids weren't at risk. We don't know what he might have done in a different circumstance. We only know what he did in this one.
Kaylub Giamanco is a hero. That doesn't make him a real-life John Wick. It is entirely possible for someone without extensive tactical training to respond as he did. What made the difference wasn't necessarily some extraordinary skill set, but his willingness to act when innocent lives were at stake. The police officers who responded to Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas had formal law enforcement training, but that training didn't produce the kind of decisive response we saw from Giamanco. They hesitated while children and teachers were in danger. Giamanco didn't.
It's not that training doesn't matter. It does. But there's no reason to assume that the average gun owner, when confronted with a similar situation, would automatically freeze up or be incapable of stopping the threat. We don't know how most people would respond, and neither does Dr. Johnson.
Giamanco's actions were extraordinary. That doesn't mean his abilities were. And unless Dr. Johnson and the Spectrum News reporter who quoted her have information about his training that they didn't share, there's no basis for declaring that the average gun owner couldn't have done the same thing.
