The “K-12 School Shooting Database” is self-described as a “comprehensive, independent database of +2,481 K-12 school shootings since 1966.” For an allegedly independent database, it actively campaigns for gun control and pushes a LOT of gun control talking points. Tom has covered their propaganda before.

Gun controllers don’t just slink away in shame when they are exposed. They continue their propaganda, and they were at it again yesterday (archived links):

When the Pulse Nightclub shooting finally ended, 11 SWAT officers fired 150 rounds. 8 of those bullets struck the perpetrator.

That's a 5% accuracy rate for highly trained officers with ~3 hours of prep time before going inside.

How well is an armed teacher going to do? pic.twitter.com/gghyp9j9fx

— K-12 School Shooting Database (@K12ssdb) September 18, 2023

When the Pulse Nightclub shooting finally ended, 11 SWAT officers fired 150 rounds. 8 of those bullets struck the perpetrator.  

That’s a 5% accuracy rate for highly trained officers with ~3 hours of prep time before going inside.

How well is an armed teacher going to do?

Another gun control propagandist, a retired FBI Special Agent who calls herself a “Mass Shooting Expert” jumped in, breathlessly asked an underhanded question (archived links):

Do you mean a 5% accuracy rate for highly trained officers who responded to the Pulse Nightclub incident?

— Katherine Schweit (@KateSchweit) September 18, 2023

Do you mean a 5% accuracy rate for highly trained officers who responded to the Pulse Nightclub incident?

With the sweet setup of a question, the “independent” K-12 School Shooting Database replied (archived links):

Yes, the SWAT officers at Pulse had a 5% accuracy rate during a planned breach and raid.

Seems very unlikely that teachers armed with a compact handgun will be able to fire any rounds accurately during a high intensity surprise attack.

— K-12 School Shooting Database (@K12ssdb) September 18, 2023

Yes, the SWAT officers at Pulse had a 5% accuracy rate during a planned breach and raid.

Seems very unlikely that teachers armed with a compact handgun will be able to fire any rounds accurately during a high intensity surprise attack.

The perverse rationale from these people is that because the SWAT cops responding to the Pulse nightclub shooting had low accuracy, the average teacher must be a sitting duck without a chance of being able to fight back. Note that there are too many assumptions behind what happened at Pulse that cannot be captured by a back-of-the-envelope 5% accuracy calculation; we just don’t know enough about what happened there to pass a judgment using third-grade math like that.

But if gun controllers insist on playing that game, that’s fine, but they need to answer for another real-life incident involving an armed citizen who used a compact handgun (a Glock 19 according to reports) to stop a perpetrator who was armed with an AR-pattern rifle, with an incredible 80% accuracy rate at 40+ yards. That citizen’s name is Elisjsha Dicken.

Most readers likely already know about him, but for those who don’t, here’s a quick recap: On July 17, 2022, a mass shooter was stopped by an armed citizen at the Greenwood Park Mall in Greenwood, Indiana. The attacker did extensive preparations, but what he wasn’t prepared for was armed resistance from his victims. He unfortunately managed to snuff out the lives of three innocent human beings and would have done more harm, but was stopped by a 22-year old man who was legally carrying his handgun.

Ordinary people can and do achieve incredible accuracy under tremendous stress. Elisjsha Dicken engaged the attacker in just 15 seconds in the midst of total chaos unfolding around him. Another woman in West Virginia similarly stopped a wannabe mass attacker armed with a rifle with her handgun; the only casualty in that incident was the attacker himself. There was another incident in Last Vegas earlier this year which was caught on video; again, the only casualty was the wannabe attacker stopped by an armed citizen with a handgun with an accuracy rate well north of 5%. You can find a list of such incidents of armed citizens stopping mass shooters in this article.

On the flip side, there are real-life results from forcing school staff and teachers to be disarmed and waiting for police to respond. When the Parkland assailant attacked the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, football coach Mr. Aaron Freiss used his body as a sandbag to shield his students. It’s not well-known that Mr. Freiss was a concealed carry permit holder. He would have been better off with his gun on his person, but thanks to gun control freaks like those running the “independent” K-12 School Shooting Database, Mr. Freiss obeyed the law and went into the gun-free school without his gun. The attacker obviously didn’t care about the gun-free nature of the school he attacked.

What stories like this show is that the inaccuracy of police is not an acceptable pretext to keep future victims disarmed. If David Riedman, the gentleman running the K-12 School Shooting Database, wants to personally be unarmed because he thinks he will be a poorer shot than police and/or too cowardly to confront an attacker, that’s perfectly fine by me. What’s never acceptable is gun controllers wanting others to be disarmed because they don’t think those people will be accurate enough or courageous enough to confront evil.