The left likes to pretend that good guys with guns never stop mass shootings. They use some pretty clever tricks to “prove” that point, too. One of their favorites is to pretend like the potential mass shootings that are stopped don’t really count because the body count is so low. Then they pretend that a case like Sutherland Springs proves the good guy with a gun won’t react fast enough or something.

In Rockledge, Florida, we have a case that will undoubtedly be classified by anti-gun fanatics as the former.

A man armed with a .45-caliber handgun and a lot of ammunition wandered onto an auto repair shop property and began firing in the parking lot Friday afternoon, police said.

The gunman killed one employee and paralyzed a second. That’s when the employees at Schlenker Automotive fought back with equal force, Rockledge police chief Joseph La Sata said.

“The manager, who was a concealed weapons permit holder, came out and engaged in gunfire in the parking lot,” La Sata said. “The manager fled back inside the building, being chased by the gunman. Another Schlenker employee, who also had concealed weapons permit, engaged in gunfire with the suspect.”

Police said the suspect in the homicide is Robert Lorenzo Bailey Jr., 28, of Cocoa. He was shot twice and was in critical condition at Health First’s Holmes Regional Medical Center in Melbourne. Officers are keeping him under watch.

Now, we don’t know what the press is classifying as “a lot of ammunition” by any stretch. I remember a news report a while back of a man who had fired his gun that talked about how the shooter had 50 rounds of ammunition as if that proved he was some kind of a gun nut, but failed to note that it was probably only a single box of ammo. Is this a case where he had a box worth of ammo on his person?

Frankly, we’re not sure.

However, it does appear that Bailey had no ties to the garage. That indicates this was some kind of premeditated rampage that was stopped short because of armed individuals.

Is it a shame that innocent people were killed first? Absolutely.

However, it’s also important to remember that the good guys play by rules the bad guys ignore. We are required by both the law and morality to make sure our lives are threatened before engaging someone with our weapons. That means the bad guys get to pick the time and place of the attack. They have the initiative, and that means sometimes they’ll hurt innocent people before they can be stopped.

But in this case, there were two armed individuals with the tools and the mindset to stop the attack, and that meant the loss of life could be kept minimal. It’s a shame anyone was killed, but it could have been so much worse.

While we don’t know why this attack happened, we’re relieved that, for the most part, this is one of many potential mass shootings that most people never hear about simply because a good guy with a gun kept it from being national news.