"Nobody has ever stopped a mass-shooter..."

[RoyGBiv]

How about this....
Counting "Mass shootings that were prevented" is impossible due to the definition of a mass shooting as 4 or more people actually shot.

Or perhaps....
A mass shooting that was prevented would not meet the criteria for a "mass shooting" and is therefore absent from mass shooting statistics. (I would add "you moron" for emphasis, but that's probably un-constructive ).

[The Annoyed Man]

That argument ignores the truth that, however many people the mass shooter kills before someone stopped him, someone DID stop him, and the body count would have been higher had he not been stopped.

So their argument is essentially that 10-15 killed is not any worse than 3-4 killed.....which is a moronic position. The ONLY difficulty for our side is that it is hard to place a number on what the total body count WOULD have been, if the mass shooter had not been stopped. But it is not hard to argue that it would have been higher...possibly MUCH higher.

[canvasbck]

It's also impossible to quantify if/when a mass shooting was deterred because of the potential presence of armed citizens. One can infer that many have been deterred since the overwhelming majority of mass shootings have happened in GFZ's.

The same can be said for any crime that is deterred. Even a lefty would agree that the presence of LEO is a deterrent to crime, but no one can produce any stats saying that "convenience store X was going to be robbed, but the BG's changed their mind when they saw a cop"

[Jusme]

Mass shooters are always "stopped" either by their own hand, being shot by another person, or they simply quit shooting people.
There is, as others have stated, no way to definitively prove that the actions of others, prevented more casualties. It is the same argument people use when condemning the bombing of Hiroshima, and Nagasaki. No one can prove that more casualties would have resulted, no matter what the probabilities were, since no further action was required, to achieve a surrender. JMHO

[K.Mooneyham]

You said it yourself, Andy. The statement in the subject is indeed a form of sophistry, and as such is DESIGNED to be difficult to counter. It is designed to put pro-self-defense, pro-firearms people into the situation of "proving a negative", which cannot be done. Therefore the statement itself is invalid on that basis alone. However, the antis thought that up knowing that most folks either don't understand the basis of the statement itself, or simply refuse to think about the situation sufficiently to understand how it is wrong. That's the sad point we find ourselves at today.

[Lisa517]

Isn't this a catch-22? The only way to get out of the military is if you're crazy; only a crazy person would want to remain in the military; therefore, if you are trying to get out of the military, you must be sane, and are therefore not eligible to get out.

Or, in this case (Really a pair of catch-22s):

1) For a mass shooting to be stopped, the shooter has to be stopped before killing enough people for it to qualify as a mass shooting; only a shooting in which more than 4 people are killed qualifies as a mass shooting; therefore, if a shooter is stopped before killing more than 4 people, the shooting has not qualified as a mass shooting and was therefore not an example of one having been prevented.

2) For a mass shooting to be stopped, the shooter has to be stopped before killing enough people for it to qualify as a mass shooting; only a shooting in which more than 4 people are killed qualifies as a mass shooting; therefore, if a shooter is stopped after killing more than 4 people, the shooting was able to qualify as a mass shooting and was therefore not prevented.

[Ruark]

Honestly, I think we're sort of digging in the semantic woodwork here. IMHO, it would come down to the difference between "prevent" and "stop." The examples use "stop" to mean "prevent," but those are two different concepts. "Stop" means to stop something that's already moving. So a shooter is killing people - 4, 5, 6, 7.... and then is "stopped" by a good guy with a gun. So there you have it: you stopped a mass shooting.

[XDgal]

If nobody has ever stopped a mass shooting, then I guess those two boys at Columbine are still shooting people for twenty years now? In another words, all mass shooting have been stopped, so the title is simply incorrect.

[Paladin]

If we repealed gunpowder from the laws of thermodynamics and stopped 100% of all mass shootings... mass attacks would continue in the form of vehicle attacks, bombings, and knife attacks.

Ed Monk's Presentation on active shootings sets the standard in my opinion.

10 Lessons For Armed Citizens:

... To win, therefore, the armed citizen must rely on three possible advantages: (1) the surprise of a citizen having a gun and the decision of when it is deployed; (2) skill gained through repetitive training for just such an event ; (3) and tactics, which can include movement and use of cover & concealment.

[Boxerrider]

None of the liberal, feel-good, social and/or educational policies in Florida stopped that young man from shooting up his high school and then calmly walking away.

[C-dub]

For some reason that sort of circular logic made me think of this joke.

A couple went on vacation to a resort up north. The husband liked to fish, and the wife liked to read. One morning the husband came back from fishing after getting up really early that morning and took a nap. While he slept, the wife decided to take the boat out. She was not familiar with the lake, so she rowed out and anchored the boat, and started reading her book. Along comes the Game Warden in his boat, pulls up alongside the woman's boat and asks her what she's doing? She says, "Reading my book." The Game Warden tells her she is in a restricted fishing area and she explains that she's not fishing. To which he replied, "But you have all this equipment. I will have to take you in and write you up!" Angry that the warden was being so unreasonable, the lady told the warden, "If you do that, I will charge you with rape." The warden, shocked by her statement, replied, "But I didn't even touch you." To which the lady replied, "Yeah, but you have all the equipment!"

source: http://www.jokes4us.com/peoplejokes/got ... tjoke.html

[SewTexas]

So, when Jeanne Assam, a woman! by the way, killed the mass shooter, at New Life Church, after he had killed 5 people that morning....she wasn't stopping a mass-shooting???? well, ok, then......that's not the way I remember it....and I was there, well, in the city, my Doctor was there, and he told me all about it the following week. He actually started carrying after that, inspired by her.

[Paladin]

So, when Jeanne Assam, a woman! by the way, killed the mass shooter, at New Life Church, after he had killed 5 people that morning....she wasn't stopping a mass-shooting???? well, ok, then......that's not the way I remember it....and I was there, well, in the city, my Doctor was there, and he told me all about it the following week. He actually started carrying after that, inspired by her.

Well said!