Recently, a series of one-sided opinion pieces parading as journalism on the front pages of The Wall Street Journal have attempted to characterize armed citizens as reckless, murderous Americans—yes murderous, one even used the headline: “Six Words Every Killer Should Know: ‘I Feared for My Life, Officer’.”
The latest piece is titled “The Innocent Bystanders Caught in Deadly Crossfire of Self-Defense Shootings.” This article highlights four self-defense shootings in an attempt to draw the narrative that armed citizens are a big problem in America, but, as you’ll see, on analysis even these four handpicked examples don’t sell the author’s anti-gun narrative.
First, of course, there is, perhaps, no part on the American stage more cherished (by so many millions) and more purposely mischaracterized (by many mainstream media outlets and the gun-control groups they front for) than the armed citizen. There is opportunity for so much mischaracterization because the true story about what armed citizens in America do for society is difficult to see firsthand—concealed carry, after all, is cloaked behind the jackets, pants and purses of more than 21 million permit holders (and by who knows how many in the 29 constitutional-carry states).
So, to understand what armed citizens do for society, we have to rely on statistics and surveys. Statistics, however, can sound like cold responses to emotional appeals, however wrongheaded the emotional “solutions” might be.
But then, the facts do matter to the lives of, say, the 1.67 million people (if not more) who use guns to defend themselves each year in America—this statistic comes from the 2021 National Firearms Survey.
The most recent article in the Journal ignores this and similar statistics—they are not convenient to their preferred narrative.
Instead, the article was written to make people who are legally carrying concealed appear to be very irresponsible. As previously noted, this article uses four stories from 2021 to the present in which citizens used a gun for self-defense in order to give the impression that armed citizens are accidentally shooting a lot of people.
On analysis of the four cases he cites, however, only two of them actually involve people who were legally carrying concealed handguns in public (one case each from Massachusetts and Michigan).
“In the Ohio case, the convenience store employee had the gun at her workplace, so concealed-carry laws didn’t apply. In the California case, the state required a permit, but there is no evidence that the individual had a permit,” noted John Lott, president and founder of the Crime Prevention Research Center.
The Wall Street Journal article, however, does not quote Lott, even though he often writes for the paper’s opinion pages. Instead, it focuses on quoting gun-control advocates. One of whom claims that: “When untrained or panicked shooters miss their target, it’s children, neighbors and bystanders who pay the price.”
But this claim does not hold up. To examine the issue more directly, the Crime Prevention Research Center searched news reports and compiled a list of cases from the past decade in which concealed-carry permit holders accidentally shot an innocent bystander. They also collected cases in which people legally carrying guns in public used them to stop crimes.
“All together there were four cases from 2016 through nearly all of 2025. One listed incident involved a security guard, who arguably should not be counted,” reported Lott. “From 2016 to 2025, including the security-guard case, permit holders accidentally shot five bystanders—two killed and three wounded. Excluding the security guard, permit holders shot three bystanders—two killed and one wounded.”
Those instances are statistically tiny when compared to 1.67 million instances of armed citizens using their guns for self-defense, mostly without firing a shot.
Lott also said they reviewed police incidents from 2016 to 2025 and found 20 cases in which officers accidentally shot a total of 28 bystanders—6 were killed and 22 wounded.
“Overall, police accidentally wounded 5.6 times as many bystanders as civilians (including the security-guard case), killed three times as many, and wounded seven times as many. Excluding the security guard, police shot seven times more bystanders, killed three times more, and wounded 22 times more,” determined Lott.
This destroys the narrative that “untrained” civilians are a problem that needs government solutions to solve. (The NRA, of course, does a lot to give Americans training options.)
This Journal article also ignores the basic fact that concealed-carry permit holders are also extremely law-abiding. “Police rarely commit crimes, but concealed handgun permit holders are even more law-abiding, facing a conviction rate for firearms offenses that is just 1/12th the rate of police convictions,” noted Lott.
In sum, these front-page news stories on armed citizens in the Journal have ignored much of the actual story an attempt to create the impression this constitutionally protected freedom is a problem in need of a government solution.
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