What Are the Odds?

When a less than 1% possibility becomes a community’s reality

What are the odds that any one of us will find ourselves in a mass-casualty situation? Statistics place the chance at roughly one in a million, far less than one percent. What are the odds that a state’s strict gun laws will stop a terrible tragedy? The data shows this to be inconclusive, maybe less than 1%. What are the odds that an everyday carrier of a handgun will ever use that firearm to protect themselves or someone else? Research cited by Rutgers University, Harvard, and the National Crime Victimization Survey describes such defensive use as extremely rare, again, less than one percent.

Approximately 32% of U.S. adults, about 107 million to 111 million people, personally own a firearm. Roughly 72% of gun owners own handguns, representing an estimated 77 million to 80 million handgun owners nationwide.

Most gun owners identify personal protection as a major reason for ownership, yet only about 35% regularly carry a firearm outside the home. Most will never draw it in defense of another person. Most hope they never have to.

I am one of the people who trains anyway. I prepare not because I expect tragedy, and certainly not because I want confrontation, but because rare does not mean impossible. When danger becomes real, preparation can be the difference between being present and being able to help.

What were the odds that a teenage attacker would enter an elementary school in Oregon and begin taking innocent lives? What were the odds that a passerby would see an armed person climbing a fence, confront the danger, come under fire, call 911, and move toward the school rather than drive away? The convergence of those events seems almost impossible. Yet on an otherwise ordinary October day, the unthinkable became real.

Lives were lost. Others were critically wounded. Families received news that divided their lives forever into before and after. A school, meant to be a place of learning and safety, became a place of fear. Before discussing firearms, laws, response times, or what might have happened, I have to begin with that human loss.

My heart breaks for the victims, their families, the students, the staff, and everyone whose sense of safety was taken from them. They were not statistics or symbols in a political debate. They were people who were loved, and no argument can measure the weight their families now carry.

But I also cannot stop thinking about what happened in the first moments. An armed citizen reportedly recognized the danger, confronted it, called 911, and pursued the attacker. A classroom teacher chose to fight. Police responded within minutes, but in an attack measured in seconds, even an excellent response time leaves a gap before officers can arrive, assess the scene, enter, and locate the threat.

That gap is one reason I believe the right to keep and bear arms matters. Police officers cannot be everywhere, and no reasonable person expects them to be. A lawful, trained citizen who happens to be present may be the only person capable of responding during the moments when lives are being lost. Carrying a firearm did not create this man’s courage, but it gave his courage the means to confront an armed threat.

Training matters too. Responsible carry is not simply owning a handgun and placing it in a holster. It means understanding safety, judgment, tactics, legal responsibility, and the terrible consequences of every decision. It means preparing for an event you hope never occurs and recognizing that restraint is usually the right response. On this day, according to the account that moved me to write this, action was necessary.

I understand why others reach a different conclusion. Those who favor stronger gun restrictions see another devastating example of the destruction a firearm can cause in the wrong hands. Their fear and grief are real, and concern for children’s safety should never be dismissed. But this tragedy also shows a truth central to the gun-rights argument: the same tool used by an attacker can, in the hands of a trained and responsible citizen, be used to defend innocent life.

Recognizing that truth does not require us to ignore the risks of firearms or oppose every reasonable safeguard. It asks us to distinguish criminal violence from lawful ownership, and careless possession from disciplined preparation. Rights carry responsibilities. For me, the answer is not to leave responsible people defenseless, but to defend their rights while expecting safe storage, sound judgment, continued training, and accountability.

No one can know with certainty how many additional lives might have been lost. But in less than a minute, 15 shots were fired, 6 people were shot, 4 killed and 2 critically injured. In the additional minutes, another 6, 12, 18 people or more may have become victims. Intervention matters, time matters, and preparation matters. When seconds count, the person already there may be the first—and for a time, the only—line of defense.

To the armed citizen who chose to act: if you struggle with the lives you could not save, I hope that one day you can also see the people whose lives may have been changed by your decision to step forward. You did not cause the evil you confronted, and no one person could guarantee a perfect outcome. You trained, you carried lawfully, and when the moment came, you acted. I am grateful.

To the teacher who fought, the dispatchers who answered, the officers who responded, the medical teams who treated the wounded, and everyone who helped: thank you. Courage took more than one form that day.

To the families who lost someone they loved: no discussion of courage or constitutional rights should overshadow your grief. Your loved ones were people with stories, relationships, hopes, and futures. They were loved, and they mattered.

What were the odds that an armed attacker, a prepared citizen, a courageous teacher, and responding officers would all converge on one ordinary day? Far less than one percent. But for one community, the pain became one hundred percent real. I believe this tragedy supports the right of responsible citizens to be prepared to defend life. I also believe that right must be exercised with humility, training, judgment, and respect for those who fear its consequences. We may never agree on every policy, but we should be able to agree that innocent life matters, responsible preparation matters, and extraordinary courage deserves recognition.

Our armed bystander is struggling with a personal battle, feeling that he wasn’t able to do enough. I think I would struggle with the same feelings. I hope he is able to one day realize those he saved, and that he was only able to do so because he carried a gun and had the skill and ability to respond. I 100% thank you. Your community 100% thanks you. You are a 100% hero.