Greenwood Park Mall in Indiana rang out with gunfire Sunday as a man with a semi-automatic rifle opened fire, immediately killing three people and injuring two others. That’s when the typical mass-shooting narrative changed. Elisjsha Dicken, a 22-year-old carrying a concealed handgun, ended the slaughter by taking down the wannabe mass murderer. This story must be told.
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29 replies on “The Hero Next Door: Young Man with a Concealed Handgun Stops Mass-Shooting Slaughter”
Did you know one of the guys from the train in France is running for US Congress in Oregon? Alek Skarlotos is running for the redrawn district from which Peter DeFazio is retiring.
I would love to imagine a world where every ccw citizen would handle a situation like that tactically and with precision, but the truth is that a ton of — the majority!– of carriers need better training. I just renewed mine(and it doesn’t even matter to try to be quiet about it since Californians have been betrayed by some idiot that made our records public) and I can tell you it’s been a while since I felt a heightened condition of caution or possible harm. A lot of these folks handle their firearms with little discipline and seemingly little experience, and very poor accuracy. I was the only one that shot out the number 5 on my head shots (somewhat strict exercise in Stanislaus county: four single handed with both hands; two singles to the head, then farther out with both hands), but I didn’t feel like sticking around to watch everyone finish.
I swear, the chamber laser cartridges are amazing for training and will cost you less than a single visit to the range.
One of those guys on the train was Alek Skarlatos, a former National Guardsman who is now running for congess, here in Oregon.
After a glut of misinformation after the shooting, the facts have been straightened out. The shooter unleashed 24 shots in 15 seconds and the responsible armed citizen hit him with 8 of 10 shots from either 40 feet or 40 yards (I’m betting the former). The shooter attempted to retreat to the bathroom where he started the attack but didn’t make it. Mr. Dicken was directing people away from the shooter as he kept his gun trained on him. The best gun lawyer in Indiana has taken him as a client pro-bono and there is a GoFundMe page for Mr. Dicken to offset any expenses he may encounter from the aftermath of the shooting. This is the way we do things as Hoosiers in fly-over country!
To Bill’s point about this generation, I think this kid probably played a lot of first person shooter games.
Haven’t watched this segment yet, but I’ll note that Simon Properties – the Mall owners – has “No Firearms” signs posted on entrances, and anyone seen with a firearm will be asked to leave. That, fortunately, doesn’t prevent concealed carriers from bringing their handguns into the mall, and Thank God that was the case here, It’s been reported that the young man does not have a LTCH (License to Carry a Handgun) in Indiana, which changed to Constitutional Carry (no permit required for permitted persons) on July 1st. Had this incident happened this time last month, this young man probably wouldn’t have had his handgun with him and the death toll would have been higher.
Despite this being a classic argument for why the Mall shouldn’t bar handguns, the policy will no doubt continue to be kept in place, inviting more mass shooting attempts at their properties.
Signs are not law. While they may post a sign no weapons, conceal carry is just that – concealed. If they don’t see it they can’t ask you or search you without a warrant. Should it become known the most the establishment can do is ask you to leave & refusal would result in a no trespass notice to you. That’s all. I always ignore their signs as nobody can tell I’m carrying. Federal & state properties are different in that they are protected by local or federal statue punishable by law. But not the Walmarts of the world. And apparently the shooter didn’t abide by the sign either with his 2 rifles, Glock & multiple mags.
Actually, while No Firearms signs don’t have the force of law in Indiana, they DO have the force of law in other states, and you can be arrested if it’s discovered you have carried a handgun into a No Firearms-posted area.
PTL that the shooter burns in Hell today!! Just like the old Toyota commercial, “You asked for it? You GOT it!!” (And the Japanese learned this principle the HARD way between 12/7/41 and 8/6(&9)/45.)
There’s no doubt this young man Dicken is a hero. It’s not common for anyone to run towards gunfire.
There’s an anecdote from the Afghan conflict, I have no way to know if it’s true or not …
An enemy Afghani commander’s radio conversation with one of his subordinate unit leaders was intercepted. The commander is ordering his subordinate to engage the Marines who were in contact with them. From the way the conversation went it was clear the commander’s intent was to bring the Marines under fire and force them to move into the kill box of a waiting ambush. The subordinate was arguing that tactic wouldn’t work and would get his men and himself all killed. The commander insisted and finally the subordinate spelled things out as clear as he could, more or less paraphrased thus …
“Sir, you don’t understand. We can’t fire on those Marines where they are now. That will not move them into your ambush. The fire will be coming from us. Marines run towards gunfire.”
Like I say, I don’t know if that story is true or not but it illustrates a point. Which is that bad guys, bullies and predators are used to having people run away from their shooting. Unlike “normal” people the Marines know that the sound of gunfire is where the bad guys are and the best thing to do if you want to eliminate bad guys is go where they are.
So that has to be trained into someone. The natural impulse is to go the opposite direction.
Clearly in the absence of police or military training young Mr. Dicken had trained himself. This is an entirely doable thing and if you don’t have access to more formal training then it’s a good idea to work through this sort of thing on your own.
The biggest point I ever had drummed into my head was — “Your mind is your primary weapon. All other weaponry is ancillary.”
Meaning you have to use your brain and your will first before anything else can happen.
Sitting at dinner one night years ago in my sister’s house with her husband and my now ex-wife, the subject of guns and self defense came up. My wife is from Australia, a different culture with a lot more stringent control of firearms in the hands of civilian citizens so this interested her. She asked my brother-in-law …
“Could you really shoot someone?”
He answered “I don’t know.”
I interjected “Then you’re already dead and you got my sister and my nephew killed when your job is to protect them. I will not forgive you for that.”
This, as you can probably imagine, put a damper on the conversation. I went on to explain with words I have spoken many times in my life …
“You have to think about this sort of thing before it ever happens. You might not have formal training available but you absolutely can and must work out this sort of scenario in your own mind, mulling it over, considering what you’ll do, what you won’t do, how much penetration can be expected from the weapon you’re using, what directions are safe to shoot and which are not, and at what point the decision to fire your weapon is made for you. The time to think those sorts of things through will not be available when the need presents itself. It just won’t. So you have to get that part out of the way now, when there is no one pointing a gun at you, no one shooting at you, you’re not experiencing tunnel vision and time dilation, and the people who have every right to count on you and who you love the most depend on your preparedness and will for their lives.”
And that’s it in a nutshell. You can train yourself and you have to start with thinking about the problem and what you’re willing to do in response to it. You need to think about this a lot until you get to a point where you’ve ingrained in your mind “when ‘x’ happens my response will be ‘y'”. Then when you see that thing happening in front of your eyes those decisions are already made, you made them thoughtfully, carefully and responsibly when there was time to make them. No you can follow them with confidence.
Hesitation is fatal in a lethal scenario. The other guy already knows what he’s going to to. He’s going to kill you. He doesn’t even really care if you’re armed or not, he’s going to kill you either way and that means unless you beat him to it the result is the same to you. That doesn’t leave you a lot to think about, nor time to mull it over. What seems now like a few seconds to think through something is going to seem like an eternity as you face an armed adversary and he brings his weapon to bear.
Now that you’ve engaged your primary weapon, it’s time to address the other thing you can do for yourself to train yourself. That’s to gain proficiency with the lethal weapon of your choice. You not only need to hit the target, you need to hit it in the right place. Especially if you’re stuck with nothing but a handgun. People think that a handgun hits with the authority of Thor’s Hammer. It does not. People who think that never shot anything with a handgun but paper and maybe some tin cans.
It’s going to be a real drag for you and your loved ones if after you send a handgun slug through the bad guy’s vitals in the last second and a fraction of his consciousness he points his weapon at you and manages to get off a hit. Don’t forget, if he’s aware of you at all he’s probably already in the process of doing that so it doesn’t take a lot for the process to carry through.
The lesson here boys and girls is to continue firing until he goes down and even then don’t assume he’s incapacitated. Can you do that and in doing it can you make every shot hit? Because that miss might just be the shot that kept him from getting off a hit on you or someone else. If you can’t connect with every shot, then you need to get out and practice until you can. Because you’re armed. That means you’ve assumed the responsibility to use your weapon effectively and as safely as possible to everything and everyone except your intended, legitimate target.
I’m talking about civilian self defense here. Military applications of force are a completely different thing. In the military you use things like cover fire, plunging fire, searching fire, enfilade fire etc. because everyone in front of you is an enemy. If they get hit, well that’s the point isn’t it?
Thus military training might not be as advantageous as some would think. I sincerely advise you not to use searching fire against a bad guy with a gun in Walmart.
Two points here — Mental preparedness and motor skills honed to the point where you can make a machine do what you want it to do.
No one would say “Well I drive my car in my own lane 60% of the time. That’s good enough.” Because that’s not good enough, you need to stay in the proper lane 100% of the time and you learn to control a big, complex machine to do that. Everyone who drives a car does that. It’s not a big deal, it’s just a matter of getting good enough at handling that particular machine.
Lots of people would say “I can hit a six inch circle with my handgun at 15 feet six out of ten shots. That’s good enough.”
Um, no. It’s not. If you can’t do any better than that either you’re not trying hard enough or you shouldn’t be handling a gun in the first place. You probably shouldn’t be driving a car either. At least let’s hope your driving skills are better than the shooting skills you’re badly neglecting.
Clearly this young fellow named Dicken in Indiana found a way to train himself and hit what he needed to hit. There’s no reason you can’t do the same if your primary weapon is maintained properly.
Mr. Dicken is a hero. We are, or at least once were, a society of heroes. A nation of heroes where selfless valor is a common thing. Heroism should not be a rare thing in this nation. So make sure you’re all heroed up and ready if the time comes when we need you to let out the hero that ought to be living inside you as an American.
The part of the story where this hero was signaling people “behind him” to get out of the way, whether “him” was the killer or the hero himself, indicates clearly he understood the 4th universal rule of firearm safety, know what’s behind your target, to the left and to the right. Yesterday, I read somewhere in a report that while he didn’t have formal training, he did a lot of shooting with his grandfather. Way to go Gramps, you taught the young man very very well.
I’m sure every member has seen this presentation of the 4 Universal Rules of Firearm safety, and while lot of videos are on this topic, I don’t think anyone has done a better job of this than John Lovell, another sheepdog out there.
https://youtu.be/W2Vrc2R1oGU
There are many times in the US where situations are resolved without gunfire with the presence of a GOOD GUY with a gun. Check the NRA stats. There is a regular section every month in the American Rifleman. QED.
and these mass shooters go to “GUN FREE ZONES”
Also check out the USCCA magazine that has articles such as the NRA magazine
I imagine the shopping center will now ban him from ever entering the mall ever again.
There is something wrong with our moral compass when a person is slandered for saving lives.
They are also banning the shooter for ignoring the sign. Guess he won’t be entering the mall again. Eli probably saved the mall from bankruptcy had ten or thirty shoppers been gunned down. They’d be in litigation until hell freezes over.
I figured that would happen. “Gee,thanks for saving lives of our patrons and stopping possible lawsuits. We are so grateful. Now, get out of the store, you are banned for life!’
They should have given him a medal, and something like a coupon for money off for any item bought in any store in the mall.
I also think they should have another sign on the entrances: “There may or may not be people in this store carrying concealed, that are ready to take out mass shooters. “
This episode could have been titled “Hoosier Heroes”. These gentlemen – the citizen in the Greenwood Park Mall and the man in Lafayette (and extra credit goes to Steve for pronouncing the city name like a native) are both heroes. In a country where, increasingly, we see people either running away or pulling out their cell phone/cameras when danger rears its head, these gentlemen saw danger and walked TOWARD it. They not only went over the above the call of duty… they went WAY beyond it, and they have my utmost respect. God grant me the strength of character to do the same if I ever find myself in such a position.
From what I’ve read, he didn’t have or need a permit. Indiana has permitless carry!
Of course spree killers go to gun-free zones. They may be crazy, but they’re not stupid.
America’s “Cowboy Culture” is anathema to the Left, praiseworthy to the Right. Gary Cooper in “High Noon”, who faces evil rather than hoping ‘bad guys’ would go away without a confrontation, is the ultimate example.
Scott “Sheepdog” Ott, running down from his hilltop on all fours, his white/grey/brown hair bouncing off his shoulders, to bite the wolves attacking the sheep….. Oh, the visual.
Arguably, Scott’s beard is more epic than this, but first thought that ran through my mind with your description of Scott “Sheepdog” Ott
BTW – I am more in the Duke’s camp on High Noon and am a huge fan of Rio Bravo.
Thank God for the sheep dogs guarding the flock. And good for Bill bringing up the dilution of the meaning of the words genius and hero when used inappropriately, ubiquitously and far too frequently. Save those beautiful meaningful and descriptive words for those who genuinely deserve them, like the true heroes that they are – Elisjsha Dicken and Kyle Rittenhouse and all others who put themselves in harms way to defend or save the lives of others..
One correction to Scott – Elisha Dicken isn’t a sheep with a gun, he’s a sheep dog. And sheep dogs protect sheep from wolves.
I forgot where I read it yesterday (I think it was Ace), but someone raised a great point – “His heroics were captured by a cop’s bodycam footage”.
So once again, the cops stand by and do nothing. I understand this isn’t as black and white as Udalve, but it’s still not good to see
I was taught all of that in my CCW course – granted, I took it from a guy who trains police and military, but he also teaches teachers and computer programmers. All of that. The taking charge of the situation, the realization that you’ll look like a shooter when the cops show up (they even simulated it, complete with profanity and shouting and we practiced complying).
And the truth is, these mass shooters do NOT expect anyone to shoot back until the cops get there. You’ve disrupted their plan severely simply by fighting back.
Thanks for being one of our sheep dogs, Phil. I hope you never have to use your weapon in the defense of yourself or others, but I’m glad you could if needed.
What blows me away is the people I’ve seen publicly saying “but what if he’d hit an innocent person?”
AREYOUF’INGKIDDING???? No, they are NOT!
Yes, yes, it would be MUCH better to let the asshole shoot more innocent people while they waited for the police to show up.
No more ninnies!
Excellent philosophy, Scott.
More specifically, this applies to both side of this mall scenario. The ninnies with guns need to be driven back into the holes from which they’ve crawled. The individuals with guns, who would bravely defend the helpless, need to be applauded for not being cowardly ninnies hiding in their holes.
We need more ‘good men doing something’.