Although Uvalde Fiasco Makes Headlines, Heroes Rise Across America

As outrage spreads over details of law enforcement’s failure to act at the Uvalde, Texas, massacre, it’s easy to forget that average Americans usually do stand up to the evil that lurks in the hearts of men. While 400 officers dallied or cowered at the Uvalde school, a Customs and Border Protection agent, Jacob Albarado, received a message from his wife, a teacher trapped inside.“There’s an active shooter,” she wrote as her husband sat down for a haircut. “Help. I love you.” Mr. Albarado grabbed the barber’s shotgun and raced to the scene. Once there, he stormed the building and evacuated as many students as he could. “I did what I was trained to do,” he told the New York Times. That set him apart from the officers who dallied.When on Monday a gunman opened fire at Indiana’s Greenwood Park Mall, another hero arose: 22-year-old Elisjsha Dicken. A citizen without any law-enforcement training, he was carrying a pistol and shot the killer dead within 15 seconds. “He engaged the gunman from quite a distance with a handgun,” Chief Jim Ison of the Greenwood Police Department said, “and, as he moved to close in on the suspect, he was also motioning for people to exit behind him.”Mr. Dicken was licensed to carry a 9mm pistol. He either was unaware of the mall’s status as a gun-free zone or ignored it, just like the would-be mass murderer.“Many more people would’ve died last night,” Mr. Ison said, “if not for a responsible armed citizen that took action very quickly.”Two days before the attempted massacre at the mall, a QuikTrip convenience store clerk found a knife to her throat at St. Charles, Missouri. Again, a citizen acted. “I pulled my gun up,” he said, preferring not to give his name, and fired when the assailant charged. “Every time, you second guess if you have to take a life,” the customer said, “but you also have to think was it for the greater good, and my answer is yes.”Two months ago in West Virginia, a man started firing a semi-automatic rifle into a birthday-graduation party, until a woman — also choosing anonymity — drew her pistol, killing him before he could injure anyone.Still, not every hero needs to be packing heat. They just need to act when the need arises, because sometimes, waiting costs lives. As the Boy Scout motto says, “Be prepared.”At Indiana on Monday, a pizza delivery driver, Nick Bostic, spotted a house on fire. He might have just called 911 and waited. Instead, he ran into the flames again and again, rescuing four children and their 18-year-old sister.The Independence Day parade at Highland Park, Illinois, didn’t have such a bloodless ending, leaving seven people dead, but still there were heroes who led others to safety.A competitive shooter attending the event recognized the distinctive report of a rifle 150 yards away. “Gunfire,” he yelled to those around him, who had mistaken it for fireworks. “Back to the car. Move.”He wasn’t armed, but told me privately, “I believe the shooting might have been shorter had there been a Concealed Carry Weapon carrier in the crowd.“That shooter was in a static exposed rooftop location and might have been suppressed or eliminated had there been a CCW in the immediate area. Increased concealed carry makes softer targets ‘harder’ and less appealing for such attacks.” Although good people can disagree on gun policy, there’s no question that our nation is awash in illegal firearms, not to mention knives, gangs, and big men ready to visit violence on the vulnerable.Such people care nothing for laws and — as we have been reminded in one mass shooting after another — they often fall through the cracks of Red Flag laws and background checks.When trouble starts, as the old cliché says, there’s never a policeman around when you need one. But sometimes, there’s a hero just the same. Whatever the solution for America’s pandemic of violence, we will always need these brave souls, who run into fire when others flee, and dare to challenge the evil when the devil appears.

Although Uvalde Fiasco Makes Headlines, Heroes Rise Across America

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