The Orlando Pulse Attack: What if Someone in the Bar had a Gun?

Earlier this summer, a lone gunman, armed with a semiautomatic, several rounds, and a hatred for homosexuals gunned down more than a hundred people in a prominent gay bar in Orlando, Florida. Those who survived where left with a sour taste, and others in the community took to television, demanding solutions from the government. Over the several weeks following the attack, politicians and community leaders focused on whether armed citizens could have prevented or deescalated the event. Questions popped up whether clubgoers should be allowed to arm themselves or whether armed victims would have made the matter worse. While the debate has been talked about prior to the attack, the Pulse nightclub event sparked a debate the world will not soon forget.

The Event: What happened at the Pulse?

On June 13, 2016, an American-born man who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) killed 49 people at Pulse, a prominent Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) nightclub in Orlando, Florida (Ellis, Fantz, Karimi and McLaughlin). It is considered the deadliest mass shooting in the United States (Ellis, Fantz, Karimi and McLaughlin). Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old man from of Fort Pierce, Florida, carried an assault rifle and a pistol into the club around 2 a.m. and opened fire (Ellis, Fantz, Karimi and McLaughlin). After a three-hour standoff, police determined 40 victims died and more than 50 were seriously injured (Ellis, Fantz, Karimi and McLaughlin). Police consider the attack a planned terrorist attack, but it had no actual ties to ISIS or other groups (Ellis, Fantz, Karimi and McLaughlin). President Barack Obama declared the attack “an act of terror and act of hate” (Ellis, Fantz, Karimi and McLaughlin). 

Born in New York to parents immigrating from Afghanistan, Mateen said was incensed after seeing two men kiss in Miami, but his parents said he wasn’t very religious not showed signs of ISIS sympathies (Ellis, Fantz, Karimi and McLaughlin).  On the other hand, an Arabic website associated with ISIS news agency Amaq claimed “the armed attack that targeted a gay night club in the city of Orlando…was carried out by an Islamic state fighter” (Ellis, Fantz, Karimi and McLaughlin). But CNN's Salma Abdelaziz, an ISIS investigative reporter, said the message had elements of dishonesty and couldn’t be considered accurate (Ellis, Fantz, Karimi and McLaughlin). 

Unarmed and Defenseless: Why Did No One Have Protection That Night?

During the June 13, 2016 attack, some public viewers wondered why there were no armed clubbers that night. The fact is, a Florida Statute prevents anyone no licensed as a security guard or law enforcement officer from carrying at the club (Husten). Pulse was scheduled as a “gun-free zone” by state law (Husten). Florida’s concealed carry law states: 

A license issued under this section does not authorize any person to openly carry a handgun or carry a concealed weapon or firearm into any portion of an establishment licensed to dispense alcoholic beverages for consumption on the premises, which portion of the establishment is primarily devoted to such purpose. (Fla. Stat. § 790.06 (2016))

Since the Pulse had a license to dispense and serve alcoholic beverages to patrons on premises, those in attendance that night could not lawfully carry a gun. However, there was one person who had a weapon, used it, and made the situation worse. Pulse retained a licensed security guard who carried a non-concealed weapon (Terkel). He was hired to prevent patrons who brought guns from harming other individuals. But the plan backfired that night. Orlando, Florida Police Chief John Mina told reports the “off-duty police officer working security at the club in uniform” opened fire on the attacker, but he missed and allowed the attacker to retreat into the bathroom with hostages (Terkel). At this point, on-duty police and SWAT officials decided to wait on an ambush since there claims the attacker had explosives (Dwilson). 

Opposing Views: What Would Have Happened If Someone Had A Gun That Night?

Many politicians, law enforcement officials, community leaders, and ordinary citizens have stepped forward and offered their opinions about the night. Some promote the idea of armed citizens at the nightclub. The most outspoken support at the time was Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump. Trump claimed having armed citizens at the nightclub would have prevented the attacker from harming as many victims as he did (Terkel). Trump told CNN reporters the Monday following Pulse’s attack “If you had some guns in that club the night that this took place, you wouldn’t have had the tragedy that you had,” Trump said in a CNN interview Monday morning. Pushing the “good guy with a gun” theory, persisted that “if you had a number of people having [guns] strapped to their ankle…you wouldn’t have had that tragedy” (Terkel). Mark Bando, father to one of the slain victims, agrees with Trump (Payton). He wrote in a letter to The Detroit News:

The killer was armed and his helpless victims were not. Yet the anti-gun politicians still want to disarm the populace, enabling these scenarios. It is likely such attacks will continue, until the victim’s start shooting back. That’s the lesson I take from this, for what it’s worth. I’ll bet there wasn’t a person in the club who wouldn’t have traded everything he owned in the world, for a loaded gun. (Payton)

There are others, including Obama, who say the good guy with a gun policy is not as good as one may think (Payton).

Obama held a town hall-style meeting prior to the Pulse attack on June 2, 2016 (Terkel). During his speech in Indiana, he told citizens in attendance the “good guy with a gun” myth doesn’t play out in reality (Terkel). There are factors that cause the scenario to pan out into more violence and deaths (Terkel). Mother Jones reported a similar scenario during the Sandy Hooks attack (Follman). The National Rifle Association (NRA) falsely reported the nation was facing an increase in mass shootings (Follman). But research form news sources state:

Mass shootings in the United States have not increased, based on a broad definition of them. There have been at least 62 such mass shootings in the last three decades, attacks in which the killer took the lives of four or more people (the FBI's baseline for mass murder) in a public place—a school, a workplace, a mall, a religious building. Seven of them occurred in 2012 alone. (Follman)

This doesn’t represent an increase, just an increase in particular years. The NRA suggested, like Trump, that armed civilians would have minimized the attack and decreased lives lost (Follman). Their arguments had no statistical backing, rather a callous report aimed at increasing gun ownership in the nation (Follman). Opponents of arming America have distributed sound advice and statistical reports showing armed civilians would increase the danger rather than expunge it (Follman). 

The Statistics: Has Gun Ownership Change Mass Shootings?

The only way to see how gun ownership affects mass shootings is to look at attacks from the past. The first statistics show how mass shooters die. In America, the numbers show having a gun at the scene wouldn’t matter. Most shooters die from self-inflicted wounds, rather than police or victims shooting back at them. In a Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) investigation that covered more than 160 mass shootings between 2000 and 2013, it was determine that more than 40 percent of active shooters take their own life, while more than 28 percent are killed by law enforcement (Willingham). In retrospect, less than four percent were killed by armed citizens (Willingham).

While many organizations may think increasing gun ownership may change these events, the fact is American citizens own more guns than any other country in the world (Willingham). “Civilians in the U.S. own about 270 million guns, enough to arm every single person in Indonesia” (Willingham). And the majority of shooters had more than one gun during their attacks (Willingham). On the other hand, while Americans own more guns, it doesn’t reduce mass shootings or the deaths involved (Willingham).  Mass shootings are typically an American event (Willingham). Other countries rarely see shootings on the same scale, not counting war zones in the Middle East (Willingham). “From 1966 to 2012, nearly a third of the world's mass shootings took place in the United States (U.S). While the U.S. has five percent of the world's population, it had 31 percent of all public mass shootings” (Willingham).

Works Cited

Dwilson, Stephanie Dube. “Pulse Orlando, Florida Shooting: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know.” 

The Heavy. 12 June 2016. Web. 21 July 2016. http://heavy.com/news/2016/06/pulse-orland-florida-shooting-injuries-names-victims-hostage-who/.

Ellis, Ralph, Ashley Fantz, Faith Karimi and Eliott C. McLaughlin. “Orlando shooting: 49 killed, 

shooter pledged ISIS allegiance.” CNN. 13 June 2016. Web. 21 July 2016. 

http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/12/us/orlando-nightclub-shooting/.

Follman, Mark. “The NRA Myth of Arming the Good Guys: Mass shootings in the US are on the 

rise—and ordinary citizens with guns don't stop them.” Mother Jones. 28 Dec. 2012. Web. 21 July 2016. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/nra-mass-shootings-myth.

Fla. Stat. § 790.06 (2016). 

Husten, Warner Todd. “Orlando’s ‘Pulse’ Gay Bar Was a ‘Gun-Free Zone’ by State Law.” 

Breit Bart Connect. 12 July 2016. Web. 21 July 2016. http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/06/12/orlando-pulse-gay-bar-gun-free-zone-state-law/.

Lynch, Hugh. “Surviving the Orlando Shooting: A Pulse Bartender Shares His Experience.” 

Billboard. 13 June 2016. Web. 21 July 2016. http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/7401405/orlando-shooting-pulse-nightclub-axel-andrews.

Payton, Bre. “Father of Orlando Victim: I Wish Someone Else in That Club Had a Gun.” The 

Federalist. 20 June 2016. Web. 21 July 2016. http://thefederalist.com/2016/06/20/father-of-orlando-victim-i-wish-someone-else-in-that-club-had-a-gun/.

Terkel, Amanda. “Donald Trump Wishes There Had Been More Armed Orlando Clubgoers 

Shooting Blindly in The Crowded Room.” The Huffington Post. 13 June 2016. Web. 21 2016. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-orlando-guns_us_575eb3b5e4b00f97fba8ccf2.

Willingham, AJ. “U.S. home to nearly a third of world's mass shootings.” CNN. 21 June 2016. 

Web. 21 July 2016. http*://www.cnn.com/2016/06/13/health/mass-shootings-in-america-in-charts-and-graphs-trnd/.