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Good Guy with a Gun Stops Shooter

Good Guy with a Gun Stops Shooter

The story is not unique.  It has happened many times.  A good person with a gun was able to prevent a shooting by taking down the shooter.  Of course, those events do not get widely reported or periodically summarized as part of the national conversation on guns and gun control because they go against the leftwing anti-gun narratives.

This time it was the Turnberry Tower resident apartment in Las Vegas on June 26.  

According to surveillance cameras, Andrew Warrender, 32, arrived at the building in a valet driven car at 2:14 in the afternoon.  He had been a resident of Turnberry Towers for more than a year and had never caused any problems in the past.  But residents reported that he was “acting strange” that day.  The the valet driver later reported that Warrender told him he was “not okay.”  

Forty-five minutes later, Warrender was caught on camera walking down the stairs from the 36th floor –holding a rifle. He exits the building from a side door and re-enters from the front door.  He goes to the elevator lobby while talking on his cell phone.

Warrender is approached by a female office manager and assistant. He makes several threatening gestures. They duck behind a desk and ultimately barricade themselves in an office.  He fires one shot before his gun jams.  He again takes aim and again the gun malfunctions.  At that time, he bursts through a glass door and starts to exit the building.

Regardless, the security guard takes down Warrender with a burst of 10 to 12 shots.  Warrender was wounded, but not fatally.  The guard holds his gun on Warrender until police and medics arrive. Warrender removes the ammunition from his gun as he waits.

The management and residents of Turnberry Tower hailed the security guard as a hero who very likely saved the lives of any number of employees, residents and other citizens who might have been in Warrrender’s path.  The name of the hero of the day was not revealed at the time of this commentary.

This was a potential mass shooting that did not happen because a good guy with a gun stopped a bad guy with a gun.  That is not a unique situation.  In many cases, the good guy with a gun did not even have to shoot – just threaten.  Guns can take down a bad guy or just intimidate.  In either case it ends a potentially dangerous situation.

I have often asked friends who want to limit the number of legal guns in the public environment this question.  If you were in a situation where a mass shooter was targeting you and your family, would you hope that no good guy near you would have and use a gun?  Personally, I do not own a gun, but if I was in that situation, I would be praying that everyone next to me had one – and would use them.

I am betting that the hardcore leftwingers will be questioning the actions of the security guard.  After all, Warrrender’s gun had jammed.  He was fleeing the building.  Of course, there was no guarantee that he wouldn’t fix the gun – and that he would not use it against other folks as he ran.  Lethal force is totally justified when the person presents a reasonable threat of harm or death to others.  The security guard’s action was more than justified.  It is what he was hired to do.

When considering restricting the carrying and use of guns, we should keep in mind that the vast majority of honest gun owners are not committing crimes or horrific shootings.  They are mostly committed by people with stolen guns – people who possess them illegally.  Yes, there are rare occasions when a person commits a crime with a legally possessed gun – but that is the exception, not the rule.

The most important gun regulation is to get the illegal guns out of the hands of bad guys – the street gangs, convicted felons, folks who have been institutionalized for mental conditions — people who should not have guns.  Conversely, I appreciate the good guys (and gals) who have them.  They just may save my life one day.

So, there ‘tis.

About The Author

Larry Horist

So, there ‘tis… The opinions, perspectives and analyses of businessman, conservative writer and political strategist Larry Horist. Larry has an extensive background in economics and public policy. For more than 40 years, he ran his own Chicago based consulting firm. His clients included such conservative icons as Steve Forbes and Milton Friedman. He has served as a consultant to the Nixon White House and travelled the country as a spokesman for President Reagan’s economic reforms. Larry professional emphasis has been on civil rights and education. He was consultant to both the Chicago and the Detroit boards of education, the Educational Choice Foundation, the Chicago Teachers Academy and the Chicago Academy for the Performing Arts. Larry has testified as an expert witness before numerous legislative bodies, including the U. S. Congress, and has lectured at colleges and universities, including Harvard, Northwestern and DePaul. He served as Executive Director of the City Club of Chicago, where he led a successful two-year campaign to save the historic Chicago Theatre from the wrecking ball. Larry has been a guest on hundreds of public affairs talk shows, and hosted his own program, “Chicago In Sight,” on WIND radio. An award-winning debater, his insightful and sometimes controversial commentaries have appeared on the editorial pages of newspapers across the nation. He is praised by audiences for his style, substance and sense of humor. Larry retired from his consulting business to devote his time to writing. His books include a humorous look at collecting, “The Acrapulators’ Guide”, and a more serious history of the Democratic Party’s role in de facto institutional racism, “Who Put Blacks in That PLACE? -- The Long Sad History of the Democratic Party’s Oppression of Black Americans ... to This Day”. Larry currently lives in Boca Raton, Florida.

6 Comments

  1. Mike f

    You may be right Larry, ultra left May question the actions of this security guard. I believe that security guards should have guns (and should be trained in how to use them). I believe he was justified in using his gun, but I am sure that a decision and likely a court case will be the final determining factor. However, this does not change the fact that there are too damn many guns in this country, and a large percentage of the people that have them have absolutely no business having a gun….

    • larry Horist

      Mike f … We seem to have found an area of general agreement. My focus has long been on the illegal guns and the guns in the hands of those who should not be allow — convicted felons, folks with mental health issues. Many states have such laws. Under those laws both Hunter Biden and Senator John Fetterman would not be allowed to possess guns. The big problem is the illegal guns in the cities… gangbangers and drug dealers. They account for most mass shootings.

  2. frank stetson

    blah, blah, blah — good guy with a gun… In my research, not updated in over five years, I struggled to find a good guy with a gun done wrong. They always seemed to whip it out at the right time, make their mark, and not miss. Very rare to find different.

    Today is different. The numbers are so much higher, there are so many guns. Today we can find many cases of good guy with a gun goes bad. And the reasons are startling: minor disputes, bad day, oops, you name it. Today, we are increasingly using guns to solve mundane, everyday, issues. It’s just a numbers game and the numbers are rising, all around.

    Soon, FL will allow permit-less concealed carry. Watch: what can go wrong with that….. The simple fact is that with more guns, there will be more gun deaths. With more good guns with guns, there will be more good guys with guns that go bad. And they are missing the target more often too. We have to ask ourselves: do we want everyone to be packing, all the time, because everyone is packing OR would we rather that using a gun to commit a crime is a extreme rarity as it is in many developed nations in the world?

    Given all the guns, my best answer would be to make gun crime punishments so heinous that use pretty much means life behind bars. Heinous just for holding a gun in a crime, beyond heinous for firing a gun in a crime, don’t care if you hit your target or not. In today’s world, we are proud a good guy with a gun was there. We apparently need them everywhere. In our condo’s, in our schools, in our shops, everywhere — 24×7. In my world, using a gun is tantamount to throwing your life away — better be real sure before you point and click. And yes, there is an issue with that too. Once you make the punishment heinous, murder does not hold as much as an uplift in punishment. Of course, that’s where the death penalty with minimal appeals come in :>(

    On this story, while I am sure Larry got his facts right, of course the facts are changing. In the end, IF he goes to trial, my bet is acquitted, although I doubt they will try manslaughter (really looks that he intended to kill), but murder is tough given his fear of imminent harm, although in this case, perhaps not to self.

    Turns out it’s a condo building complex just blocks off the strip, remember that. It’s Vegas. He’s staying with a relative and, apparently upset, takes a stroll around the building and grounds with a long gun: perfectly legal in Nevada. Lovely. Cuz you never know when a wild critter will roam up in Vegas, in the desert…. After he pops a shot off, there is some question as to whether he’s aiming at an employee or the glass door, gun jams, he runs from the building when a security guard, who does not have a company gun — they do not offer them —- but he’s got his own gun, and as the guy is running away, he empties a clip into him 11-13 shots and I think they are saying 13 or more. Most certainly, he is trying to kill the guy, but inept. And I do agree, if your mark is not dead, if he still holds the gun, you keep shooting. Apparently a good gun with a gun does not mean the guy is good with a gun. But again, he did not hit anything important that was not the bad guy. No innocents were harmed.

    But apparently he is not a security guard but a groundskeeper, not that that really matters. He’s a good guy with a gun, legally. And it speaks to the value of everyday folk being armed at all times.

    His stated defense is he thought the guy was an imminent danger…..to others. Sounds good enough to me although I would investigate since unloading a full clip raises questions. Probably nothing, but just to be sure.

    Yet to say this may not have happened if OPEN CARRY was not allowed in Nevada is true. If it was illegal for him to stroll about fully locked n loaded, perhaps it would have never happened. You must permit for concealed carry, but open carry, including holstered, is f-ing ok skippy out there. If open carry was not allowed, the security guard might have taken action before the first shot. And now we will see if Florida is full of good guys with guns or octogenarians out of control…

  3. larry Horist

    Frank Stetson … the guy was not “taking a legal stroll with a gun.” He was brandishing it. Threatening innocent people, who ran an hid in an office. He fired the gun. More than enough to see him as a threat of harm or death — justifying lethal response. Does matter if the other guy was a security officer, and lands keeping or granny going to the store. He was running from the building — although he was exiting. But that did not men he was not a threat to folks outside. He had to be stopped. Once lethal force was justified, the number of bullets is not relevant. In fact, they seemed to be necessary to take the guy down.

    In shoot outs, innocent people do get wounded or killed. It is rare interns of a good guy with a gun…. much more common with a bad guy with a gun. It is an all too common occurrence in the inner cities, where little kids are killed routinely. The gun problem in America is a matter of bad guys or mentally ill guys and illegal guns. Not general gun ownership.

    The fact that there are so many guns in America — and so few of them used to murder or injure — is a testimony to the vast, vast majority of gun owners. Even very very few police ever use their gun in their entire career.

    • Joseph S. Bruder

      First of all, this is not typical, indeed I would say it’s absolutely unique. How often does a gun jam after the first shot and the shooter runs away? A security guard is not a “good guy with a gun”, he or she is supposedly trained and prepared for things like this. But in any other circumstances, that guard would be pushing up posies. It’s just dumb luck that he or she could shoot the bad guy in the back without taking fire (and it took him/her 10-12 shots to do it, and still the bad guy was only wounded – that guard is some crack shot, huh?). If it takes 10-12 shots just to wound the attacker, how long would that guard have lasted if bad guy’s gun hadn’t jammed? Jeez, I haven’t shot a gun in 10 years, but I’m pretty sure I could do better than that.

      Secondly, the shooter was acting weird and “brandishing” the gun for at least an hour before the attack. In a normal world, where it’s not legal to “brandish” guns in public, people would call the police, or someone might tackle him before the shooting starts and hold him down until the police came. But nowadays, in most Republican-led states, and enforced by right-winged court decisions, everyone is allowed and even encouraged to carry a gun, openly, in public, without licenses or training. Taking a gun away from someone just because they’re open-carrying would likely get you arrested instead of them. Walking down the street in camo gear with AR-style guns is not considered “brandishing”, but it certainly scares all the locals. If they had to be licensed and trained for responsible gun ownership, could only “carry” on their own property, transport their weapons in locked cases in the trunks of their cars, and needed licenses to conceal-carry in public, well, then police could take down the real bad guys with a gun because they would stand out like a sore thumb.

      And once again, Larry, you make the excuse that guns should not be allowed for “convicted felons, folks with mental health issues”. Well, most people are neither, until they start shooting people. You’re just parroting the NRA rhetoric – they’ve done a good job indoctrinating you. And with some 400+ million guns in the hands of Americans, how are you planning to take away all those guns from future felons and future “folks with mental health issues”? They can go down to the local gun shop (you know, the one that has slogans like “Give me liberty or give me death”, “Guns don’t kill people…”, “defend your freedom”, “Protect your 2nd Amendment rights”, “MAGA”), and walk out with a dozen AR’s and enough ammo to kill everyone in their town.

      The problem is, that if you give EVERYONE in the country a gun (or 4 or 5 of them), you increase the odds that “bad guys” and “folks with mental illness” own guns BEFORE they’re recognized as being bad or having mental illness. And you give them guns that can kill lots of people in minutes, in fact, they’re designed to do that. 50 years ago, if you needed a gun, you got a license and stated your reason for it, and kept it in your house except when shooting critters on your farm or going hunting. And you didn’t have a gun that would rip a person’s body in half with just one hit. And you didn’t carry it in public, openly or concealed, unless you had a very good reason.

      Larry, is more guns in the hands of citizens about “protecting freedom”? Instead of using the ballot box to peacefully change the government, are they going to do it violently with guns? Throw out the Constitution and put themselves in charge? These arm-chair warriors will lose if they go up against the US government. And do you really feel more free? If anyone anywhere can get pissed off and start shooting at random people, where can you go where it’s safe? Shopping? Nope, a bunch of mass shootings at groceries and malls. Movies? Not there either, big mass shootings there. Your kid’s school? Sorry, kids can get guns too. Anywhere there’s a crowd? Ha, fuggetaboutit! Are you locked in your house with a pile of guns ready to defend your living room against attack? What problems have guns actually solved, compared to all the problems they’ve caused?

      Even extreme cases, such as the Russians taking Crimea about 10 years ago – do you think that if every citizen had a gun and 20 rounds of ammo in their pantry, that they could have gone up against soldiers with military weapons? Ukraine was a country of farmers, they probably had those kinds of weapons available. Not until they got training from the US and NATO, got real military weapons, and fought together like soldiers were they able to stand up to the Russian army. The second amendment explicitly cites “a well regulated militia” – that’s the part the NRA and the right wing ignore.

      Where is your proof that most gun crimes are committed with stolen guns? Any statistics to back that up? And why would they need to go through the trouble of stealing guns, when they can walk down the street and buy a cart-load of brand new guns? Are you counting kids who use their parents’ unlocked and unguarded guns as “stolen”? Are you considering illegally purchased guns as stolen? Straw purchases for someone who can’t get a license? Unlicensed private sales? Gun show purchases?

      And puh-leez, “The fact that there are so many guns in America — and so few of them used to murder or injure” – are you nuts? Do you just ignore the statistics because they don’t fit your worldview? The US has the highest gun death rate in the world (except for war zones), directly correlated to the highest personal gun ownership in the world. In the US in 2021, 21000 were killed by guns, and an additional 28000 committed suicide by guns – not even counting how many people were injured. That’s hardly “few”. As of May, there were already 14000 people killed by guns, and more than 180 mass shootings. You wrote your response on July 3rd – did you not notice the 17 mass shootings, 18 people killed, 102 wounded over the holiday weekend? At least half of that had happened before you wrote your reply.

      It’s long past time to rethink your gun stance, Larry.

      • larry Horist

        Joseph S Bruder … Again your opinions are based on your own narrative — not fact based. The situation was not unique — other than the gun jamming. I can only recall two other occasions in which a shooter’s guns jammed. As I understand the time line, I do not believe the guy was brandishing the gun for an hour. He came down form his apartment … confronted the two ladies … threatened them with the gun … fired off a shot … and was taken down as he was leaving the building. I took that from the moment-to-moment police report. I had seen two different reports. He was either a security guard or a landscaper.

        Regarding gun crimes. It is a matter of police statistics. I am referring to gun crimes — not just mass shootings. Of the more than 350 mass shooting so far this year, the vast majority are gang related, domestic situations and job issues. Virtually none are politically motivated as one left-wing looney claimed on MSNBC.

        There are stolen guns … ghost guns. But the possession of a gun by a person who is ineligible makes it an illegal use. If a felon uses a gun it is an illegal gun.

        You claim that folks are sane until they use the gun. Sorry. Other than the gang wars, most shooters are mentally off balance — and have a notable history for mental issues. Get the illegal guns off the streets and you go along way to mitigating the problem.

        You simplistic association of the number of guns and the number of gun deaths is a distraction from the issues that cause individuals to kill others — or themselves. Given the number of guns in the public, the per gun murder rate is rather low. We have a high rate of gun ownership not because of the politicians, but because that is the preference of the majority of the people. That is why you do not see the Second Amendment politicians getting. My disagreement with you is that you curse the darkness and deflect of dealing with the issues can have an impact on gun violence. You are more inclinded to make guns a political issue than a social problem.