There are several documented cases of armed civilians stopping active-shooter attacks before police could intervene. This incident: on October 15, 2026, an armed community member intervened during the shooting at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon, pursuing and fatally shooting the 16-year-old gunman. Four victims, including three children, were killed, and two others were critically injured. When seconds matter, the police are minutes away.

This is not an isolated example. In July 2022, 22-year-old Elisjsha Dicken stopped a gunman at Greenwood Park Mall in Indiana, killing him after he had killed three people and wounded two others. Police praised Dicken for acting quickly, and surveillance footage showed the shooting lasting only seconds before he intervened. In December 2019, Jack Wilson, a volunteer security team member carrying a firearm, fatally shot a gunman who opened fire during a church service at West Freeway Church of Christ in Texas. Two people were killed, including the gunman, and the intervention ended the attack. In June 2022, an armed civilian also stopped a gunman who opened fire at a party outside an apartment complex in Charleston, West Virginia. These are documented cases, not hypothetical scenarios.

The statistics and definitions also matter. The FBI recorded 24 active-shooter incidents in the United States in 2024, down 50% from 48 in 2023. The FBI defines an active shooter as someone actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area. That is a much more specific category than the numbers commonly circulated in debates about school shootings or gun violence. These attacks are real and devastating, but they are not occurring everywhere, every day. I'll contextualize it like this: you are much more likely to be struck by lightning or die in a bathtub than to be killed in an active-shooter incident.

The definition of a school shooting is another major problem. The K-12 School Shooting Database uses an exceptionally broad definition: a gun being fired, brandished with intent, or a bullet striking school property can qualify, regardless of whether anyone is injured, whether school is in session, or why the incident occurred. That means its totals include gang disputes, domestic violence, suicides, accidental discharges, after-hours incidents and shootings that have NOTHING to do with an attack on students and teachers. Which statistic does the media use? The big number, of course! If it bleeds, it leads. Don't forget, they'll also use raw numbers rather than percentages or rates, so you don't have the proper frame of reference.

Consider two specific incidents. In January 2013, police pursued a man suspected of shooting his mother to the grounds of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal Catholic School in Montebello, California. The suspect, armed with a shotgun, was shot by police on school property. School was not in session, although students and teachers were participating in after-school activities, and nobody else was injured. In June 2026, police pursued a suspect accused of shooting a woman on Long Island to the area around Trinity Elementary School in New Rochelle, New York. Students and families were participating in a field day when the suspect fled on foot near the school grounds. Nobody at the school was harmed. These are the kinds of incidents that can appear in broad school-shooting statistics, despite having nothing to do with a gunman targeting students or teachers.

The hypocrisy is what gets me. Liberal voters don't even call them school gun incidents; they simply call them "school shootings" to purposely mislead Americans about their actual risk. The left, rightfully so, doesn't trust the police, but they also don't want civilians to be able to own firearms. "Common sense" gun laws always start small and end with mass confiscation, and apparently with your populace going to prison for memes like we see in the UK and Canada.

There is a fundamental difference between counting every firearm-related incident associated with school property and counting targeted attacks on students and teachers. The same applies to mass shootings: depending on the definition, the term can include targeted disputes and other incidents that are fundamentally different from an indiscriminate public rampage. FBI active-shooter statistics provide a more focused measure of attacks in which someone is actively trying to kill people in a populated area. Those attacks remain a serious public-safety concern, but they are much rarer than the broadest gun-violence and school-shooting totals suggest.

I'll finish by saying this: the idea that more guns equals more crime is simply not supported by the historical trend. Estimates put the number of firearms in the United States at approximately 168 million in 1980 and 393 million in 2017, an increase of about 134% (likely even higher now). Adjusted for population, that represents an increase of approximately 63% in firearms per capita. Meanwhile, the murder rate fell from 10.2 per 100,000 people in 1980 to 4.1 in 2025, a decrease of approximately 60%. The 2025 rate was tied for the lowest since the FBI began keeping national estimates. More guns have not meant more murders. The claim that increasing firearm ownership must inevitably lead to increasing murder rates is contradicted by the long-term trend.

Sources: FBI, Active Shooter Incidents in the United States, 2023 and 2024; Associated Press, Greenwood Park Mall shooting, July 2022; Associated Press, West Freeway Church of Christ shooting, December 2019; Oregon Public Broadcasting and Reuters, Silver Rail Elementary School shooting, October 2026; K-12 School Shooting Database, methodology and incident records; CBS Los Angeles, Montebello police shooting, January 2013; News 12 Westchester, Trinity Elementary School police pursuit, June 2026; National Academies of Sciences, firearm-stock estimates; FBI, 2025 reported crime statistics.

Fired after 5 days.

They cannot come up with a good response for this. It perfectly mixes their desire for government healthcare with their hatred for Trump

Teaching lessons here

When governments only interest is to enrich themselves personally, as well as their friends. All while screwing over the public.

In a discussion recently with a friend, we spoke of the supposed voluntaryness of taxation, which is is his preferred defense of the institution, as opposed to saying that it is involuntary but necessary. On this occasion he proposed that the state is a homesteader of its boarders, and by an individual's observed preference of staying within them, he agrees to be subject to its arbitration. I responded by challenging the legitimacy of the property claim, saying that the state has not put the lands in question to use. He replied that just as a private landowner has not necessarily put every square inch of his property to use, like a lawn or other more or less uncultivated sector that lies within his fence, his claim is as valid as the state's, for it has put some of it's acquired land to use but not all of it, and it is all sequestered behind its fence. At that point I sort of lost and floundered, saying that the state's claim is totally unreasonable by comparison, and financed with robbery, which was the claim under contention. That evening I did some very brief research and it seems something that perhaps I ought to have said was something about use having exclusivity, though I see that coming to the same impasse.

If you all put forth some clarifying arguments about homesteading, the validity of state property claims, and why, "just leave," doesn't make the state a voluntary institution, or resources on this particular attack, that would be helpful.

I haven't been an ancap for terribly long, so I haven't quite had the time to read all of the works I wish to, e.g. I have not yet read Human Action, so sorry if this is a bit elementary.

What is your religion (or lack of) and where do libertarians stand?

The first argument is usually that ancap is agnostic and can work with any culture, religion, or multi-culture. But this isn't true: some religious dogmas directly clash with the NAP, and multi-cultures lead to constant fighting. On top of that, modern feminism results in women having fewer children, causing society to collapse.

Libertarianism only dictates basic ethics, not personal morals or how people should live.

To solve this problem, I, as an atheist, created a unified culture/religion. If anyone is interested, it’s not a weird cult, just a collection of philosophies and ideas.

Discord: https://discord.gg/pRzdVH9fS2

I also made 2 videos explaining these exact points:

What Happens When A Society Loses Religion: https://youtu.be/9sb142VTul4

The Real Reason Politics is Broken: https://youtu.be/VgPGDGFV3Xo (a bit forced, but the content is solid)

This Trump donor was awarded a no-bid contract. It has made him a billionaire. In 6 years, he's only built 3 miles of wall. And of those 3 miles, the foundation is eroding away from weather.

Maga beat a woman for wearing a shirt that said release Epstein files.

We have 6 states with 50 50 custody in the united states, and we are seeing millions of fathers no longer paying child support, just like how in 2008 we had 6 states with gay marriage, and Pennsylvania might be joining them soon

That concludes whatever "umad?" and "pay your child support deadbeat" portion of the program in whatever child support debate below. You can shout "umad you would have to pay support if you lived here bro?" and I can should "u mad I can knock up your sister and not pay her a dime in Missori bro? and then if she doesn't pay her 50% of the expenses with her woman earning abilities, we talk about her losing custody and paying me support bro?" and my umad is slightly sweeter, because we might have federal and international 50/50 custody in 20, 30 years

"This is off topic to ancap:" Negative rights violations are relevant to ancap. Child support is a violation (outside of proven abuse or a contract) just like how being taxed to pay for welfare is a violation.

One more time: umad? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNUHNJHMd4Y

I'm becoming increasingly worried about the situation in Iran and what it could lead to. It's plainly obvious that Trump and the admin behind him, and the deep state along with Israel and other interests, aren't going to walk away from it, but it's also obvious the majority of the U.S. population doesn't want to be involved. The last time the U.S. population was largely united behind a military action was after the 9/11 attacks. My fear is the people who want this war know that and will allow another such attack or maybe even push for a false flag to manipulate the U.S. population to support all out war in the region.

Where are all these terrorist sleeper cells in the U.S. we were all supposed to be scared of? From what I understand these supposed groups were not supposed to be Shia and weren't aligned with Iran but largely Sunni, and even if that's correct I don't think it's a detail the U.S. population would let get in their way if there was another massive attack and the government were to direct their desire for revenge against a largely Shia population.

Any thoughts? To me it seems the logical next step for the deep state and the war machine to truly escalate this war. Or, is it possible that they'll be happy with funding a low grade conflict over years because it makes just as much money over more time, and they're not all that concerned about any of the actual goals stated to justify this war?

I know plenty of people who aren't in favor of the war but also aren't very political or engaged, but a massive attack would lead a lot of those types to seek blood and even support the use of nuclear weapons in the region, I fear.

(English isn't My native language)

In a hypothetical scenario where I own 100% of a mineral so important that life on Earth would simply be impossible without it, I don't want to use it, I don't want anyone else to use it either, I don't want to sell it or extract any kind of benefit from that private property, and so all of humanity dies — would that fall within anarcho-capitalist theory? Third parties were harmed by my decision to use my private property as I please, without directly involving third parties