Juan Carlos Nazario and Bryan Whittle were both near an Oklahoma waterfront restaurant in May when they heard gunshots and reacted by approaching the scene with their own guns. In a matter of seconds, the two armed citizens became self-appointed protectors, moving to take up positions around the shooter, drawing their weapons and shouting for him to drop his. There was an exchange of gunfire. The gunman was hit several times and fell. Police arrived, and unsure who was who, officers handcuffed all of the men and put them on the ground as the shooter bled out into the grass and died, the Washington Post reports.
The men were soon hailed as heroes. They were also called champions of Second Amendment rights, gun-carrying examples of why Oklahoma’s Republican governor should not have vetoed a bill two weeks earlier that would have eliminated the need for a permit and training to carry a gun in public. Second Amendment activists have urged that more people carry guns so that they are prepared to respond to an armed threat. After the Oklahoma shooting, the National Rifle Association tweeted that it was “just another example of how the best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” Police noted that armed citizens can complicate volatile situations. The first of 57 uniformed police officers arrived just a minute after the initial 911 calls and found a complex scene with multiple armed people and no clear sense of what had happened or who was responsible. “We don’t want people to be vigilantes,” said Bo Mathews, a spokesman for the Oklahoma City Police Department. “That’s why we have police officers.”