Las Vegas, NV — Presidential candidate Julián Castro stated during the "2020 Presidential Gun Safety Forum" that the idea of a good guy with a gun being a solution to shootings has been "shattered."
The former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development pointed to the recent shooting in El Paso, Texas, where a gunman drove ten hours to a Walmart to target Latino shoppers.
"This idea of a good guy with a gun versus a bad guy with gun has been totally shattered," Castro said. "This guy must've known that in Texas, where you have open carry, you have concealed carry, you have campus carry, one of the highest rate of gun ownership, that shooter knew he was walking into a place where a lot of people were carrying. And that didn't make a difference."
"So this argument that some have made to suggest that the answer is more guns, to me, over and over again, not only in El Paso, but time and again, that has been debunked," Castro added.
Castro reiterated his claim on his Twitter account.
The myth of a good guy with a gun has been totally shattered.
— Julián Castro (@JulianCastro) October 2, 2019
In Texas—with open carry, concealed carry, campus carry—we’ve had 4 of the deadliest mass shootings in the U.S.
The answer is not more guns—it’s common sense gun reform.#2020GunSafety pic.twitter.com/9Ln0DVwRwv
The amount of defensive gun use vary widely. In a 1995 study by criminologists Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz, they concluded there are between 2.2 and 2.5 million defensive gun uses annually. The Washington Post has reported the number is closer to 100,000 instances each year.
NPR reported a Harvard University analysis of figures from the National Crime Victimization Survey showed people defended themselves with a gun in only 0.9 percent of crimes from 2007 to 2011.