I’m glad no innocent people died. But the incident comes closer to proving the NRA wrong than right.

Two armed citizens kill shooter who opened fire in Oklahoma restaurant

Let’s all be glad no innocent people were killed. Period.

Let’s also attend closely to the facts before the NRA arrives claiming that good guys with guns, or whatever.

Two points need making about this incident.

First, there was no deterrence. For years my pro-NRA friends have assured me that “an armed population is a polite one.” Nobody in their right mind would draw a gun when they know others might be armed.

In modern America – especially in a place like Oklahoma –  there is absolutely no way a rational person could assume that people are’t going to be armed.

Of course, there’s that “right mind” piece, which would be more reassuring if we lived in a society with mental health care. But I digress.

There’s not much in recent history to suggest a deterrent effect. And, in point of fact, there was none here.

Second, the armed citizens didn’t prevent any murders. The shooter walked in, shot two people and left, whereupon he was confronted in the parking lot by two men and killed.

That the two victims are alive (as of the most recent reports) has nothing at all to do with the armed citizens.

I expect this incident to be claimed as a pro-carry case study by the gun lobby and the legislators who report to it. But facts matter. In OKC, the facts are the armed citizens kept a shooter from getting away and that’s it. They didn’t prevent anything and they didn’t stop anything.

In other words, the incident proves anything, it’s that the NRA is wrong.