Anti-Gunners Downplay or Ignore Armed Citizen Response in Idaho Shooting

The police chief in Twin Falls, Idaho was quick to credit an off-duty police officer and an armed citizen for saving lives on Saturday when a 24-year-old man opened fire at an In-N-Out restaurant. Three people were killed in the attack and seven others injured, but Police Chief Matthew Hicks said the two men were “heroes” for engaging the gunman, since their actions “helped drive the suspect away from the scene, preventing further casualties.” 

As you might expect, none of the major gun control groups have acknowledged the role that armed citizens played in limiting the harm done by the killer. Some individual gun control fans have at least done that, though not David Hogg or Shannon Watts, who have also remained silent about the armed response. And some of those who have acknowledged the presence of the armed citizens have also argued that the actions of the two good guys with guns actually made things worse. 

A missed shot in a parking lot full of families doesn’t disappear. It keeps traveling.

— Ezequiel Aguilar (@EzequielAguilar) August 2, 2026

This is equally true of a round discharged by an on-duty officer as well as an off-duty officer or a private citizen, so Aguilar appears to be arguing against any kind of armed response to someone intent on committing mass murder. 

Is a slaughter really better than a shootout? Not in my book, and Chief Hicks certainly doesn’t seem to think so either. There was no handwringing from law enforcement in Twin Falls about the actions of the armed citizen or assertions from police that the armed citizen should have left it up to the “professionals” to respond to the shooting. 

From what we know so far, Jordan Salinas appears to have taken training seriously, believing that you never know when you might find yourself in a position where your life or the lives of others are in danger. The 35-year-old is a full-time caregiver to his disabled brother, and told the Idaho Statesman that he started training after another Idaho shooting in 2021. 

Gunmen, he said, went after “soft targets.” A person in a wheelchair — and the aide at his side — would be as soft as they come, he reasoned.

He started taking his training seriously that day, he told the Idaho Statesman on Sunday. He shoots on weekends and trains in the desert outside of Eden, a small town in eastern Jerome County. He’d never pointed his gun at so much as an animal, he said, and never thought he’d need to use anything he practiced. Yet he drilled a four-step approach borrowed from the military, every week, always the same: 

Observe. Salinas ran from the car, gun drawn. Video posted to social media shows a man slinking behind In-N-Out signs and shrubs, seeking out the source of the gunfire. 

Orient. Hidden from view, he established sight lines. He reminded himself to stay disciplined on the trigger. Soon, he saw a man, who police later identified as 24-year-old Chad Williams, standing by the drive-through window. He watched as Williams lifted a rifle to his shoulder and fired toward cars. 

Decide. “OK,” Salinas thought. “This is the guy.” 

Act. He leveled his pistol with both hands, and fired.

“He did not like it when bullets started firing both ways,” Salinas said Sunday morning.

It sure looks like many gun control activists feel the same way. 

Anti-gunners could point to Salinas as the type of responsible gun owner they say they’re not opposed to. He trains on a regular basis, showed situational awareness, and stopped shooting when police arrived on scene. Activists like Esquival could argue that if every gun owner took their training as seriously as Salinas does, he wouldn’t have an issue with bearing arms. 

They won’t, though, because they are opposed to gun owners like Salinas, no matter how much training time he puts in every week. In fact, that weekly training would probably lead to a lot of eye-rolling from gun control fans (at least before this weekend) who would question why anyone would spend so much time rehearsing a scenario that is not likely to play out.

If you’re not regularly spending time at the range, then they think you’re too untrained to act in self-defense or defense of others. If you are spending time at the range on a regular basis, then you’re a gun-obsessed ammosexual who’s just looking for a reason to shoot someone. Heads, they win, tails, you lose. 

In reality, Jordan Salinas is like millions of other gun owners who take their Second Amendment rights and their personal safety seriously. Salinas didn’t go looking for trouble on Saturday, but neither did he run away when trouble found him. Esquival and other gun control activists may wish that Salinas and the off-duty officer had never fired back at the man attempting mass murder, but I think most Americans agree with Chief Hicks that these armed citizens are heroes. 

Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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