I've thought about this a lot given that I'm from Dayton, have lived here for most of my life, and had driven down the very same stretch of road in the Oregon District where there the murders occurred barely 24 hours before it happened. Someone I work with lives in an apartment around the corner from Ned Pepper's bar. I know the layouts, and where things are.
The police response was swift and decisive, and fast. Part of me is amazed that this shooter chose that area. It's always heavily patrolled by police and everyone knows it. From the POV of someone wanting to inflict damage, it's a terrible choice. Hell the El Paso shooter even said he was specifically avoiding the hard targets where he'd be taken down quickly.
The police response kind of shows two things. First, it's true that only good guys with guns can stop bad guys with guns. Second, that multiple good guys with all kinds of guns, radios and centralized dispatch can stop a bad guy in under 60 seconds, and 9 people are still dead with 20-something more wounded, and some very seriously.
Could you or I have stopped this shooter? It's pure speculation. This a-hole was not only toting a weapon far more powerful than anyone can carry concealed, he was sporting some kind of body armor also. People can make jokes about calibers all day long, but quite likely nobody with a pistol could have stopped this attacker without a precise head shot, during complete chaos, with innocents running in every direction, and the cost of a miss being life-or-death. As armed citizens we don't operate in teams, we aren't the horn with a dispatcher or each other. And none of us are on duty to charge toward a live shooter -- thank God none of the responding officers was shot. I don't know if they were even shot at. But any of them could have been killed on that street before the shooter went down. If Joe Citizen is present at the scene with his family, then charging out to fight back may be his best option to keep them safe, even if only to slow down the attacker until more firepower arrives. Joe is probably willing to die for that. If Joe's family is home asleep and he's out for sandwich with his friends, his best move for protecting his family is to escape or shelter and stay alive so he's still there for them in the morning.
Anyways, even if Rob Pincus had been there on the scene, I have to realistically assess that his chances of stopping or affecting this outcome at roughly zero. Too many variables, too much chaos, too many unknowns, and the real cavalry was already there in less than 30 seconds raining gunfire down on the killer. One guy with a Glock 43 isn't going to add much unless he'd been *right there* at the moment it broke out, had a clear shot, and wasn't standing in the line of fire.
Maybe I'm pessimistic but that's just how it seems to me.
