Twin Falls Shooting Underlines the Need for Taking Self-Defense Seriously

I recently wrote that more Americans than ever before are carrying firearms for protection, with about 30 percent of the population toting a gun in public at least some of the time. The reason for that growing commitment to armed self defense was underlined last Saturday when a gunman opened fire at an In-N-Out Burger in Twin Falls, Idaho, only to be driven off by people at the spot who were willing to fight back.

“An armed bystander has been hailed as a hero after firing at a gunman during a shooting at an In-N-Out Burger restaurant in southern Idaho, with law enforcement saying it diverted the gunman and saved lives,” Newsweek reported. “Jordan Salinas, 35, a healthcare worker from Kimberly, Idaho, was identified as the man who fired at the gunman.”

Salinas was armed with a suppressed FN Five-Seven, which might make him the only person in the country to pick that unusual setup for everyday carry—though his actions may inspire others. Salinas was joined by Austin James, a former state trooper. James was wounded when he charged the shooter and helped drive him off. Also armed, James “intentionally didn’t draw his weapon because he didn’t want to be mistaken as the suspect by responding law enforcement,” reports the Idaho Statesman.

Three people—Ashley Garibay, Christopher Claunch, and Dale Schultz—were murdered before the gunman retreated and took his own life. As awful as the crime was, quick response by those at the scene kept it from being a lot worse.

“Perhaps the biggest lesson is that the presence of someone armed and willing to engage kept the death count under 10,” commented John P. Correia, the founder of Active Self Protection, which educates people in matters of self-defense. Correia’s observation after the Twin Falls incident builds on insights from firearms trainer Ed Monk, author of First 30 Seconds: The Active Shooter Problem, who argues that killers bent on mass murder must be met with defensive force within the first 30 seconds to avoid a double-digit body count.

Quick action by Salinas, the trooper, and James almost certainly kept a bad situation from becoming worse and far more deadly.

Correia added that the incident offers a couple of lessons. The first: “Carry your gun. You don’t get to set the time and place of needing it, the perp does and he will only tell you about it at the last minute.” He adds that “wherever you are present you need to be armed and willing to love your neighbor if the need arises to protect them from death at the hands of a madman.”

That is, if a would-be mass murderer decides that the path from an inconsequential life to eternal fame lies over a stack of bodies of innocent people, waiting for the authorities to arrive and “do something” is more likely to benefit the killer than to protect potential victims. People are well advised to take responsibility for their own safety and that of those around them.

If you’re going to respond to a threat, knowing what to do and how to do it effectively improves the odds of a good outcome. James presumably had training from the Idaho State Police, which includes Active Shooter Response in its academy’s curriculum. Salinas also “began training seriously after a 2021 shooting at the Boise Towne Square mall” using a “four-step approach borrowed from the military” (apparently the OODA loop: observe, orient, decide, act) according to the Idaho Statesman. It’s not clear if he worked with an instructor or on his own, but it was enough that he rose to the occasion in Twin Falls.

“The return fire drove the shooter from the drive-through, toward an open parking lot at the city’s visitor center. Williams later died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound,” noted the Statesman.

Law enforcement quickly recognized the effectiveness of the actions taken by people at the scene.

“I want to extend my deepest thanks to the off-duty trooper and the good citizen that engaged the shooter,” Twin Falls County Sheriff Jack Johnson said at a Sunday press conference. “These people are true heroes in our community, and their actions diverted the shooter and no doubt saved many lives.”

I’ve recommended in the past that people seek self-defense training that suits their abilities and willingness to act. My wife, son, and I have all trained at Arizona’s Gunsite Academy. I’ve since worked with an independent trainer and I practice my skills with live ammunition approximately once each week and complement that with dry fire and a laser cartridge. Good quality training is available across the country from dedicated facilities as well as from trainers who work on their own.

All the training in the world won’t do much good, though, if you’re unarmed when somebody decides that it’s a good day to go out in a blaze of infamy. That’s why the roughly 30 percent of the population carrying firearms for self-defense is a nice start, but not the final word. It breaks down, according to the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC), into 13.2 percent who “carry all/most of the time” and 16.6 percent “carrying sometimes/rarely.” Those who carry intermittently will be able to respond when they are exercising their self-defense rights, but they’ll be as unprepared as those who never carry if an attack occurs on a day when they leave their guns at home.

Notably, it doesn’t appear that either the off-duty trooper or Salinas hit the In-N-Out shooter with their return fire. Unlike Elisjsha Dicken, who put down a mass shooter with long-distance shots at the Greenwood Park Mall in Greenwood, Indiana, in 2022, the responders in Twin Falls seem to have driven off the murderer without striking him. It’s best to hit the shooter when possible (Dicken, it should be noted, acted within 15 seconds), but suppressive fire can also be effective against a thug who unexpectedly discovers the meaning of “consequences.”

Those who would disarm the American people have been losing ground for years as people increasingly embrace the practical and recreational aspects of shooting, as evolving technology makes it ever easier to manufacture weapons at home, and as the courts recognize the Constitution’s Second Amendment protections for inherent self-defense rights.

It would be nice to live in a world in which acquiring self-defense skills and the means to implement them isn’t necessary. But events in Twin Falls once again demonstrate that’s not the world in which we live. It’s best to be able to respond to threats than to wish they didn’t exist.