A father who opened fire on a teenage gunman during a deadly school shooting in Bend, Oregon, is being hailed as a hero after the attack at Silver Rail Elementary School left three students and a teacher dead.
Kaylub Giamanco, a 36-year-old carpenter, had a legally stored .40-caliber pistol in his vehicle when the shooting broke out at the school where his two daughters were enrolled. Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz said Giamanco entered the building, heard gunshots, and fired his weapon after spotting a teacher physically struggling with the armed teenager.
President Donald Trump praised Giamanco during remarks at the White House on Friday. “It’s a terrible thing, but thank goodness for a man that had a gun and knew how to use it” Trump told reporters.
While the intervention drew widespread attention, researchers say such outcomes are uncommon. The Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training Center at Texas State University studied 634 active attack incidents between 2000 and 2025. Of the 374 cases that ended before police arrived, only 29 were stopped by an armed civilian shooting the attacker.
“They recognize they may be the only way to stop it before law enforcement arrives” said James Keith, a spokesperson for the center.
The Oregon shooting reignited debate over armed civilians as a deterrent to mass violence. Gun rights advocates have long pointed to such incidents as evidence that armed citizens can serve as a critical first line of defense.
Texas has its own high-profile examples. In December 2019, a gunman opened fire during a Sunday service at West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, killing two worshippers before being shot dead by 71-year-old firearms instructor Jack Wilson in a matter of seconds.
Two years earlier, in 2017, Stephen Willeford grabbed his rifle and ran barefoot from his home across the street from the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs after a gunman killed 26 people inside. Willeford wounded the attacker, who eventually fled and took his own life.
More recently, a similar scenario unfolded at an In-N-Out Burger in Twin Falls, Idaho, in August, where an armed civilian exchanged gunfire with a shooter who had already killed three people. The gunman retreated under return fire and later died by suicide.
Texas has taken legislative steps to formalize armed civilian presence in schools. The state launched a school marshal program in 2013 allowing trained staff to carry concealed firearms on campus and expanded armed security requirements following mass shootings in Santa Fe and Uvalde.