When the State Disarms the Innocent, Violence Gets Time to Work

By C. J. Garbo | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice

What happened in Australia was not merely a criminal act. It was a demonstration. A hard, visual lesson about time, power, and responsibility. Dozens of videos show attackers firing openly while innocent people run, hide, and plead.

The footage is disturbing, but it is also instructive. It shows fear. It shows chaos. Most importantly, it shows uninterrupted time. Time during which violence was allowed to operate without resistance.

This is not a theory. It is not ideology. It is a visible reality, recorded from multiple angles. Violence expands when nothing confronts it. It contracts only when it is met.

THE MOMENT THAT DETERMINES EVERYTHING

Every mass attack contains a decisive window. A moment when the outcome is still malleable. Sometimes that moment arrives quickly. Sometimes it arrives too late.

In this case, a single citizen eventually intervened. Unarmed, he ran toward a gunman, tackled him, and disarmed him. That act of courage almost certainly saved lives. It also revealed the deeper failure of the system surrounding him.

He had no tools. No distance. No margin for error. He had to use his body as a barrier between a weapon and the public. That is not a strategy. That is desperation forced by policy.

Had a law-abiding citizen in that crowd been legally armed, the confrontation could have occurred earlier. From a safer distance. With less risk to everyone nearby. Not cleanly. Not without danger. But sooner. Fewer victims. Less time for violence to compound.

Imagine if even one of the hundreds of law-abiding people recording in fear had instead been legally armed and willing to confront the attackers.

The outcome would not have depended on chance or luck, but on immediate resistance. Violence would have met opposition, not submission. The result would almost certainly have been fewer victims and a shorter window for evil to operate.

This is not conjecture. Immediate resistance ends attacks. It does not require universal armament. It requires that someone, somewhere nearby, is capable and permitted to act. Proximity matters. Seconds matter. When violence is confronted immediately, it collapses. When it is delayed, it multiplies.

Disarmament does not remove danger. It redistributes it entirely onto the innocent. It replaces agency with dependency. And dependency is lethal when help is minutes away, and harm is already present.

WHEN POLICY PARALYZES PROTECTION

Reports indicate police were present and unarmed. If accurate, this exposes the second failure. Not of officers. Of doctrine.

Unarmed police cannot stop armed attackers. They can observe. They can relay information. They can wait. Waiting is not a response. It is an institutional pause while civilians absorb the consequences.

When the state claims sole authority over protection but denies both citizens and responders the tools to act decisively, it creates a vacuum at the precise moment when action matters most. That vacuum fills with casualties.

No government values your life more than you do. No centralized system responds faster than the person already on scene.

The American recognition of self-defense as a natural right exists because it acknowledges this fundamental truth about human existence. While Australia does not share that constitutional framework, the underlying principle remains true to reality across borders.

When individuals surrender their capacity to defend themselves, the state promises safety. History shows that promise cannot and will not ever be kept.

THE NARRATIVE THAT DEPENDS ON SILENCE

There is a final truth that becomes obvious once you understand how these stories are told.

If this attack had been stopped immediately by armed resistance, most Americans would never have heard of it. No saturation coverage. No moral panic. No legislative drumbeat. Silence.

That silence reveals the incentive structure.

The media does not study what works. It amplifies what supports a predetermined conclusion. Guns must be framed as the cause. Individual action and motive must remain invisible. You will not see a sustained investigation into how attackers obtained weapons. You will not see serious scrutiny of security posture or response constraints. You will not hear uncomfortable questions about whether disarmament policies contributed to delay and death.

Instead, you will see posturing. Freedom will be framed as recklessness. Responsibility will be framed as danger. The gun, not the individual, will be portrayed as the problem.

If the true goal were to save lives, coverage would focus relentlessly on what ends attacks fastest. It does not. The goal is belief formation, not lifesaving. Fear of self-defense. Trust in systems that repeatedly fail at the moment of truth.

The footage from Australia is honest. It shows violence continuing because resistance was delayed, constrained, or virtually non-existent, be it for one brave, anomalous citizen. That is not compassion. That is a gross policy error, and one whose cost can and should be measured in human lives.

C. J. Garbo is a Colorado native, a 15-year law enforcement veteran, and a public safety professional certified by FBI-LEEDA in Command for Law Enforcement Executives. He has extensive experience in crime prevention, emergency response, and risk assessment, and has served in leadership roles across law enforcement, cybersecurity, and government. He writes from a practitioner’s perspective on public safety, individual rights, and the limits of state power.

Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in commentary pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the management of the Rocky Mountain Voice, but even so we support the constitutional right of the author to express those opinions.