Years ago, I coined the idea of "Berg's 18th Law of Media Latency" - which reads:
Nothing the media writes/says about any emotionally charged event – a mass shooting, a police shooting, anything – should be taken seriously for 48 hours after the original incident. It will largely be rubbish, as media outlets vie to “scoop” each other even on incorrect facts.
I need to write a corollary — something to the effect of "if you go much beyond that period without a motive - then you know the motive". It'll be something inconvenient to Big Left's narrative.
Of course, the killer (whose name I won't publicize any more) isn't around to answer questions.
And the main reason he's not around, but most of the people in that In-n-Out are alive to answer questions, is that two "good guys with guns" were there, fighting back.
Lane Koehn, 34, was at a stoplight just outside the fast-food restaurant when he saw a person with an AR-style rifle emerge from the drive-thru. Bullets struck a car in front of him, and Koehn watched the shooter move through the drive-thru toward his own car, he told NBC News
“I could tell he was trying to figure out where to go, and somebody in the drive-thru line with a handgun was shooting at him,” Koehn said.
He described the shooter as “panicked,” looking around and moving “kind of erratically.” Koehn believes the armed bystander kept the gunman from shooting at more people.
“The shooter was solely focused on him, and [it] allowed us to get out,” Koehn said. “I mean, the car directly ahead of me was getting shot — it gave them time to leave.”
An off-duty Idaho state trooper was one — he was critically wounded in the incident (his wife, a nurse, apparently saved him with first aid on the scene). He's not doing interviews yet. I'll be looking forward to any he gives when he makes, as expected, a full recovery.
The one who is giving interviews, Jordan Salinas, gave a good one to Good Morning America this week, pointing out
He sums up the main point — while he didn't hit the shooter (we'll come back to that), he and other witnesses noted that facing resistance that had the ability to end him threw off his focus. His plan collapsed. He was too busy returning fire to kill innocent bystanders.
Brandon Herrera, Guntuber and GOP-endorsed congressional candidate in Texas's 23rd Congressional District, did his own (extravagantly NSFW) has one of the big takeaways; people have a choice — when worse comes to worst, either shrug and hope you're not a victim, or become willing and able to respond.
Now, if you're a Second Amendment activist, part of the good news is the fact that two "good guys with guns" ended the situation and we have yet to see an impassioned condemnation of "vigilantism" in the New York Times, is either a sign that the culture is changing, or a sign that the Times has given up on hiring people who know where Idaho is or — my money is on this — a little of both.
Of course, the internet is full of close quarters self-defense experts. They're the same people who were experts on "international laws" two weeks ago.
Jordan Salinas missed so many shots, he actually put more civilians at risk. Chad Williams literally killed himself. Honestly, white people have got to stop trying to make themselves seem like the next Captain America. Because that spirit ain't with y'all. https://t.co/tYav2qrcQi pic.twitter.com/IFpfpe3Sv2
— ĴĐΔỮŇŦŁ€ŞŞ 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄 (@JDauntless01) August 3, 2026
Jordan Salinas is a larper, not a hero in my eyes. When the moment actually required action, he failed to execute and got shot instead. If anything, he was a liability and a danger.
— Bardhi Bets 🇦🇱 (@BardhiBets) August 3, 2026
"Salinas missed!"
It's true — and it misses (heh) the point.
In the aftermath of Columbine, a study of spree killers showed that the tactics of the day — sit tight and wait for the SWAT team — were the exact wrong thing to do. Resisting them with lethal force is the key — and it doesn't matter if that force comes from cops (as in the Covenant Christian School shooting, where the police went straight in after the shooter), citizen security guards (like Jack White or Jeanne Assam). or citizens like Eli Dicken (who killed a spree killer in Indiana with an amazing bit of marksmanship) or Nick Meli (who didn't fire a shot, but the spree killer ran away and shot himself anyway).
The real lesson — social media experts notwithstanding — is that resisting with lethal force confuses the shooters, causes them to break from their plan (go back to Ms. Koen's quote at the top of this piece) and usually either give up or, as the Twin Falls shooter did, kill themselves.
A whole lot of people are alive today because of two good guys with guns.
I'm not sure why that bothers so many people.
