Time and time again, we see these mass shootings, and we brace for the inevitable response from the anti-gunners. They’re going to call for more laws, more regulations, more restrictions on our sacred and protected rights. They’re going to stomp and scream and wail that if we don’t do exactly what they want to do, then we’re favoring mass shootings.

However, we keep pointing out that these things happen in gun free zones. They’re happening in cases when gun control either fails or others fail to do their part to prevent it. We keep saying that just one good guy with a gun could make all the difference.

Well, at the Borderline Bar & Grill in Thousand Oaks, CA, we have one survivor who says he would have liked to have been that good guy with a gun, only he couldn’t be.

Last night I went to the country bar Borderline in Thousand Oaks, California with my girlfriend Ally and her two friends. I am 20 years old and have lived in Thousand Oaks my whole life. I currently go to California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks and am a sophomore. We were having a great time, until at about 11:20 pm when shots started going off. Smoke grenades were thrown by the entrance, which limited my view of the shooter. It was a pistol I believe, and as the shots started, my girlfriend and I ducked behind the DJ booth. … I believe this area was a gun free zone, and although there was security, I don’t believe any were armed. I do know that one security officer was killed right when the shooting started. If just one person was armed, there is a possibility that it could have been stopped then and there. This is why gun free zones are a danger to us all, and if someone had been there armed, those people would still be alive.

The author of this, a man named Alex Chatoff, praised the police for their quick response in taking out the killer, but he has a point. People inside the bar could have done that as well…if California law didn’t do so much to discourage people from being able to protect themselves.

Even if the bar itself wasn’t a gun free zone, California law makes it darn near impossible for anyone to get a concealed carry permit, particularly in more liberal areas of the state. That alone would increase the likelihood of people being murdered and having no one there to stop it.

But Chatoff is lamenting not having a gun, and I would be too. What he, his girlfriend and their friends went through was awful in ways I’ll hopefully never be able to understand. But I also have to think part of the horrors would be being powerless to do a damn thing about it except to run. Some people aren’t wired that way, but California has decided that good guys are only allowed to save lives if they have a badge.

That’s a shame.

For what it’s worth, I wish Chatoff had been armed as well. Maybe then, we wouldn’t be mourning as many deaths today.