10/19/2026
So much truth here...
Rhode Island Restrictions on Display After Parent’s Intervention in Oregon
BEND, OREGON — A father whose two daughters attended Silver Rail Elementary School stopped an active shooter on October 15, before police arrived. Three children, ages five, eight and eleven, and a teacher were killed, while another child and teacher were seriously injured. The death toll was devastating, but the father's intervention stopped the attacker from continuing. It also raises a question that reaches directly into Rhode Island schools: What happens when someone capable of stopping an attack is legally prevented from having a fi***rm immediately available?
Kaylub Giamanco was driving past the school when he witnessed an armed individual fire a sh***un at a pickup truck and run into the school. He drove into the school parking lot, retrieved his legally secured .40 caliber pistol and entered through doors the attacker had forced open. Inside, a teacher had already thrown her phone at the attacker, tackled him and was fighting for control of the sh***un. Giamanco fired, ending the attack.
The first 911 call reached dispatch at 12:59 p.m. Bend police arrived at 1:02 p.m., after the attacker had been stopped. Police said the shooter had fired as many as 15 rounds and still had approximately 44 rounds of sh***un am******on. They credited the teacher and armed parent with preventing further casualties.
Three minutes is an excellent police response time, and much faster than the Rhode Island average. To a child trapped in a classroom with an armed attacker, three minutes can be an eternity. And those three minutes were measured from the first emergency call, not necessarily when the shooting began. Giamanco had already witnessed the violence outside and was responding before that call reached dispatch.
There is another important question in the timeline. Giamanco had to retrieve his pistol from his vehicle instead of having it immediately accessible on his person. Police have not disclosed how it was secured or how long retrieval took, but it was less than instantaneous. Bend-La Pine Schools prohibits fi****ms on school grounds, including those carried by licensed individuals. Retrieving the pistol required additional time during an attack lasting only minutes.
Would saving 15, 30 or 60 seconds have prevented another death? Investigators have not released the precise timing of each shooting, so that cannot be established. But time is not an abstraction to a parent whose child is inside that classroom. Earlier intervention creates the possibility of ending the violence before another shot is fired.
Bend was not an isolated example. On August 1, an armed passerby and Steve McClain, an off-duty Idaho state trooper acting in a civilian capacity at the time he intervened, confronted a shooter at an In-N-Out restaurant in Twin Falls. Three people were killed and seven injured. Authorities credited their intervention with disrupting the attack and preventing additional casualties. The attacker subsequently died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The difference between calling police and confronting an immediate threat is not a criticism of law enforcement. Officers must receive a call, travel to the scene, locate the threat and determine how to respond. At Parkland, Florida, in 2018 and Uvalde, Texas, in 2022, failures to confront active shooters promptly had devastating consequences. Even when officers respond correctly, they cannot arrive before an attack they have not yet been told is occurring.
That brings the discussion directly to Rhode Island. Before July 2021, qualifying concealed carry permit holders were exempt from Rhode Island's prohibition on fi****ms on elementary and secondary school grounds. The Harold M. Metts School Safety Act eliminated that exemption. Today, an ordinary licensed carrier can face felony prosecution and up to five years in prison for possessing a fi***rm on school property. An emergency justification might ultimately provide a legal defense, but it would not necessarily prevent an arrest or prosecution.
Restoring the former exemption would not allow just anyone to carry fi****ms into schools. Rhode Island concealed carry applicants must undergo background investigations and demonstrate handgun proficiency by completing a live-fire shoot. The qualification must be completed with a handgun of equal or greater caliber than the one they intend to carry. Permits expire after four years, and permit renewals require updated qualification testing.
These are individuals who have already satisfied Rhode Island's licensing requirements and are authorized to carry concealed fi****ms in many other public locations. The change would restore a previous exemption for that licensed population, not establish unrestricted carry in schools.
The Bend attacker disregarded locked doors and existing fi***rm prohibitions. The people who stopped him were a teacher fighting with her hands and a father who retrieved his handgun and ran toward danger. Four families still lost loved ones, but the violence ended before police arrived.
Rhode Island's decision in 2021 removed an option previously available to licensed carriers. Restoring it would not guarantee that another armed parent could prevent a tragedy. It would, however, permit qualifying individuals to be armed when an emergency begins, rather than requiring them to retrieve a fi***rm or depend entirely on outside responders.
For parents whose children might someday face such an attack, the stakes are not measured only in statutes, permits or police response statistics. They are measured in seconds, and in what might happen to a child before help arrives.
