The mass shooting in Buffalo, New York last year had a "good guy with a gun." Mr. Aaron Salter was a retired police officer working as an armed security guard at the Tops Supermarket targeted by the racist shooter due to its mostly-Black clientele. Mr. Salter shot the assailant, but did not stop him, because of the tactical gear that the shooter was wearing. It appears that Mr. Salter, a 30-year veteran of the Buffalo Police Department, followed his police training and shot "center of mass" at the assailant, a practice intended to stop an assailant, but also to minimize the chance of missing the criminal and hitting innocent bystanders. Unfortunately, the armor worn by the shooter defeated his effort, and lead to Mr. Salter's death.
So, why do conservatives, by and large, not recognize Mr. Aaron Salter as "a good guy with a gun?" It may be that Mr. Salter's heroism, unsuccessful because it took place in reality and not in the make-believe world of TV, movies or video games, does not fit their unreal stereotype of "good guys always win." But, in terms of stereotyping, Mr. Salter does not fit into the conservative category of "good guy" because he was Black. A "BLACK MAN WITH A GUN!" is always a boogeyman in the conservative mind, even if he is acting heroically, and sacrificing his life, in attempting to protect others.
The major conservative reaction to Mr. Salter's death on social media has been a particularly-ridiculous conspiracy theory that Mr. Salter's hobby of building hydrogen-powered cars was the "real" reason behind the Tops Supermarket Shooting. It wasn't the shooter's devotion to the "Great Replacement Theory" sold him by, among others, Tucker Carlson in his incessant effort to boost his and Fox "News's" ratings and revenue. "Big Oil" caused the shooting, to stop a lone man who, working in his garage, threatened to topple their fossil-fuel empire. Perhaps this is yet another change rung on the Black, armed boogeyman fantasy--that Black man took aim at oil company profits, so he had to be stopped! Of course, this silly idea absolves the role of the mental poison disseminated every day by Carlson, Fox and the other Murdoch media, and allows their racist long con to run onward, unimpeded. Applied racism, in all its ugly, and profitable, glory.
As other recent articles in Daily Kos have explained, American gun culture, first and foremost, serves to protect and increase the profits of gun manufacturers and the careers of the politicians who work for these manufacturers. In this purpose, should an armed, Black hero like Mr. Aaron Salter intrude into this narrative, he or she then must be sidelined, marginalized even by a blatantly-silly counter-narrative. White hats can't be worn by Black heads. A Black Man with a Gun! is, in the end, more profitable (it sells more guns) than A Good Guy with a Gun. A clear case of complete moral, and narrative, bankruptcy, not that conservatives could, or would, ever care.