Last week I wrote a column that burnt the internet down about how a good guy with a gun could’ve “dissuaded” with hot Cor-Bons coming out of his pistol at 1100 feet-per-second the murderous weasel who wasted nine lives and wounded several others at Umpqua Community College.
As usual, and on cue, my detractors (cough… liberals) said how insane I was to augur for guns in the hands of a trained and licensed civilian on campus.
I was hammered with the standard and oft times disastrously deadly blah-blah “wisdom” that we must wait for the cops to sort it out. That guns in the hands of an average Joe would lead to bedlam and only Johnny Law can settle such scenarios.
Look, I’m a big fan of our LEOs, but when that kind of hell is unleashed on a crowd, unless the law is there, like in “there, there,” they usually don’t rock up until it’s too late. At that point the police's job is to fill body bags, draw chalk outlines, mark shell casings, search for the perp and try to comfort the confused.
Here’s a FYI for the dain bramaged liberal: When seconds count … police are minutes away.
In addition to the rely-solely-on-police-to-
Several screamed for me to give just one example of when a civilian with a concealed weapon stepped to the plate and stopped a potentially massive massacre.
When I read that Facebook challenge I was like … man, you poor, brainwashed dupes who only read HuffPo and watch CNN are truly to be pitied. To not know that good guys with guns have stopped, on many occasions, the slaughter of many innocent human lives is both sad and sinful.
It’s sad in the fact that your legislative anti-gun zeal is bereft of reality and it’s sinful in that your gun-free-zone ignorance can and will lead to the death innocent people.
For those who need just one time a concealed-carry civilian stopped a potential massacre, howzabout I give you ten instead of just one?
I’m guessing you never heard of these valiant acts because your “news sources” would never report on heroic acts that don’t fit into BHO’s anti-gun BS.
Check out this wonderful bit of research from WaPo's Eugune Volokh:
1. In Chicago earlier this year, an Uber driver with a concealed-carry permit “shot and wounded a gunman [Everardo Custodio] who opened fire on a crowd of people.”
2. In a Philadelphia barber shop earlier this year, Warren Edwards “opened fire on customers and barbers” after an argument. Another man with a concealed-carry permit then shot the shooter; of course, it’s impossible to tell whether the shooter would have kept killing if he hadn’t been stopped, but a police captain was quoted as saying that, “I guess he [the man who shot the shooter] saved a lot of people in there.”
3. In a hospital near Philadelphia, in 2014, Richard Plotts shot and killed the psychiatric caseworker with whom he was meeting, and shot and wounded his psychiatrist, Lee Silverman. Silverman shot back, and took down Plotts. While again it’s not certain whether Plotts would have killed other people, Delaware County D.A. Jack Whelan stated that, “If the doctor did not have a firearm, (and) the doctor did not utilize the firearm, he’d be dead today, and I believe that other people in that facility would also be dead.”
4. In Plymouth, Pa., in 2012, William Allabaugh killed one man and wounded another following an argument over Allabaugh's being ejected from a bar. Allabaugh then approached a bar manager and Mark Ktytor and reportedly pointed his gun at them; Ktytor, who had a concealed-carry license, then shot Allabaugh. “The video footage and the evidence reveals that Mr. Allabaugh had turned around and was reapproaching the bar. Mr. [Ktytor] then acted, taking him down. We believe that it could have been much worse that night,” Luzerne County A.D.A. Jarrett Ferentino said.
5. Near Spartanburg, S.C., in 2012, Jesse Gates went to his church armed with a shotgun and kicked in a door. But Aaron Guyton, who had a concealed-carry license, drew his gun and pointed it at Gates, and other parishioners then disarmed Gates. Note that in this instance, unlike the others, it’s possible that the criminal wasn’t planning on killing anyone, but just brought the shotgun to church and kicked in the door to draw attention to himself or vent his frustration.
6. In Atlanta in 2009, Calvin Lavant and Jamal Hill broke into an apartment during a party and forced everyone to the floor. After they gathered various valuables, and separated the men and the women, and Lavant said to Hill, “we are about to have sex with these girls, then we are going to kill them all,” and began “discussing condoms and the number of bullets in their guns.” At that point, Sean Barner, a Marine who was attending Georgia State as part of the Marine Enlisted Commissioning Education Program, managed to get to the book bag he brought to the party; took out his gun; shot and scared away Hill; went into the neighboring room, where Lavant was about to rape one of the women; was shot at by Lavant, and shot back and hit Lavant, who then ran off and later died of his injuries. One of the women was shot and wounded in the shootout, but given the circumstances described in the sources I linked to, it seemed very likely that Lavant and Hill would have killed (as well as raped) some or all of the partygoers had they not been stopped. This incident, of course, involves a member of the military, not a civilian, so some may discount it on those grounds. But Barner was acting as a civilian, and carrying a gun as a civilian (he had a concealed-carry license); indeed, if he had been on a military base, he would generally not have been allowed to carry a gun except when on security duty.
7. In Winnemucca, Nev., in 2008, Ernesto Villagomez killed two people and wounded two others in a bar filled with 300 people. He was then shot and killed by a patron who was carrying a gun (and had a concealed-carry license).
8. In Colorado Springs, Colo., in 2007, Matthew Murray killed four people at a church. He was then shot several times by Jeanne Assam, a church member, volunteer security guard and former police officer (she had been dismissed by a police department ten years before, and to my knowledge hadn’t worked as a police officer since). Murray, knocked down and badly wounded, killed himself; it is again not clear whether he would have killed more people had he not been wounded, but my guess is that he would have since he went to the church with more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition.
9. In Edinboro, Pa., in 1998, 14-year-old Andrew Wurst shot and killed a teacher at a school dance, and shot and injured several other students. He had just left the dance hall, carrying his gun — possibly to attack more people, though the stories that I’ve seen are unclear — when he was confronted by the dance hall owner James Strand, who lived next door and kept a shotgun at home. It’s not clear whether Wurst was planning to kill others, would have gotten into a gun battle with the police, or would have otherwise killed more people had Strand not stopped him.
10. In Pearl, Miss., in 1997, 16-year-old Luke Woodham stabbed and bludgeoned to death his mother at home, then killed two students and injured seven at his high school. As he was leaving the school, he was stopped by Assistant Principal Joel Myrick, who had gone out to get a handgun from his car.
So, dear anti-concealed-weapon, pro-gun-free-zone zombies, I wonder: what would have happened in just these ten tense situations if your edict would have been in place, making a firearm in the hands of a credible human being verboten?
Chew on that for a while...
(H/T The Washington Post)
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