Concealed Carrying Bystander Nearly Killed Innocent Man During Tucson Shooting By: David Dayen Tuesday January 11, 2011 11:49 am TweetTweet11 Share143 digg stumbleupon Jared Loughner fired 31 shots in Tucson, Arizona on Saturday. At least 20 of those 31 struck individuals. Under the federal assault weapons ban which expired in 2004, it would have been difficult for him to fire more than 10. High-capacity magazine clips were banned from manufacture and hard to get, and the moment of opportunity for the heroes who subdued Loughner came when he pulled out another magazine to reload. Arizona lawmakers have readied a bill which would essentially require the state to offer firearms training to politicians and staffers. Their perspective is that more guns in the public square, not a reduced capacity, would have stopped the attack. But in actuality, more guns nearly caused a tragedy. The new poster boy for this agenda is Joe Zamudio, a hero in the Tucson incident. Zamudio was in a nearby drug store when the shooting began, and he was armed. He ran to the scene and helped subdue the killer. Television interviewers are celebrating his courage, and pro-gun blogs are touting his equipment. âBystander Says Carrying Gun Prompted Him to Help,â says the headline in the Wall Street Journal. But before we embrace Zamudioâs brave intervention as proof of the value of being armed, letâs hear the whole story. âI came out of that store, I clicked the safety off, and I was ready,â he explained on Fox and Friends. âI had my hand on my gun. I had it in my jacket pocket here. And I came around the corner like this.â Zamudio demonstrated how his shooting hand was wrapped around the weapon, poised to draw and fire. As he rounded the corner, he saw a man holding a gun. âAnd thatâs who I at first thought was the shooter,â Zamudio recalled. âI told him to âDrop it, drop it!â â But the man with the gun wasnât the shooter. He had wrested the gun away from the shooter. âHad you shot that guy, it would have been a big, fat mess,â the interviewer pointed out. It turned out that Zamudio actually pushed the holder of the gun into a wall, and thus came much closer to doing violence on an innocent man who had just taken the gun from Jared Loughner than even this description suggests. The potential for yet another innocent death was pretty high here. And a Wild West show with alternating bouts of gunfire seems like an extremely dangerous environment for bystanders. Frank Lautenberg said it very clearly on MSNBC: the difference between this country and practically every other industrialized nation, which has a tiny fraction of the gun violence as we have in the US, is that âwe donât have more madmen, we have more guns.â And increasing the amount of armed people out there wonât help this ratio, either. I recognize that actual legislation reining in the type of mass killing machines we saw in the Tucson shooting is extremely remote. But maybe the Congress could listen to one of their colleagues, who was a victim of gun violence herself: Rep. Jackie Speier (D-San Mateo), who was shot in the 1978 attack that killed Rep. Leo Ryan, told reporters Monday that even if Rep. Gabrielle Giffords makes a full physical recovery from the bullet that tore through her head Saturday, it will be years before she makes a full psychological recovery [...] Speier said there was nothing unique in this political moment that set the attack on Giffords apart from other such violent incidents. âThey are all horrific and many of them occur when the shooter is not at full capacity,â she said. Another commonality, she said âis the easy access to a magazine for semiautomatic weapons.â Speier, rather than focusing on the rhetorical milieu around the attack, which is nearly impossible to legislate (though norms can be raised), focuses on the public policy angle, the easy access to powerful guns capable of mass murder.
Nope, it just ain't working. (shrug) The harder liberals keep trying to smear conservatives regarding this act the more outraged independents become towards them. So do keep up the effort. Don't be troubled by the catcalls and rotten vegetables thrown at you. Keep your chin up and your libtard pride intact!
Nearly killed? Liberal hyperbole as usual. http://www.theppsc.org/Archives/DF_Articles/Files/Oregon/92-Oregonian_Study.htm Estimated that the police in Portland Oregon draw their weapons about 15,000 times per year. Of those 15,000 times less than 5 officers per year can be expected to be in fatal shootings. Now...knowing the statistics would you say those officers nearly kill 15,000 people per year even though less than 5 are actually killed? Why would you then say this guy, who judging by his actions, acted no different than a policeman would've having entered the scene at the same time?
What a load of crap. The CCW guy "could have" shot an innocent man, so therefore concealed carry is an ineffective deterrent from crime and we should stop allowing registered law-abiding citizens from carrying because that will somehow stop criminal psychos from going on shooting sprees?
Problem is you're trying to make sense from the OP's post, sadly it doesn't work that way, as they are just flaming posts intended to incite verbal wars. Notice that the actual crime is not the central emphasis, instead focusing on fictional drama attempting to push a political agenda , but that's what we've come to expect .
.......and all of the lefties here keep looking the other way to THEIR pal BIG SIS!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcAPGD8xgNo .......and even MORE BS coming down the shit pipe from obama's DHS!!! âStop. Think. Connectâ DHS Announces New Fear Agenda http://www.infowars.com/stop-think-connect-dhs-announces-new-fear-agenda/ Start PAYING ATTENTION to what is REALLY HAPPENING and quit wasting your time on what DID NOT HAPPEN.........SHEEEEESH! :eek:
If legally carrying a concealed weapon is so dangerous then there should be a long list of cases where people with gun permits have killed other people while defending themselves or someone else. I've had a CCW (Carry Conceled Weapon permit) for 10+ years and have never heard of a single case where a CCW holder, either in self-defense or in defense of another, killed or injured an innocent person. BTW, after a shooting DO NOT pick up the shooter's gun unless it's absolutely necessary (slide it out of the way with your foot if you can). If you pick up the gun you may get shot by the police. There are at least two cases of this happening that I'm aware of.