A man walked into an Oklahoma restaurant…
… It sounds like the beginning of a joke. It’s not. He opened fire, injuring four.
Then, a good guy with a gun saved the day:
A man “opened fire” Thursday in an Oklahoma restaurant, leaving at least four people injured, before he was fatally shot by a bystander, police said.
I’m going to guess there aren’t going to be a lot of restaurant shootings in Oklahoma anytime soon.
A good guy with a gun and a baby, attacked by four thugs, fails to become a tragic statistic:
Four men were at a McDonald’s in Memphis’ Orange Mound neighborhood when they attempted to rob the father, police said. David Chase, who witnessed the attempted robbery from across the street and called 911, told WREG the father fought back.
“They jumped out of the car and they started fighting him and trying to take his wallet and stuff,” Chase told the news station. “He was fighting them. He dropped his baby and started fighting them and the child was just sitting on the concrete.”
Chase said he heard three to four gunshots. The father is believed to have shot at least one of the suspects.
Fingers crossed for the good guy.
Woman who saved the life of a cop who was losing a fight with a meth-head…
As the situation grew increasingly dire, Jaehnen, a concerned female neighbor, raced to the officer’s aid.
“It was at that time that a female… nearby saw what was taking place, and decided that she needed to take action to come to the assistance of that officer,” Sgt. Wheeles told WLWT.
“The female fired one shot from a personally owned firearm at Holland, striking him in the torso,” police said, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Jaehnen and her mother, who had originally placed the 911 call, then began performing CPR on the wounded attacker, APD Sergeant William Halbig told Blue Lives Matter.
…is being sued by the meth-head’s family:
Despite the circumstances of the incident, Holland’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Jaehnen, Officer Powell, and the DNR on Feb. 15.
If the woman – the hero – is so much as inconvenienced by this sham civil trial, legal heads should roll.
Otsego man breaks up a stabbing with his AR15:
Dave Thomas was getting ready for work Monday afternoon when he heard women screaming in his apartment building in Oswego.
Thomas, a gun instructor, peeked out the door and saw blood in the hallway. He went to his bedroom, where a handgun and an AR-15 assault-style rifle were lying on the bed. He picked up the rifle.
“I teach people how to defend themselves, and it was just a reaction to grab the AR-15,” he said.
Police said Thomas confronted a man who was stabbing another man in the apartment complex on the 100 block of Harbor Drive. The man with the knife ran off when Thomas threatened to shoot him.
“He was a half a breath away from getting his head blown off and he knew that,” Thomas, 41, said. “That’s why he put the knife down.”
Kendall County sheriff’s deputies arrived about 5 p.m. and arrested two people, the man suspected of stabbing his neighbor and a woman with him. The neighbor was treated and released from Rush Copley Medical Center in Aurora, according to the sheriff’s office.
“No good for self defense”< they keep telling us.
Suspect the victim might disagree.
A citizen with a carry permit interrupts a robber attacking a cop:
“Had he not been in the right place at the right time, who knows what would have happened,” Cpl. Cory Waters told the media. “But he definitely stopped the attack from continuing and becoming much worse. He might have even saved either one of their lives. It could have gone really bad, even for the suspect.”
More, faster.
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Concealed carry permit holder shoots a man dead, to stop him from beating a liquor store employee to death.
I love a story with a happy ending.
Joe Doakes
We’ll see how this shakes out – I don’t think John Choi wants Ramco residents feeling too empowered.
But so far, so good.
It was five years ago yestarday that Jacob Roberts – a loser and delusional narcissist – walked into the Clackamas Mall in Portland Oregon with an AR15, a pistol and a couple hundred rounds of ammunition, apparently intent on giving his pathetic excuse of a life a big finish.
He murdered two Christmas shoppers – Cindy Yuille and Steven Forsythe – and was by all accounts intent on murdering many more; the load of ammo was a dead giveaway.
Then, Nick Meli – an off-duty security guard with a carry permit and a concealed Glock – drew down on Roberts.
The media’s and law enforcement’s accounts vary from this point – a point that the media holds against the notion that Meli is a hero. But by all rational accounts, Roberts saw the gun aimed at him, and did exactly what the FBI, in its study of spree killers after Columbine, said he’d do; delusional narcissists like Roberts (as opposed to terrorists like Omar Matteen) either run away, give up, or kill themselves rather than face the consequences.
Which is what Jacob Roberts did; he retreated into a Gap store and, shortly, shot himself.
The media and Big Gun Control has done its best over the years to bury this story. Meli himself has been very reticent about being in the public eye.
But it’s the position of this blog that Meli was, and is, a hero who saved many lives that day, and kept Clackamas Mall off the list of infamy that Sandy Hook school would join three days later.
Other than different denouements, the episodes had a lot in common; mentally-ill losers who planned to leave this mortal coil in a blaze of demented, twisted “glory”; buildings full of captive victims; and the big one – both were “gun free zones”. Clackamas was posted (but, like the Mall of America, those postings were of dubious legal force, although I don’t plan on being the test case); Sandy Hook, being a school, was “gun free” by federal and state law, backed up by potential felony charges.
Which did those kids a lot of good, didn’t it?
Anyway – a salute.
Details are sparse as this is written, but it seems as if a citizen with a carry permit shot a would-be robber in downtown Saint Paul last night :
The shooting happened during an attempted robbery at Wacouta St and 5th St E in St. Paul just before 8 p.m.
Lindsers say the would-be robbery victim happened to be a conceal carry permit holder and shot him. He received non-life threatening injuries.
Was it a good shoot? Well, if it was, we likely won’t hear any more about it.
Fingers crossed.
One of the few bits of “good” news from the Sutherland Springs mcaassacre is that it was ended by a Good Guy with a Gun.
Details are coming out now – Stephen Willeford responded to the shooting with his AR15, fired a shot that apparently found a gap in Kelley’s body army, and seized the initiative:
Willeford is being hailed as a hero. His actions may well have stopped further bloodshed. Willeford is not a member of the church where the shooting took place, but he his daughter called him and told him there was a man in body armor shooting up the church
Willeford grabbed a rifle and answered the call. He found Kelley (above) outside of the church and shot him. The surprise caused Kelley to drop his rifle, and the shooter then ran to his own SUV and fled the scene.
Johnnie Langendorff was also responding. Langendorff picked up Willeford and the two gave chase. They followed Kelley in a high speed chase and eventually caused Kelley to lose control and run off the road. There, police say Kelley shot himself in the head.
This is, of course, exactly what law enforcement now knows about spree killers; resist them with lethal force, and they usually run, give up, kill themselves, or – as in this case – all three.
Just as we said.
First things first: Berg’s 18th Law is still in full effect; it’s been mere hours since a man murdered 27 people at Sutherland Springs Baptist Church, near San Antonio; anything you read in the media will be crap.
One thing we do know? Churches in Texas are “gun free zones”. Nobody in that church was legally authorized to carry a firearm to defend themselves or their fellow parishioners.
Like nearly all mass shootings, it took place in a “gun free zone”.
Just like David Lillehaug and Nancy Nord Bence like it.
You post your property “no guns allowed?” I’m not going there. I’m not spending money, I’m not worshipping, I’m not saying “boo”. I will consider them a threat to my safety.
No exceptions.
But Wait: What’s this that the mainstream media is pretty roundly ignoring about the attack? The shooter was himself shot by…
…an armed citizen:
Stephen Willeford managed to shoot Devin Kelley before jumping in another man’s truck and chasing him down, the Daily Mail reported.
Texas Department of Public Safety chief Freeman Martin said Willeford “grabbed his rifle and engaged the suspect” after Kelley left the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, where he opened fire with an assault rifle and killed 26 people.
And just as law enforcement teaches about mass shootings these days – if you show a mass shooter any resistance, they usually break off the attack, and either give up or kill themselves.
The man who killed at least 26 people in a Baptist church in a rural Texas town on Sunday died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Wilson County Sheriff Joe Tackitt told CBS News in an interview on Monday morning.
Tackitt said gunfire was exchanged between the gunman and two armed citizens during a vehicle chase after the shootings.
The church was a gun-free zone – naturally. But the rest of Texas was not.
UPDATE 2: The USAF apparently neglected to report Kelley’s domestic conviction to the NICS – allowing him to buy the guns he used.
Liberal hamsters love to amuse themselves by saying that there’s no civilian use for guns with 30 round magazines.
Which might be true, if you could guarantee all attackers were solo and not very persistent.
But in North Houston, three attackers fired over 40 shots at a homeowner…
…who returned fire with an AR15, killing two of the dirtballs and wounding the third in what police are calling a case of self-defense:
Wounded, the three thugs exited the vehicle and continued the pitched firefight on foot. The homeowner who is an avid marksman continued returning fire hitting all three, stopping them before they could reach his property.
One of the men was immediately killed at the scene, while the others were rushed to the hospital. A second shooter was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital, while the third is in critical condition battling for his life.
According to news reporters, aside from being an excellent marksman the Texas homeowner is licensed to carry a concealed weapon, and goes to the shooting range regularly and practices his skills with his AR-15, the weapon he usually has by his side when sitting on his porch late at night.
Instant gun experts babble that “assault rifles” are “designed to kill as many people as fast as possible”. It’s poppycock, of course; they’re designed to not run out of bullets before your attacker runs out of attacks.
Mission Accomplished.
In the past couple weeks, we discussed the shooting at the Verizon store in Inver Grove Heights, where a good guy with a gun took a scumbag off the streets (for a couple years, anyway.
We’ve talked in this blog a zillion times about the four criteria one needs to satisfy to use lethal force in self-defense. This may be the best definition of “reasonable, immediate fear of death or great bodily harm” I’ve seen:
The moment of truth inside the store for the employee, according to charges against Mays, came when the “defendant pointed a gun at [the victim’s] head and told [the clerk], ‘Make it easy on me.’ ”
With the gun still trained on his head and believing he was about to be shot, the clerk “pulled his gun from his waistband and fired what he believed to be three shots.” Mays was hit twice by gunfire and survived.
No doubt to continue the process of turning his life around that he was on and that we’d most assuredly have been hearing about had he died.
The shots sent the accomplice fleeing in a minivan, which was recovered Monday by police in St. Paul and will be searched for evidence later this week.
Police Lt. Joshua Otis said authorities are not disclosing the identity of the clerk for his safety because the other suspect remains a fugitive.
Anyway – salute, Mr. Anonymous Good Guy With A Gun!
A judge in Steubenville, PA was ambushed outside a courthouse – and returned fire:
[Jefferson County Common Pleas Judge Joseph ] Bruzzese was shot in an ambush-style attack outside the Jefferson County Courthouse on his way into his office Monday morning.
County officials said the courthouse, which was closed today as the investigation progresses, will remain closed Tuesday.
Mavromatis said the family of the shooter, who was shot and killed by a probation officer who happened upon the exchange of gunfire between the shooter and the judge, has been notified.
The shiooter was counting on the judge being a helpless victim.
It’s so fun when they’re wrong. Not for them, of course.
Permit-holder in Inver Grove Bites shoots an armed robber:
According to Inver Grove Heights police, the clerk was in the back of the store when they were approached by two men, one whom was armed. While being held at gunpoint, the clerk drew his own gun and shot the suspect.
When the shots were fired, the other suspect fled the scene with some stolen cell phones. He is still on the loose.
That’s two carry permittees stopping crimes in two weeks.
I suspect the cops will not identify the shooter, so as to avoid any possible retaliation – but the clerk is a hero.
This has been added to the Good Minnesotan With A Gun series – which is piling up fast.
Henco has affirmed that a Minnetonka man shot an attacker / stalker in self defense, and all but carried him down Excelsior Boulevard on their shouders:
Following the strong recommendation of investigators, the Hennepin County attorney’s office said this week that 65-year-old James LaCount, of Minnetonka, will not be prosecuted for fatally shooting Thomas Luetzow on June 23 at the Public Mini Storage in the 2800 block of Hedberg Drive.
LaCount “described elements consistent with heroic actions of self-defense” when he shot the 58-year-old Luetzow with a facility employee close by, police Sgt. Troy Denneson wrote in a summary of his department’s 20-page report submitted to prosecutors. “Physical evidence and eyewitness recollections appear to confirm LaCount’s explanation of events.”
Given that it took place in Henco, that’s bureaucratic shorthant for “Mr. LaCount’s actions were pure as the driven snow”.
He was one of the good guys:
The retired refrigeration technician also credited his being able to legally carry a gun in public with sparing him more serious injury, or worse.
“If I hadn’t had [the gun], I’d probably be dead now,” he said. “It’s that simple.”
It absolutely is.
Minnesota put its permit-to-carry law on the books in 2003, but not until after substantial public debate about whether the streets would become more dangerous.
“Substantial” meaning “A lot of it”, not “of intellectual heft”.
And after the Castile incident, the LaCount episode shows a very different result when interacting with the police:
Police Chief Scott Boerboom also credited an exhausted and bloodied LaCount with properly interacting with officers as soon as they arrived on the chaotic scene in order to help them properly assess the situation.
“From the onset, when we approached Mr. LaCount, he immediately said it was self-defense and he had a permit to carry,” Boerboom said. “He wanted to make sure, and it helped us initially get an idea about what was going on here.”
The case file also disclosed that LaCount, weakened from abdominal surgery, was sitting down and leaning against a vehicle when police arrived. He also made sure to not have his handgun on him, leaving it on the ground for officers to recover.
That’s another good Minnesotan with a gun alive today.
Wes Skogland? You’re still a lying sack of garbage.
Mr. LaCount has been added to my “Good Minnesotan with a Gun” archives. It’s up to six justifiable homicides now – and that doesn’t include who episodes from the late ’00s that involved bouncers shooting lethally-aggressive patrons (if you can find the link, shoot it over to me…)
I got this from a high school friend of mine.. He lives in a major city in the Southwestern US. I’m concealing his identity for obvious reasons.
He had a close encounter with a couple bad guys over the weekend. Or, should I say, a couple bad guys had a close encounter with him:
Two Hispanic males, mid-20’s, broke down my front door and entered my home this morning at 9:13 AM. I was monitoring them on my security cameras at the time, and when I sensed something was wrong, I grabbed my loaded 9mm from my safe and met them as they reached my kitchen. Seeing my weapon pointed at their heads, they immediately started screaming, “Oh, sh*t! Oh, sh*t! Oh, sh*t!” and turned and ran out the front door, jumped in their car, and tore off. They didn’t have a chance to touch anything, but they might need a change of skivvies.
I love a happy ending.
Of course, that happy ending was brought to you by the Second Amendment of the US Constitution.
And who knows? Maybe the two miscreants will take their close call with having their brains splattered over a granite countertop to get their “lives” back on track?
Several happy endings!
Another episode in Texas last week of an armed citizen intervening in what police term a potential spree shooting.
One James Jones walked into the “Zona Caliente” sports bar in Arlington, got into an argument, and shot manager Cesar Perez, killing him.
Then, a man – unnamed, except for the cops’ appelation “good samaritan” – with a carry permit shot Jones in the back an unnamed number of times.
Jones was carrying not one but two guns, one of them with its serial number filed off. He had no carry permit.
The police were cautiously thankful, as usual in these situations:
“We’re thankful that the good ‘Samaritan’ acted quickly and decisively to end the threat,” Cook said. “We never recommend people get involved. That’s a personal decision that a citizen has to make.”
Use of force and firearms expert Emanuel Kapelsohn told NBC News that, from his understanding, the man who took down the shooter reacted appropriately.
“I think it’s to be applauded,” he said. “Not everybody in the world ought to own a gun. Not everybody in the world ought to carry a gun. Not everyone in the world ought to engage an armed criminal where innocent people could be potentially injured.”
“But this good Samaritan obviously had the ability to do what he did,” Kapelsohn added. “Who knows how many people would be dead if he had not acted?”
That’s twice in one week in Texas.
In an incident overnight, a law-abiding citizen with a carry permit shot and killed a man who was pummeling the stuffing out of a sheriff’s deputy in Estero, Florida, near Fort Myer:
The Lee County Sheriff’s Office told local news media that the deputy who was involved, 12-year veteran Deputy First Class Dean Bardes, is expected to be okay. The suspect who was fighting with the deputy was killed during the struggle and WINK is reporting that a passerby is the one who shot him.
“The passerby, who had a Concealed Weapons License, exited his vehicle and instructed the suspect to stop beating the deputy…after noncompliance from the suspect, the passerby shot the suspect three times,” sources said.
Local TV news report below the jump (since it launches automatically).
The man who shot the apparently ISIS-affiliated maniac at the Crossroads Mall in Saint Cloud over the weekend has been IDed as Jason Falconer – a carry permit instructor, civilian carry advocate, and part-time officer and former chief of the tiny, tiny police department of tiny, tiny Albany Minnesota.
And if you’re a wanna-be terrorist, Falconer’s just about the last civilian you want to run into when you’re going on your rampage in a “gun free zone”:
USPSA Shooter, 3-Gunner, and NRA-certified firearms instructor Jason Falconer has been identified as the man who shot and killed a 22-year-old Somali immigrant who went on a stabbing rampage inside a St. Cloud, (MN) Mall on Saturday.
The apparent terrorist—who apparently asked victims if they were Muslims before stabbing them—was engaged by Falconer inside the mall.
Emphasis added by me:
Falconer is the president and owner of Tactical Advantage LLC, a shooting range and tactical training facility with a strong focus on arming concealed carriers. He’s also a former chief of the Albany (MN) police department, and he remains a part-time officer.
And is there bias involved? Oh, yes:
But Falconer has consistently been identified in the mainstream mediaonly as as a “former police chief” and “off-duty police officer.”
Falconer’s side gig? Ensuring law-abiding citizens are armed, and capable of doing…
…exactly what he did. I’ve been documenting these sorts of cases as they occur over here (and feel free to submit more of ’em!).
As Glenn Reynolds puts it, we The People need to be a pack, not a herd.
UPDATE: David French notes the obvious; Falconer was not only in the right place at the right time, but he was the right person. But then, anyone can be:
You can be Jason Falconer. In most communities in this country, you can not only own and carry a weapon for personal defense, you can also receive comprehensive training. You have virtually no control over whether you’re at the right place at the right time, but you do have control over whether you’re the right person.
And as has been noted in the comment section, this incident highlights the need for “Stand your Ground” legislation; a non-cop would have had a “duty to retreat” – to make a reasonable effort to disengage in the face of the attack.
What does “reasonable” mean? That your efforts to avoid using lethal force are enough to convince the cops, prosecutors and potentially a jury that you did your best to avoid using lethal force. It’s vague; it’s intended to be vague, concentrating the power of life and death in the hands of prosecutors.
“Stand Your Ground” will be on the agenda this coming legislative session. It’s doubtful the Senate or Governor will pass it.
So we’re gonna need a new Senate and Governor.
Two men attacked a woman in a WalMart parking lot in Shawnee, Kansas, hitting her in the head.
An unarmed man attempted to intervene. The assailants shot him.
Another Good Samaritan – armed with a legally-owned firearm – responded, shooting and killing one of the attackers (some emphasis added by me).
Police said the second man ran off. Police originally believed they captured the second suspect using a K-9 officer, however, that person was not connected with the incident. Police are working to identify the second suspect at this time.
The good Samaritan who was shot and the woman who was injured were both initially listed in critical condition. The woman has since been released from the hospital. The good Samaritan who was injured had surgery Sunday night. He is being identified only as a 33-year-old Kansas City, Missouri resident. The second good Samaritan, a 36-year-old DeSoto, Kansas man, was interviewed by police and released.
Interviewed and released. Written between the lines; he was carrying legally (Kansas has Constitutional Carry), and the shoot was righteous.
Prayers for the good samaritan who didn’t have the means to deter being shot.
And for the good samaritan who did. Right though he seems to have been (and events will no doubt vindicate him completely), it’s as traumatic for a righteous shooter as anyone.
26 year old Antione Cooper walked into a Waffle House in DeSoto, Texas with an AK47, robbing several patrons:
And then…:
A handgun-licensed customer, whose wife was on her way to meet him at the restaurant, followed Cooper to the parking lot, fearing for his wife’s safety, according to DeSoto police.
Police said the customer called to Cooper once they were outside. Cooper pointed the AK-47 in the customer’s direction, prompting the customer to shoot Cooper several times, according to police in the southern Dallas suburb.
The citizen was not arrested – as befits someone who’d seem to any rational person to be a hero.
An 80 year old woman in Sultan, Washington shot and killed a man who was trying to go all teppanyaki on her husband:
The woman called 911 at about 8:30 p.m. from the home in the 13700 block of Woods Lake Road and said “she had shot an intruder after he broke into her home and stabbed her husband,” Ireton said.
The suspect, a 25-year-old Gold Bar man, died at the scene.
“At this time, detectives do not believe the suspect was known to the residents of the home and that this was an attempted home burglary,” Ireton said.
Note to Kim Norton, Ron “I Went To Harvard” Latz and The Right Reverend Nancy Nord Bence; maybe if the woman took a background check, the guy wouldn’t have broken in? Right?
Another Good Guy with a Gun saves a life:
The suspect first tried to attack the customer and then went after a clerk behind the counter, wounding him in the stomach, the sheriff’s office said…The shooting will be investigated, and the case will be sent to a prosecutor to determine if charges should be filed against the shooter.
Tickets will be punched:
King County Sheriff Sgt. Cindi West told NBC News that “during the initial investigation we did not see any wrongdoing on the part of the citizen who shot.”
But the sheriff did make one important side note:
“In fact, he may have prevented the clerk from being killed or seriously injured,” she said.
A good guy on the scene with a gun; if you don’t happen to have a cop on the premises, it’s just about the best response to crime there is.
Earlier this week, we wrote about the story of a Hmong man on the East Side of Saint Paul who was beaten badly by a crowd of youths. The attack ended when the man’s wife came out of the house with her gun (and her carry permit).
Kudos to WCCO for being the sole news outlet that didn’t bury the lede.
A law-abiding citizen with a carry permit killed a would-be robber in Brooklyn Park Monday evening. The Brooklyn Park PD just confirmed that the shooter was a citizen with a carry permit, and the decedent was attempting to rob the citizen.
The person targeted for robbery has “a valid permit to carry a handgun” and was not arrested, said Deputy Police Chief Mark Bruley.
Officers recovered both guns at the scene as they continue to investigate the shooting.
Police have yet to disclose the identities of those involved in the confrontation.
And I’m going to speculate that the law-abiding citizen who did the shooting won’t get his name released, because of the danger he’d face from the rest of the community. It’s been true with several of the justifiable homicides we’ve seen – the Evanovich shooting and the Broadbent incident last summer among them.
Bruley said the man who died “goes back and forth between Brooklyn Park and Minneapolis. He’s an individual we’ve known from previous contact. He certainly hangs out around here.” Bruley declined to say more about that contact entailed.
I’m going to guess it involved the fact that he was just in the middle of getting his life turned around. It’s a theme in this sorts of episodes.
State Rep. Pat Garofalo, R-Farmington, said the outcome of this shooting validates a 2003 law in Minnesota that allows people to carry a firearm in public.
“A loss of life is a tragedy,” Garofalo wrote. “But when a criminal pulls a gun, they risk ending their life. Concealed carry works.”
As of early this year, there were more than 221,000 active permit holders in Minnesota, according to the latest data report from the state’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
The total has grown by more than 20,000 in the past six months. Now, about one in 19 eligible Minnesota adults has a permit to carry, according to Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance.
The number is up over 5% of eligible adults – which, in some parts of the state, likely means there’s a better than one in ten chance that someone you might want to try to rob can end you.
The odds are better in the Metro, if you’re a robber; most don’t grow up in a (law-abiding) gun culture; there are fewer ambient, social chances to get into shooting, much less self-defense. Less than 2% of eligible adults have carry permits in the Metro, where the crime rate shows they are the most needed (and, I’d argue, also shows their lack).
Condolences to the victim’s family; he may have run off the rails, but he was someone’s kid, brother or parent.
And best of luck to the shooter, whoever you are. And thanks.
UPDATE: Is this predictable or what – the Strib always shuts down story comments when a good guy uses a gun against a bad actor.
Wonder why that is?
UPDATE 2: By my count, since 2005, that makes five human lives saved via the ability to resist violence with a legally-carried handgun: