{"id":32409,"date":"2012-12-17T05:00:36","date_gmt":"2012-12-17T11:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=32409"},"modified":"2012-12-16T08:12:06","modified_gmt":"2012-12-16T14:12:06","slug":"on-heroes-dead-and-alive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=32409","title":{"rendered":"On Heroes, Dead And Alive"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s hard to believe that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kgw.com\/news\/Clackamas-man-armed-confronts-mall-shooter-183593571.html\">this particular angle on this story<\/a> &#8211; about the shooting at the mall near Portland, Oregon, which happened a few days before the New Town, Connecticut shooting &#8211; didn&#8217;t get national coverage:<\/p>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kgw.com\/templates\/belo_embedWrapper.js?storyid=183593571&amp;pos=top&amp;swfw=$swfw\"><\/script><object id=\"null\" width=\"471\" height=\"265\" classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\" bgcolor=\"#000000\"><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"quality\" value=\"high\" \/><param name=\"cachebusting\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"flashvars\" value=\"config=http:\/\/www.kgw.com\/?j=183593571&amp;ref=\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/swfs.bimvid.com\/bimvid_player-3_2_7.swf?x-bim-callletters=KGW\" \/><embed id=\"null\" width=\"471\" height=\"265\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" src=\"http:\/\/swfs.bimvid.com\/bimvid_player-3_2_7.swf?x-bim-callletters=KGW\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" quality=\"high\" cachebusting=\"true\" flashvars=\"config=http:\/\/www.kgw.com\/?j=183593571&amp;ref=\" bgcolor=\"#000000\" \/><\/object><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kgw.com\/templates\/belo_embedWrapper.js?storyid=183593571&amp;pos=bottom\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>PORTLAND &#8212; Nick Meli is emotionally drained. The 22-year-old was at Clackamas Town Center with a friend and her baby when a masked man opened fire.<br \/>\n&#8220;I heard three shots and turned and looked at Casey and said, &#8216;are you serious?,'&#8221; he said.<br \/>\nThe friend and baby hit the floor. Meli, who has a concealed carry permit, positioned himself behind a pillar.<br \/>\n&#8220;He was working on his rifle,&#8221; said Meli. &#8220;He kept pulling the charging handle and hitting the side.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>[Aside to shooters; poor gun maintenance actually saved lives. \u00a0Who knew?]<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The break in gunfire allowed Meli to pull out his own gun, but he never took his eyes off the shooter.<br \/>\n&#8220;As I was going down to pull, I saw someone in the back of the Charlotte move, and I knew if I fired and missed, I could hit them,&#8221; he said.<br \/>\nMeli took cover inside a nearby store. He never pulled the trigger. He stands by that decision.<br \/>\n&#8220;I&#8217;m not beating myself up cause I didn&#8217;t shoot him,&#8221; said Meli. &#8220;<strong>I know after he saw me, I think the last shot he fired was the one he used on himself<\/strong>.&#8221;<br \/>\nThe gunman was dead, but not before taking two innocent lives with him and taking the innocence of everyone else.<br \/>\n&#8220;I don&#8217;t ever want to see anyone that way ever,&#8221; said Meli. &#8220;It just bothers me.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>As it should anyone with a human soul.<\/p>\n<p>But as the media celebrates the teachers in New Town as heroes for dying to try to protect their students &#8211; as it should &#8211; it&#8217;s high time we took a moment to praise our\u00a0<em>live\u00a0<\/em>heroes; the ones that choke back their fear and respond to unexpected trauma&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and because they had the tools they needed to confront the trauma, \u00a0a deranged killer, at closer to even odds, were able to <em>be<\/em>\u00a0<em><\/em>live<em>\u00a0<\/em>heroes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s hard to believe that this particular angle on this story &#8211; about the shooting at the mall near Portland, Oregon, which happened a few days before the New Town, Connecticut shooting &#8211; didn&#8217;t get national coverage: PORTLAND &#8212; Nick Meli is emotionally drained. The 22-year-old was at Clackamas Town Center with a friend and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,45,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime-and-punishment","category-gun-free-zones","category-victim-disarmament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32409"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32413,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32409\/revisions\/32413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}