Arming the Citizens

For John, BLUF:  When guns are illegal, only criminals will have guns.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Look at Shooting at Church of Christ, White Settlement, Texas♠

This is from the InstaPundit himself, 1 January 2020.

Here is the blog post:

AND DESERVEDLY SO:  USA Today Dragged to Hell Over Op-Ed on ‘Terrifying’ Heroism in Texas Church Shooting.

Well, here’s some stuff we know about the other armed parishioners that we allegedly know nothing about.  First, they stood up to place their own bodies at risk (“Greater love hath no man,” etc. So the Bible says, and it still is news.)  Second, when Jack Wilson put down the gunman with a single shot, they calmly reholstered their weapons.  Nobody took any unnecessary shots, nobody shot anyone else by accident, and that was that.  Honestly, this is better performance than you’d expect — or usually get — from a like number of law enforcement officers, who nowadays seldom seem to let things stop with one shot, and whose shooting ability seems well below what was displayed here.  So we do know some pretty important things.  The oped author was just too dense, or bigoted, to notice.

Note the reference to police shootings.  This went much better than some famous police shootings, such as the New York Police handling of the Amadou Diallo case or the Chicago Police shooting of Laquan McDonald.

This is not to obscure the fact that the police have a difficult job, requiring split second decisions, some of which will be the wrong decision.  The vast majority will be the right decision.  However, the police are not always on scene when a gunman shows up.  Then it is up to the Immediate Responders, you and me.  The folks at the Church of Christ were exemplary.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  White Settlement is a strange name.  The residents voted on a name change, back in 2005, but the proposed change failed.