Armed Good Guys And The Realities Of Facing A Gunman - Page 1

http://www.npr.org/2013/01/29/170456129/armed-good-guys-and-the-realities-of-facing-a-gunman

As the nation ponders how to stop the next mass shooting, the gun rights movement offers a straight-forward formula, laid out famously by NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre.

"The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," LaPierre said last month, as his group responded to the elementary school massacre in Newtown, Conn.

One Man's Story

In Washington state, one such "good guy" — a private citizen who drew his gun in defense of others — paid a heavy price.

Dan McKown is a comedian. He used to do stand-up, and he has a performer's habit of always being just a little bit "on."

He always has a joke ready — even when he's recalling the moment he locked eyes with a mass shooter.

"The first word that honestly went through my head was, 'bugger.' Clearly, too much British TV," he says.

Dan McKown, who confronted a gunman at a shopping mall in 2005, says he doesn't regret his actions, although he was shot five times and is now in a wheelchair.

It was 2005, at the Tacoma Mall in Washington state. McKown had been chatting with friends when gunshots rang out. Everyone hid; but McKown had a pistol. For years, he'd carried a legal concealed weapon, with the thought that someday he'd protect others. Now it seemed that moment had come.

Gun drawn, McKown scanned for the shooter. But the gunshots stopped. Unsure what had happened, McKown tucked his pistol back under his coat — just as the shooter walked right in front of him.

"So anyway, I'm standing there like Napoleon Bonaparte, with his hand, you know, in his jacket," he recalls. "So I said, 'Young man, I think you need to put your weapon down.' "

That moment of vulnerability gave the other guy just enough time to shoot McKown. The bullet hit his spine, and he found himself unable to aim his own gun.

"I prayed the most un-Christian prayer of my life, which was: 'God, please let me shoot this guy before he kills somebody else.' Because I was sure I was dead," McKown says. "Then he hit me again, again, again. And he spun me like a pinwheel."

'Lethal Force Now'

So what did McKown do wrong? At the time, that was a hot topic among concealed-carry advocates. Some said he should have stayed behind cover. Others said his mistake was drawing against someone who was already pointing a gun at him.

At a shooting range in Bellevue, Wash., a company called InSights trains civilians to prepare for "active shooter" situations. Instructor John Holschen thinks McKown may have been a victim of his own sense of fair play — especially when he gave that verbal warning.

"The right thing to do tactically in that situation, legally in that situation, and morally in that situation," he says, "is end the shooter's ability to keep shooting. And that means apply lethal force now."

InSights offers classes like "Tactical Handgun" and "Advanced Confrontation Simulations." But most gun owners never get this kind of training. In fact, in some states — like Washington — a concealed-carry permit requires no training at all. And that's why the prospect of armed civilian "good guys" can make police uneasy.

"Good intentions don't get you to the justifiable and safe end point," says assistant chief Jim Pugel, a 30-year veteran of the Seattle Police Department. He doesn't oppose responsible gun ownership, but Pugel says civilians need to understand what it takes to use one in public.

"The ability to safely handle and use a gun in a lawful manner is a perishable skill," he says. "If you don't practice on a regular basis, psychologically, physiologically, you will likely not respond properly."

Buying Time

But cops can also recognize the potential value of armed "good guys" — particularly in emergencies involving a madman.

"What you want to do is interrupt their thought process," says Mark Lomax, executive director of the National Tactical Officers Association. "Once you interrupt their thought process, then it buys time."

Lomax says that in active shooter situations, the old rule was to secure the location and wait for SWAT.

"Well, in Columbine they waited for like 45 minutes, and in the meantime, numerous kids were shot and killed," he says. "So, post-Columbine, they looked at it and said, 'We cannot wait.' "

Police now believe an early challenge, even an unsuccessful one, by a cop or a civilian — can rattle a mass shooter. It can push him to a different course of action.

And that brings us back to Dan McKown, shot five times, lying on the floor of the Tacoma Mall.

"At the time, I thought that I screwed up," he says. "And that I failed."

But maybe he didn't. Because right after the confrontation, the shooter stopped spraying bullets. He ducked into a store and took hostages, and eventually gave himself up.

No one was killed in that incident, but seven people were wounded, and McKown's injuries were the worst. Today he's in a wheelchair and lives with excruciating pain. But he doesn't sit around asking, "Why me?"

"When people say, 'Why me?' — well, in my case, I know the answer: I went after a guy with a gun," McKown says.

It's not a course of action he recommends for everybody, but McKown says it's a choice he does not regret.

One mans story?
Would you take the choice away from him, I think he'd fight you on it.

What choice? The choice to have an assault rifle/weapon, I think you are so wrong about him and yes I would tell him he doesn't need an assault weapon same as I am telling you. It is not needed but here is the great thing you get to keep your assault rifles/weapons as this ban is only for future sales of these guns, you lose nothing but go ahead keep pissing and moaning over losing nothing I get a kick out of it.

You act like we want all your guns tomorrow morning at 9:00 am.

Here is a womans story. I know it doesn't matter to you. Gun away gunner.


http://www.ktiv.com/story/20715839/chicago-woman-loses-4th-child-to-gun-violence

CHICAGO (AP) - At least five people were gunned down Saturday in Chicago, including a 34-year-old man whose mother had already lost her three other children to shootings.

Ronnie Chambers, who was his mother Shirley's youngest child, was shot in the head while sitting in a parked car on the city's West Side. A 21-year-old man who was also in the car was wounded, police said.

Shirley Chambers, whose two other sons and daughter were shot in separate attacks more than a decade ago, was left grieving again on Saturday, WLS-TV reported (http://bit.ly/VCSh8i ).

"Right now, I'm totally lost because Ronnie was my only surviving son," Chambers said.

Shirley Chambers' first child, Carlos, was shot and killed by a high school classmate in 1995 after an argument. He was 18. Her daughter Latoya, then 15, and her other son Jerome were shot and killed within months of one another in 2000.

"What did I do wrong? I was there for them. We didn't have everything we wanted but we had what we needed," she asked Saturday.

Chambers said despite this latest tragic chapter in her life, she's not bitter or angry.

"They took my only child. I have nobody right now. That's my only baby," she said.

A few hours after Ronnie Chambers was killed, a gunman opened fire on three men near a South Side eatery, killing two of them and wounding the third, police said.

On Saturday afternoon, detectives were called to the scene of another shooting in which a man in his 30s and a teenager were shot to death. There had been no arrests.

Chicago's homicide count eclipsed 500 last year for the first time since 2008. As grim as it is, Chicago's homicide rate was almost double in the early 1990s - averaging around 900 - before violent crime began dropping in cities across America.

Last year's increase, though, stood in sharp contrast to New York, where homicides fell 21 percent from 2011, as of early December.

You know it was idiots like you who forced manufacturers to place hammer block safeties on everything.

What choice?
The choice to exercise his rights and to go into harms way and make the effort win or lose.

Your right GSD, people like you have absolutely no business owning firearms.

You don't even understand what your doing with your anti gun rhetoric.

You just go on living in the bubble with your head down and bent over waiting for your rewards.

You can post these stories until hell freezes over, there are plenty of stories to contradict yours, there are that many stories out there GSD.

Proves nothing to support your anti-gun agenda.

I'm no longer sure if I'd try to save you or not, you wouldn't appreciate it so why bother.

Personal attacks and name calling, figures. I am heart broken, not.

I don't need you to save me Lone Ranger.

I will be just fine as when it is my time I will be ready.

Just kill me and don't let me live maimed for life by a gun.

Are you still here bumping your gums, lol. Tell me do you live here?? Moons calling anyone an idiot, ROTFLMAOAY.......PRICELESS!!!!!

Your already maimed for life.

More attacks, quit crying when someone says something to you you don't like. You are the first to whine and yet here you are doing the same, double standard much?

Keep trying gunner. What are you going to lose Moons? Tell me how this affects you? What will change for you? Talk to me? Wait, on second thought, don't bother.

Why is it every time I come to this website I always win something ?  LOL

Is anyone else getting this ?