But I’m Told This Never Happens

Concealed carry permit holders never stop mass shootings, right? That’s what the anti-gun folks keep telling us any time we bring up the topic. I noticed local media covering this fact, but not national media. USA Today? Nothing. The WaPo? Someone confronted the shooter, and he shot himself. Bloomberg’s propaganda outlet:

A young church usher confronted the gunman, who accidentally shot himself in the chest during the altercation.

They omitted the part the Tennessean actually reported:

Engle confronted Samson after he entered the church. Samson pistol-whipped Engle. After Samson shot himself, Engle went to his vehicle, got his own weapon and held Samson at gunpoint until police arrived, police said.

It would have been more useful had it been on him instead of in the car, but I’ll take it. There shouldn’t be any reservations about carrying in church. Churches are targets.

9 thoughts on “But I’m Told This Never Happens”

  1. What I still don’t understand from the various reports is why he had to go out to his car and get his gun, when the shooter had two guns, had just shot himself with one, and apparently was out of the fight. Why did he get his gun, all the way out in the parking lot in his car, instead of grabbing the shooter’s gun? I don’t think we have still heard the actual sequence of events yet.

    1. Undoubtedly because the media screwed the story up. They are not only biased, they are stupid, ignorant and lazy too.

    2. I don’t see Tennessee law prohibiting church carry (unlike several other Southern and Midwestern states, which expressly prohibit it), but that church may have a policy or there may have been a specific reason he left it int he car that day.
      My church quietly encourages concealed carry, especially among volunteers serving in the church.

      1. I’ve seen Church volunteers squading together at IDPA matches. They not only shoot the match, they spend time with one of the more experienced Gun Guys, who critiques how they all did. I was squadded with them. And I’d feel very safe if I attended their church!

        I get the sense that they try to keep it quiet, for the same reason we’d Concealed Carry instead of Open carry. Better if your enemy doesn’t know how well equipt you are.

  2. I don’t darken the doorway of church without having at least the LCP in a pocket. When I’m coat and tie I’ve been known to carry the FNX-45T OWB…..

  3. Note that this attack doesn’t fit the most common definition of ‘mass shooting’ (4 or more dead), so of course he didn’t ‘stop’ it because he kept it getting that bad in the first place!

    1. I can’t help but wonder why the definition of mass “shooting” (it should be mass murder, actually, because shooting isn’t the only, or even most effective, way to commit mass murder) requires 4 or more dead; we should count those events where the preponderance of the evidence suggests that the murderer intended to kill 4 or more people.

      I’m on the fence on whether the intended victims should also be strangers, even though this is normally what we expect from mass murderers….

      On second thought: we don’t consider someone to be a murderer if he stabs someone, and the person goes to the hospital and survives. We merely consider him to be an attempted murderer. By the same token, we probably ought to keep the definition of mass murder as is, but then define the ones where less than 4 are dead, but the intent to kill more is clearly there, “attempted mass murder”.

      And this would particularly make sense if we want to study how people fighting back affect the progress of mass murder events…

      OR we could just define every shooting as a mass murder, and then complain that we have 3 mass shootings a day…

  4. I’ve told the leaders in my congregation that if I’m at the altar or in the pulpit, there’s a Glock on my hip. And I encourage them to carry as well. Heck, even the archbishop of my denomination has suggested that clergy ask responsible parishioners to carry in church.

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