I would venture to guess that the folks filing in to see the latest Batman installment in Aurora, Colorado last Thursday evening didn’t figure on over 70 of them getting shot before the credits rolled. The last count I received before filing this column was 12 dead and 59 wounded.
As the news starting pouring in about what happened in the theater this week when Satan’s spawn James Holmes donned Kevlar and a small battery of weapons and opened fire on an unsuspecting crowd, I kept thinking, “One fast-thinking and trained person who was armed/licensed with a concealed weapon could have stopped that SOB right in his tracks before the body count skyrocketed.”
Yep, the armed citizen could have either killed him, sent him running for cover, or at least diverted his fire away from the masses and toward their person. Some readers, no doubt, are saying, “Well that would be stupid. What if that citizen got shot trying to protect others?” To that I reply: Well, Dinky, if they would have been shot and killed at least they would have died a hero. Have you ever heard of the term “hero”?
The Aurora Dark Knight Massacre is exactly why I carry at least one gun everywhere I go—because crap always happens when you least expect it. That’s why, as responsible citizens and gun owners, we must always be ready and must always expect it because when it happens, it happens fast; if you’re not ready, you and others are screwed.
For instance, it’s a beautiful and quiet day on Miami Beach this morning. I’m drinking my coffee at an outdoor cafe, minding my own business while I work on this column and on my website. I don’t see any bath salt zombies on the prowl. There are no Trench Coat Mafia wannabes lurking around. There is no real foreseeable reason to carry a weapon. But I am. The reason? Well, I’m not omniscient. I’m just a dumb clunk living in a jacked-up world where med school students go bat crap crazy and shoot up normally peaceful places for inexplicable reasons. Therefore, I’m locked, cocked and ready to rock should some demented dill weed decide to strafe the local patrons sipping a cup of Joe.
For those who say, “Doug’s insane with all this concealed weapons crap. We should leave such affairs to the police,” allow me to point out that the theater was crawling with cops for the Batman opening to control the crowds. By the time the police got to the particular theater, it was all over. Blood was already running down the aisles and the gunman had already left the building. You, my friend, are your first responder … your first line of defense.
Look, stuff happens when and where you don’t think it’ll happen. My recommendation to you, the good citizen, is to get equipped with a gun—a fire-breathing dragon of a weapon. Get proficient with it. Make it like a cell phone: an additional appendage to your body. And then pray that you’ll never have to use it.
However, should you be in line at the grocery store, or at Chili’s eating a burger, or at a park playing football with your homies, and some James Holmes wannabe shows up carting an arsenal and quoting Kafka as he shoots kids … you’ll be ready. Simply find cover if you can, draw your weapon, take a fine bead, and double tap the center mass of the murderous jackass. Should he or she have a bulletproof vest on then pull your sight picture up to the perp’s noggin and shoot him or her in the head; it’ll explode like a watermelon. You’ll feel bad for a nanosecond. But then the cops and families will show up and thank you for putting Jack the Ripper down. The end.
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