Supporters of gun ownership say that the response by one man to the Texas shooting is evidence that gun controls would actually cause more deaths.
Two men reportedly confronted gunman Devin Kelley with their own weapons after he killed 26 people at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs in San Antonio.
Pro-firearms owners praised the actions of Johnnie Langendorff and Stephen Willeford, stating that it was a case of a “good guy with a gun stopping a bad guy with a gun”.
Mr Willeford, 55, is said to have confronted Kelley after his killing spree inside the church, causing the gunman to drop his rifle when the pair exchanged fire.
Fellow resident Mr Langendorff then pulled up to the gunfight and teamed up with Mr Willeford to give chase to the killer.
Mr Langendorff told KSAT: “I pulled up to the intersection where the shooting happened.
“I saw two men exchanging gunfire, the other being the citizen of the community.”
He added to Good Morning America: “The neighbour with the rifle came to my truck and opened my door and said, ‘He just shot up the church,’ and got in.
“He said, ‘Chase him,’ so that’s what I did. I just chased him.”
The pair hit speeds of nearly 100mph as they pursued Kelley, who eventually lost control and crashed into a ditch.
Mr Willeford then drew his weapon on Kelley before police turned up and took over.
Kelley is believed to have took his own life before he could be captured by authorities.
President Donald Trump argued that that stricter gun control measures might have led to “hundreds” more casualties during the Texas shooting.
Gun lobbyists say the men’s actions show with their own weapons show that lives were saved – but gun control advocates say the shooting is just another example of how firearm ownership should be reformed.
They also point to other instances where citizens brandishing their own weapons on gunmen actually hinders police efforts to bring the situation under control before lives are lost.
Last week a gunman opened fire inside a branch of Walmart in Thornton, Denver, killing three people.
Some shoppers drew their own weapons in defence but police say this resulted in a delay to the investigation as it made it more difficult to identify the gunman on CCTV footage, and whether there were any other suspects.
Thornton police spokesman Victor Avila told The Denver Post: “Once the building was safe enough to get into it, we started reviewing that (surveillance video) as quickly as we could.
“That’s when we started noticing” that a number of individuals had pulled weapons.
“At that point, as soon as you see that, that’s the one you try to trace through the store, only to maybe find out that’s not him, and we’re back to ground zero again, starting to look again. That’s what led to the extended time.”
Police eventually determined the suspect in the shooting to be 47-year-old Scott Ostrem.
Joseph Pollini, professor and deputy chair of the Law and Police Science Department at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, said that citizens using their own guns to stop a gunman “can work both ways”.
He said that civilians could help bring a shooting to an end using their own weapons but added that fact that can also “very much complicate things”.
The question is, however, what is more important: trying to stop a shooter as soon as humanly possible or waiting for the police to watch a CCTV recording of a shooter killing innocent people…
Source: yahoo.com
