Imagine the sort of place Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer say no reasonable person should feel the need to be armed. (Sorry, that’s actually everywhere, but you get the picture.)
Once such place would be restaurants/sports bars, where millions of Americans go for dinner each night. And last week, when a man walked into the Zona Caliente sports bar in Arlington, Texas, and began acting erratically, the manager intervened and was shot dead by the man, who was later found to have two guns and two knives on his person.
A patron enjoying dinner with his wife at the time of the murder and legally carrying his concealed handgun pursuant to Texas law bravely implemented his action plan. He stepped up and shot and killed the man police said was likely intent on murdering many more in the establishment. The murderer was certainly equipped for it, and the lack of any known connection between the killer and the victim supports the assumption. It was not a targeted assassination.
A police spokesman reported that the concealed handgun permit holder “made the decision to engage the shooter, fearing there would be other loss of life.” They are treating him as a “hero.” The good guy did precisely what the millions of us who regularly carry defensive handguns across the country hope we can do if confronted with the same circumstances. It is why we dedicate the money and time to train.
A police spokesman reported that the concealed handgun permit holder “made the decision to engage the shooter, fearing there would be other loss of life.”No doubt, Shannon Watts and Michael Bloomberg didn’t appreciate the “hero” status. The brave citizen gun owner and carrier robbed them of the kind of mass casualty event that they exploit via social media within minutes of it being reported. He denied them the horrible carnage they perversely seem to anticipate as fuel to further their political agenda aimed at stripping Americans of their God-given liberties.
At all costs, they must work to make more good people defenseless against the sort of evil that stirred in Arlington. It’s all part of the intellectual and moral sickness that allows them to relentlessly exaggerate the nation’s gun “violence” problem by roughly 70 percent by including suicides. (It’s worth noting that countries with virtually no citizen-owned firearms have far higher suicide rates than the U.S.) For them, a higher casualty count is always better.
The armed Texan also exposed the lie Watts and Bloomberg told the American people on a morning network news show last year. They smugly claimed that citizens (the unwashed masses, to them) have never used guns to save lives in public—and that they never will. Their twisted point is that guns are not useful for defense. They are only effective in the hands of the violent.
They can’t really miss the irony here, can they? They do all that they can to prevent citizens from carrying firearms in public for defense of themselves and others. They advocate for the preservation and expansion of the sorts of “gun-free” zones that armed mass murderers are proven to consciously seek out to commit their sinister deeds uninterrupted. Then, they go to the national media and claim that the armed citizen hero saving lives in public places is a myth. Well, despite all their best efforts to make it so, they are wrong, and this will only become more evident for all to see with time.
The NRA’s successful lobbying over the last couple of decades has guided us to a time when there are more concealed-weapon license holders and fewer public spaces where carry is prohibited than at any time in history. It is not an exaggeration to say NRA’s work indirectly saved the lives in that Arlington sports bar.
After years of toil in the republic’s Austin capitol, NRA finally succeeded in enacting the base permit law back in 1995, and later worked to adopt “restaurant carry,” which allowed carry in establishments that offer alcohol along with a food menu. The good citizen in this case embraced his legal empowerment made possible through the NRA and its millions of members. His decision to be a victor and not a victim directly saved innocent lives.
Over the objections of Watts and Bloomberg, things are going to continue to get worse for bad guys. The chances of their being challenged by an armed victim will grow as more Americans avail themselves of a concealed handgun license and more states pass laws that allow carry without any license at all.
Over the objections of Watts and Bloomberg, things are going to continue to get worse for bad guys.Watts and Bloomberg oppose every form of defensive carry outside of the home. It is why they are spending millions of dollars to oppose the bill providing for national Right-to-Carry reciprocity currently pending in Congress. If their defenseless victim mindset had prevailed all those years ago in Texas, things would have turned out much more tragically in Arlington last week.
It’s so simple, but they will never get it. Those intent on violating the most sacred of society’s laws will always have the tools they need no matter how legally prohibited they are. The only thing that can be controlled is government’s willingness to empower the good citizens to go armed for their defense against this violence.
One of NRA’s guiding principles when working in state capitols throughout the country is to do all it can to ensure that the only person around with a gun is not the bad guy. Last week’s events in Arlington are a shining example of this success. The country would be a very scary place if not for our NRA.
Darren LaSorte lobbied with NRA-ILA for 14 years and now lives and works in Dallas, Texas. His passions are shooting, hunting and self-defense training.
