Oregon Gun Owner Stops Clackamas Shooting Spree, Proving Guns Save Lives

[cascadiance]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by muriel_volestrangler (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).

Source: Policymic.com



Since no crisis can be allowed to go to waste, never expect the media to do anything other than demand more gun control legislation any time a whacko (or a patsy) kills people with a gun. Case in point: on Tuesday night, a complete idiot walked into a Portland, Oregon mall, and began firing. Obviously the shooter, Jacob Roberts,was an imbecile to start with, since he managed to kill only two people before turning a gun on himself, but that's not the whole story.

As it turns out, 22-year-old Nick Meli was at the mall, and walking with his friend and their friend's son. Nick said: "I heard three shots and turned and looked at Casey and said, 'are you serious?'" Nick then directed his friend to a safe location and took up a position behind a pillar away from the shooter.

The anti-gun types would suggest that this man call the police and watch the shooter kill a dozen or more people until the cops finally showed up. Nick had other ideas. Being a legal Concealed Carry permit holder in the State of Oregon, Nick determined that he should try to prevent more deaths. He said: "[The shooter] was working on his rifle, he kept pulling the charging handle and hitting the side," as the shooter dealt with a jammed gun.

...

There are many people in Portland, Oregon, who are alive today most likely because of Nick Meli possessing a concealed firearm. One could only wish for such an outcome yesterday in Connecticut.

Read more: http://www.policymic.com/articles/20891/oregon-gun-owner-stops-clackamas-shooting-spree-proving-guns-save-lives

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NOTE: I do NOT support the writer of this article AT ALL! Just want to make that clear in case some don't read my comments here!

How many have forgotten the mall shooting here in Portland earlier this week since we saw that real life horror movie play out in Connecticut? It's hard finding any news now on it.

It's been very hard for the gun nuts and the NRA to rationalize any kind of excuse for what happened in Connecticut. But WAIT! They can still do it here in Oregon!!!

This article postulates that a "responsible" gun owner was prepared to shoot the Oregon shooter here if he tried to shoot any more people before he shot himself then, since he had a concealed gun here in the Clackamas mall. The article states that he was "wise" and didn't pull the trigger on the gunman because he knew might hit someone next to the owner or behind him and hurt/kill them. So therefore it was HE who saved many lives here in Portland, because he would have pulled the trigger if the killer hadn't done in himself.

We had this kind of person who almost pulled the trigger on the wrong person in the Gabby Giffords tragedy too. And he was also "wise" and held back. Did he help "save" people there by not pulling the trigger then or because he had a gun then?

What this idiot doesn't realize is that not EVERYONE is wired with the same kind of awareness/intelligence, even if they have noble ambitions, to not cause more problems than there already was by pulling the trigger. He might have hurt someone else, and if he was near his gun shop, perhaps someone else also had a concealed weapon and would have blasted him too, and instead of only two people killed here, we'd have had a bigger mess that might not have been "forgotten" in a couple of days like the current one has been.

Also, about access to guns and a lot of people blaming the mother for her not securing her guns where her disturbed son could get to them. That's open to debate. But let's not also forget that the same sort or problem happened here in Portland, where the assault rifle the shooter used was "stolen" from a friend.

We've not heard anything more than that about how he got this gun. And I think we the public DESERVE to hear how he got access to this gun, as it is relevant in both of these cases. And also calls in to question on how even "responsible" owners can't be counted on to keep us from getting massacred if their friends/family aren't "responsible" and have problems being even near them.



I'm sorry to post this if it offends some of you. But I think many of us need to see how this mentality is playing out in so many parts of America that we'll need to be dealing with in the coming days.

[frogmarch]

1. So, the concealed firearm that

saved the day for many was an assault rifle?

Oh, wait. That was probably what the killer was shooting.

yourself

[SoapBox]

2. Soo....

"Nick drew down on the shooter as they made eye contact, and Nick prepared to fire. However, he determined (like any conscious firearms owner should) that there were other people behind Roberts, and his shot was not safe."

So Mr. Gun Carrier, JUST "positioned" himself to take action...but did nothing other than get behind the pillar with a gun?

As usual, then this is just the same old, same old blowing about what might have happened...may have happened...but did NOT happen.

Next!

[pasto76]

19. I agree 1000000%. Almost none of them are really willing to kill someone

In my book he is a failure, and thats not because I am in favor of reasons to control access to weapons. It's because of my training and experience. What made an Iraqi life worth less than a soldiers? because I want my soldiers to live. I also want all of those people in that mall to live. I promise on the hair of my beloved baby snoozing next to me on the couch, if I had been that Samaritan, dude would never have known what hit him. Lights out, no warning, no hesitation. I crossed that bridge a long time ago.

[Historic NY]

3. Guy with gun takes cover and watches other guy with gun ...

fiddle with it until he killed himself. The sad thing is he let the shooter get his weapon working again.

[frazzled]

4. Oh, bull

This self-reported person (no witnesses are cited, and this story is in none of the mainstream accounts--just this one local tv site and a couple of right-wing pro-gun sites) did not stop anything. By his own admission he never even did anything. He never shot. (Had he done so, more people would be dead). The shooter killed himself.

Thank goodness this self-deluded conceal-and-carry nutter didn't decide to do anything.

[pasto76]

20. no, if he was properly trained with his firearm, he would not have missed

and just guessing, that this dude wasnt creeping up to point blank range. So from 40-50 feet away, a pistol round isnt going to hit anyone else. Dude was scared of missing and rightfully so. Obviously needs more training.

[catnhatnh]

5. Alerted-this is not breaking news...

...it is clearly labeled as an op-ed from a clearly identified conservative site.

[MightyMopar]

7. This what needs to go on DU, all the progun propaganda

[leveymg]

14. It isn't even current "news" - repost from another opinion site dated yesterday.

The OP has been here long enough to know better than to post this in LBN.

[cascadiance]

17. It was on "google news"...

But in retrospect, part of me wishes I'd put in in GD in hindsight (and put my own editorial title at the top too). Admins, if you want to move it, go ahead.

[lob1]

6. He had a gun but didn't shoot or do anything else, and he's a hero?

The whole damned mall was full of people who didn't shoot. Does that make everyone a hero?
That's the stupidest argument I've ever heard. Don't get me wrong, he was right in not just blasting away, but he didn't prevent a damned thing.

[jpak]

8. He's a hero to gun nut douchebags grasping at straws to defend their stupid "gun CULTure"

yup

[lob1]

15. It takes a RW nut job to find reason in jibberish.

It takes a special skill set.

[valerief]

9. How did other ppl having guns prevent the guy from killing two people with a gun???? nt

[rickford66]

10. What did this prove?

He didn't stop the shooter. So having the concealed handgun did .... what? His gun didn't save any lives in this instance.

[zeemike]

11. Yep it is the same logic you hear on economy car debate.

Small cars are dangerous cause if you are hit by an SUV you don't have a chance...solution...get a car bigger than an SUV.

So the good gunman takes up his position and fires....but the shooter has body armor and his little concealed pop gun does not hill him and he turns his automatic weapon in the good guns direction and sprays some more ...well then the good gun must also get body armor and a more powerful gun....eventually we will all be driving tanks and armed with rockets and grenades...and wearing urban camouflage too.
God what a world that would be eh?

[Piazza Riforma]

12. Even if this is the case

it still doesn't establish a need for everybody and their cousin to be armed.

Nick could have been a second degree black belt in some martial art and wiped the mall up with the dude and yet it doesn't mean that we need to build new dojos all over America.

[JDPriestly]

13. If the first gunman had not been carrying a gun, the second gunman would not have had a

gunman to point his gun at.

Adding more guns just makes it more likely that more people will carry guns and more people will be killed.

Had the first guy been wielding a knife, it would have been easier to subdue him.

The thought process underlying the OP is similar to that of an alcoholic who believes that another drink will help him feel better.

In fact the alcoholic is an addict, and one more drink will just lead to another one more drink.

One more gun just leads to one more gun. No one can use so many guns at once. And just having lots of stuff you don't need and can't use is in and of itself a symptom of some sort of neurosis or addictive behavior. But telling yourself you need to have that one more gun is an addiction that endangers others.

This addiction to guns has to stop.

[Luschnig]

16. Nick did nothing

but entertain big fantasies about saving humanity. He's just another boy who thinks he could be a 'hero'.

[MisterP]

18. a rather dull example of "reaction formation"

if your argument has zero data or reasonable argument or human feeling, they just vomit up a kneejerk counterfactual--a reaction in the wrong direction, an "argument by fiction" and hypothesis

data says the planet's warming and this'll cause disasters? spin tales of spoofed data and people herded into death camps to protect the rainforest
faked some yellowcake or al Qaeda connections? say that "the smoking gun can't be in the shape of a mushroom cloud"
people getting gunned down en masse a few times a year? say that more guns are the answer

there's also this trend during the Cold War--a 50s wave of Red-invasion literature at the same time as Iran and Diem and Guatemala, "Red Dawn" coming out as the US greenlights hundreds of thousands of murders in El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Angola, Cambodia, Argentina, Chile, etc.

[muriel_volestrangler]

21. Locking - not Latest Breaking News

It's an opinion piece (and RW at that - "Political Opinion from a Conservative Libertarian&quot , that was written and published a day ago, about an event from days ago. And that man did not 'stop the spree'.