Americans learned yesterday what the difference between a first responder and an immediate responder is. The deadly lesson laid out for the entire nation yesterday should cause the Democrats in Virginia to pause and rethink the actions they are proposing to enact next month. Sane people should be telling the left to “sit down & shut up.”
As many of you know, yesterday in White Settlement, Texas (a suburb of Fort Worth), a still unidentified man entered the West Freeway Church of Christ. The church was broadcasting the service via YouTube, and I assume many of you have watched that video. The gunman, as communion was being completed, stood up and asked a man in the back a question. The man pointed to another man seated next to him. At this point, the gunman stepped back, withdrew a shotgun from under his coat, and pointed it at the guy the first man was pointing at.
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Based on reports, that man was one of the several volunteer security personnel in the church. He stood and began drawing his weapon, when the gunman fired a blast, killing him. A second later, he had turned and fired a second blast into the first man, who later in the day, died from those wounds.
It is at this point you need to rewind the video a bit and look into the back of the room and to the left. Back there is a man named Jack Wilson. Mr. Wilson is a former sheriffs deputy, Texas Army National Guardsman, a firearms instructor, and formerly ran his own shooting academy. He also is running for county commissioner. Mr. Wilson was another of the church’s volunteer security force.
At the moment the gunman drew his shotgun and pointed it at the first victim, you can see Mr. Wilson turn, and draw his weapon. A second later, as the gunman is shooting his second victim. Mr. Wilson has a good sight picture on the gunman. One second later, Mr. Wilson pulls the trigger, hitting the moving gunman in the head, dropping him and neutralizing the threat.
Three seconds.
What the Democrats in Virginia (or elsewhere for that matter) don’t get is the difference between a first responder and an immediate responder. First responders are our police, fire, rescue personnel. When something bad happens, they respond to these types of incidents, coming to aid people in need.
But I can say with 100% certainty that first responders CANNOT respond in three seconds.
By all accounts, the local police/sheriff deputies all responded VERY quickly and were highly professional. Some reports said the first police on the scene were in the building within three minutes after the start of the shooting. That is impressive.
Three minutes… not three seconds.
There are 180 seconds in a three minute time period. If Jack Wilson had not have responded when he did, in the way that he did, what could the gunman have done with his other 177 seconds? For the people left inside the church, how many more would have died? 10, 20, 50? 100?
We have an example of what would have happened without firearms inside that church in the hands of the good guys, with the November 5, 2017 church shooting in Sutherland, Texas. In that event, no one in the church was armed. The gunman walked through the church, shooting people… even going back and shooting people who had already been shot, to make sure they were dead. Twenty six people died, and twenty were wounded, and the shooting didn’t stop until another firearms instructor who happened to live across the street from the church, responded with his AR-15. Ultimately, the gunman got away in his vehicle, for which this instructor pursued him and eventually stopped him.
The Sutherland Springs shooting is instructive for two reasons. First, if people were armed in the building, it is likely that the numbers of killed and wounded would have been far less, like yesterday outside of Fort Worth. Second, even with the large loss of life, the shooting ended how? Did first responders stop the gunman?
No. An immediate responder stopped him with his “assault weapon” and saved lives.
Early in 2019, Virginia Republicans tried to pass a bill that would allow church goers to take their firearms into churches. Governor Northam stated through his spokeswoman last year that he “is disappointed to see the General Assembly take up none of the reasonable gun safety measures he proposed at the start of the session, including the extreme risk protection order signed into law by Republican governors and endorsed by President Trump’s school safety commission.”
Senator J. Chapman “Chap” Petersen (D) also was equally tone deaf when he stated: “When I walk into a house of worship, it humbles me. You need to act and be your best, and that means putting down your firearm.”
And now Democrats are headed to Richmond to not only keep Virginians from defending themselves in situations like what happened yesterday, but banning arms like the one used to end the Sutherland Springs shooting.
Excuse me, Virginia Democrats. What you need to do is to sit down and shut the hell up. You may have political power, but your moral authority is gone. Finished. White Settlement, Texas settled that yesterday. Sutherland Springs settled that.
When seconds matter, first responders are there in minutes. Look at the picture below. Not only Mr. Wilson responded yesterday, but you can see four or five others who were carrying, responding to the incident. And this is at least a minute and a half before any first responder arrived.
Immediate responders save lives.
Texans enacted legislation after the Sutherland Springs shooting, allowing church goers to carry in church. The same legislation Virginia Democrats opposed last year. The same legislation that allowed Jack Wilson and other immediate responders in the West Freeway Church of Christ to respond to evil yesterday.
If the Virginia Republicans in the General Assembly were smart, they would put Jack Wilson on a plane in January and have him testify to the events he was involved in yesterday. I am sure by the end of Mr. Wilson’s testimony, the Democrats would be seen sitting in their chairs like the fools that they are.
Jack Wilson is also running for county commissioner. If I were his opponents, I would just close up shop today and cede the election to him right now.
In the debates a year ago, Virginia Democrats opposed the bill to allow guns in churches because they felt that worshipers could wind up victimized with their own guns.
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They were wrong…dead wrong. Yesterday laid that all to rest. The first and best protection for people, their lives and their property, are immediate responders. The people themselves.
Democrats…. shut the hell up.
