Unconventional hero

By now you've likely heard the story of the Tennessee man who wrestled a rifle away from a gunman at an Antioch, TN Waffle House. After four people were already shot dead, an unarmed man by the name of James Shaw, Jr. somehow mustered the courage to confront the shooter.

Shaw Jr. rushed the gunman, grabbed the gun’s barrel, pulled it away and threw it over the Waffle House counter. He suffered a gunshot wound and burns from grabbing the gun’s barrel.

Shaw Jr. said he doesn’t feel like a hero.

He was only trying to stay alive.

“It feels selfish,” Shaw Jr. “I was just trying to get myself out. I saw the opportunity and pretty much took it.”

The gunman then fled the scene but was eventually apprehended after a 34-hour manhunt.

There's no denying that Mr. Shaw is a hero despite the fact he eschews that label. And I don't believe it's a stretch to say he's very very lucky to escape that confrontation with relatively minor injuries.

OK, now let's address the proverbial elephant in the room. How did the gun grabber crowd demagogue this latest shooting? I figured it would be the obligatory blaming the NRA or declaring that Congress needs to enact strict "gun control" measures. While I didn't think it was possible, the gun grabbers somehow managed to come up with a rationale even more asinine than their normal bilge.

Many of (the gun grabbers) immediately pointed to Shaw as proof that you don't need a gun to defend yourself against an armed assailant. The Parkland activists, in particular, were quick to seize on this idea. As Emma Gonzalez put it:

"The local police say a man at the scene wrestled his gun away - looks like you don’t need to arm a teacher (or a resource officer) to stop a shooting. There goes the sales pitch for @SmithWessonCorp."

That tweet was "liked" 20,000 times. David Hogg's tweet making the same argument was "liked" more than 50,000 times. Apparently the gun grabbers believe they've really stumbled onto some kind of brilliant point here.

They have not. On the contrary, they have stumbled onto something utterly nonsensical.

A man may use his hands to eat spaghetti but that doesn't universally negate the need for forks. A man may swim across the English Channel but that doesn't mean we should get rid of all the boats in the world. A man may sleep outside in a tent but that doesn't prove that houses are unnecessary. A man may jog from New York to Los Angeles but that isn't a sufficient reason to abolish air travel. A man may charge into gunfire and disarm an attacker with his bare hands but that is not an argument against the Second Amendment.

Again, I have the utmost admiration for Mr. Shaw (the fact he's also been raising money for the victims' families only fortifies that sentiment). He is definitely in an infinitesimal minority of people who would have confronted the shooter in such a manner. But if I had a choice to be protected by an unarmed man with extraordinary courage or an armed individual who is proficient in the use of a firearm, the latter wins out every time. And anyone who says differently is either delusional or a bald faced liar. So with that in mind, I guess it makes sense why gun grabbers would attempt to use this incident to strengthen their anti-gun position.

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