Joe Biden (shown) may be tops in national Democrat primary polls, but he certainly doesn’t lead the field in policy analysis if a recently resurfaced video is any indication. In it the ex-vice president condemns and calls “irrational” the very policy that allowed a gun-wielding parishioner to thwart Sunday’s Texas church shooting — and join the countless legal firearm owners who foil crimes every year.
The attack at West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement could well have made even more jarring headlines as yet another mass shooting (often defined as involving at least four victims) with a high body count. But while any lost innocent life is tragic, and while the two victims murdered Sunday leave behind grieving loved ones, that a churchgoer used his weapon to stop the assailant within seconds surely prevented greater loss of life.
Note that the perpetrator, 43-year-old Keith Thomas Kinnunen, had not only a criminal record but a shotgun, which as I’ve often pointed out is the most devastating weapon for attacking soft targets at close range (no, the “AR-15” doesn’t compare). But because not-so-soft targets — including senior citizen Jack Wilson, who stopped Kinnunen with a single shot — were present, the carnage was ended.
Below is a news report that includes graphic video of the shooting taken by a church camera:
Unsurprisingly, Wilson stated that he doesn’t see himself “as a hero.” “I see myself as doing what needed to be done to take out the evil threat, that’s the way I approach,” ABC 13 quotes him as saying. “Like I said earlier[,] that’s how I am processing this whole event.”
But Wilson wasn’t alone. ABC 7 reports that “at least five other parishioners pulled out handguns.” Note that Wilson is the church’s head of security and has trained other churchgoers in firearm use. Obviously civic-minded, he’s also running for Hood County Commissioner for Precinct 3.
Wilson’s life-saving, crime-thwarting actions would have been thwarted themselves, however, if a far lesser man who’s running for a far greater office had his way. To wit: Mere months ago Joe Biden attacked Texas governor Greg Abbott (video below) — using the term “irrational” multiple times in 28 seconds — for permitting churchgoers to carry firearms.
WATCH: Joe Biden attacked the Governor of Texas for allowing church-goers to carry weapons just a few months ago pic.twitter.com/fuZmfabo5a
— Jack Posobiec ?? (@JackPosobiec) December 29, 2019
As is said, sarcastically, “That aged well” (much like Biden himself).
American Thinker called Biden’s buffoonery “spectacular” and only worthy of “laughter and mockery.” But it’s also irresponsible. To quote a currently popular saying, good people “carry guns because they can’t carry cops.”
And having only cops carry guns is a risky proposition. According to the Crime Prevention Research Center, 94 percent of post-1950 mass shootings have occurred in “gun free” zones, which, of course, are only good-guy gun-free. (Note: The left-wing Washington Post questions this, taking issue with the definition of “mass shootings.”)
In fact, even liberals agree — in their honest moments. Consider that when anti-gun journalists were approached in 2013 and asked if they’d put on their lawns a sign stating “THIS HOME IS PROUDLY GUN FREE,” none accepted. What’s more, one actually said, “I agree with you and I am on your side on this, but I’m just wondering if that’s not an invitation to somebody with a gun!” (video below). Funny, they don’t thus wonder when doing it “for the children” (to the children?) and labeling schools “gun free.”
Yet as Sunday showed — and as history reveals repeatedly — the best antidote for a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. In fact, research by Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck, a liberal Democrat and lifelong ACLU member, found that guns are used 2.2 to 2.5 million times per year to deter crime.
More recently, a $10 million study commissioned by Barack Obama and conducted by the Centers for Disease Control estimated that annual defensives gun use ranged “from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year,” reported CNSNews.com in 2013.
This is reflected in the news, too — or would be, at least, were the mainstream media honest. For the stories of good people warding off criminals with guns are legion, with a striking example being a pregnant Florida mother who used an AR-15 to save her husband just last month (video below).
So it’s no wonder that, as reported Friday, health researchers oppose Second Amendment rights more than criminologists do. When the ideology is bayed and sciene holds sway, firearms come out looking far better than fearmongers
Photo of Joe Biden: AP Images
Selwyn Duke (@SelwynDuke) has written for The New American for more than a decade. He has also written for The Hill, Observer, The American Conservative, WorldNetDaily, American Thinker, and many other print and online publications. In addition, he has contributed to college textbooks published by Gale-Cengage Learning, has appeared on television, and is a frequent guest on radio.
