Seattle Pacific University “Hero” Jon Meis
The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun, right?
SEATTLE (AP) — When a lone gunman armed with a shotgun at a small Seattle university stopped firing at students to reload, another student pepper-sprayed him and subdued him with the help of others and prevented more deaths, police said.
“There are a number of heroes in this,” Assistant Police Chief Paul McDonagh said. “The people around him (the gunman) stepped up.”
Can you recall ever reading a genuine account of a so-called ‘bad guy with a gun’ being stopped by a self-appointed Rambo with a gun? I can’t.
Unfortunately you have to go all the way back to 1992 to find relevant data because Congress subsequently banned federal funding for studies of gun violence, but according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics guns are used in self-defense in approximately 1 percent of violent crimes.
It’s possible that statistic has changed in the last 20 years, but it couldn’t have changed much or else we would hear about it more often than never.
According to KIRO 7 in Seattle, the shooter visited Columbine High School in the past and apparently wanted to repeat it. The young man who pepper-sprayed him is pictured above.