There’s just something about Waffle House that seems to attract both violent criminals and brave patrons – often armed, but not always – who overcome them. As you may recall from the Good Guy with a Gun series here at Liberty Nation, a Waffle House customer stopped an AK-47 wielding would-be robber in July of 2016.
Two more locations were attacked in April 2018, and one of the gunmen was thwarted by an unarmed customer. Naturally, the anti-gun folks and establishment media at large were all over this story. See? You don’t need a gun to take out an armed madman; just look at James Shaw Jr. Mr. Shaw was courageous that day, but he was also extremely lucky. Attempting to charge across a hallway and disarm a gunman is a good way to end up full of extra holes, more often than not.
The Right to Life, with or without a Gun
But that isn’t to say that Mr. Shaw did the wrong thing. He merely did what he had to do to survive a life or death situation. The gunman – who wore nothing but a trench coat for his attack – had his right to keep and bear arms revoked, and his firearms confiscated after appearing in a restricted area of the White House in 2016. Of course, since laws only restrict those who care to obey them, he had a semi-automatic rifle that day. Shaw dropped to the ground and crawled to the bathroom hallway to remove himself from the attack. Once he saw his chance, he dove through the door and wrestled the gun away from the semi-nude madman.
Shaw has consistently said that his actions weren’t anything special – that he was acting merely out of self-preservation – but to all of the Waffle House patrons who didn’t die, he is a hero. But while Shaw’s actions cut the shooting short and saved lives, the gunman did manage to kill four and injure several more. And had everything not worked exactly in his favor – from the gunman dropping the barrel of the gun to the swivel door keeping the shooter from raising his weapon as Shaw launched himself through it – James Shaw Jr. would have simply been victim number five.
The Other Waffle House Attack
Only two days before the shooting at the Waffle House in Tennessee, a couple of armed men tried to rob patrons at another branch in New Orleans, Louisiana. They entered the restaurant holding semi-automatic handguns at 10:20 pm. One of the men served as the lookout while the other approached the cashier and demanded money.
After robbing one customer, the thief approached his intended second victim. The customer drew his weapon, frightening the robber into fleeing. The lookout then aimed his gun at the armed customer but was met with gunfire. Wounded, he ran out of the restaurant and fled the scene with his buddy in a white Chrysler.
Later that same night, one of the robbers was dropped off at an emergency room with gunshot wounds in his back. He had been shot multiple times by the armed customer. The robber was later arrested by the New Orleans Police Department.
No lives were lost in this incident, and only one of the criminals was injured. Of course, the gunmen were focused on robbery, not mass murder. Still, the fact that one of the customers was armed made all the difference. If James Shaw Jr. – or any of the other patrons – had been armed, might the trench coat bandit have been stopped sooner?
Establishment Media Never Tells the Whole Story
James Shaw Jr.
Every year, there are thousands of cases in which guns are used for defense. In the ‘90s, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) conducted a study showing that about 2.2 million defensive gun uses occur each year. In most of these cases, the weapon is not fired but used as a deterrent. That’s the best-case scenario, by the way – that no one has to die.
The left has attempted to convince the American public that additional legislation can solve the problem of gun violence in the United States. However, the facts on the ground show that laws cannot prevent criminals from committing violent crimes. Even without numerous stories just like these as evidence, it only takes a little critical thinking to deduce that criminals break laws, and that violent ones do so violently. But let’s examine the left’s logic:
Good guys with guns don’t stop bad guys; they just get themselves shot – if they even act at all. The people don’t need guns to defend against violent criminals; we need police. But if a rifle-toting murderer tries to shoot up your Texas Bacon Cheesesteak Melt, just tackle him. Like so much of the left’s inconsistent logic, it makes sense if you don’t think about it.
