We haven’t had a week this ugly in quite a while in terms of just terrible stories in the news related to gun freedoms and Second Amendment issues. Yuck! First, it looked like an Alabama mall shooting on Thanksgiving Day was thwarted by police – until it took a turn for the unbelievably surreal. What a gut punch. The media will be hammering America over the head with that one.
The other story involves an Islamist organization ripping off donors by pretending to raise money for the Pittsburg synagogue that was shot up by a Trump-hating leftist. That story, the media will ignore of course.
First, the Alabama story: Massive crowds shopping on Thanksgiving Day. A mobbed mall, tons of people, gun-free zone, shots ring out. Two people were wounded initially, and you can imagine the chaos that ensued. Police were on-scene and responded immediately. An officer spots a man brandishing a pistol and looking like he knows what he’s doing with it, so the officer shoots him down. Police announce the suspect is dead, cop is praised as a hero.
Later in the day, police sheepishly announce that the “shooter” is a military veteran and a concealed carry holder. In other words, the exact opposite profile of pretty much every mass shooter in history.
A few days later, police finally throw up their hands and admit that actually, Emantic Bradford was just a good guy with a gun. They shot and killed the wrong man, and the real suspect got away. Bradford was doing what soldiers and responsible gun owners do – trying to protect others in a chaotic and dangerous situation. Oof! What a gut punch. Complicating the issue massively is the fact that Emantic Bradford is black. Double oof!
This is just an awful situation where both sides of the issue are 100% correct. On the one hand, his family says that if Bradford had not been a black man with a gun, he might still be alive. They’re not wrong.
On the other hand, you can’t blame the cops. They were running into a crowd of screaming people, toward the danger, and they suddenly see a guy with a gun.
The whole thing is just an ugly, ugly mess. Some would argue that Bradford is at fault because he took his legally-owned firearm into a state-mandated “gun-free zone.” Baloney.
Not that we’re pointing fingers at anyone reading this article (or writing it), but thousands of Americans exercise their Second Amendment rights every single day by ignoring “gun-free zone” signs and nothing ever happens.
If anyone is at fault in the Bradford shooting, it’s the politicians who create soft target gun-free zones and tell everyone that their rights don’t apply if they walk across an invisible boundary. If we had an armed, polite society, then in the rare instance when shots ring out in a crowded mall, the cops can duck like everyone else until the American heroes like Emantic Bradford in the crowd sort it out.
On the face of it, this story is just a sad, tragic mess. Maybe the police bodycam footage will tell a different story when it’s released. If not, it’s just an awful incident where both sides – the police and the victim’s family – really are correct.
And then, there’s Linda Sarsour. If you’ve never heard of Linda Sarsour, she’s a real peach! Sarsour is one of the leaders of the screeching anti-Trump Women’s March that blocked traffic in DC on the day of Trump’s inauguration. She’s also been linked to the girl who suckered Colin Kaepernick into starting the NFL’s revenue-killing “take a knee” protest against the American flag. Oh, and Sarsour is suspected of being a Muslim Brotherhood operative and she constantly praises ISIS, advocates for Sharia law and bashes Israel on her social media channels.
So, it makes perfect sense that Linda Sarsour would use her pseudo-celebrity clout to raise funds for the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburg, following the mass shooting there, right? Sarsour raised approximately $165,000 from donors – and promptly donated $155,000 to the Islamic Center of Pittsburg, an organization with know ties to terrorist organizations. She sent $10,000 to the Tree of Life synagogue, which isn’t even enough to cover the costs of one funeral.
Yuck! What a week. Let’s all go buy some ammo to cheer ourselves up.
Why didn’t the police identify themselves before shooting?