One thing that doesn’t happen very often is a shooting at a gun store. It happens occasionally, but when you think about how many gun stores there are and the fact that many people insist that guns cause violent crime, you’d think it would happen more often. It doesn’t.
Yet just a couple of weeks after Giffords lost their mind about a debate watch party for Trump supporters at Adventure Outdoors, which bills itself as the world’s largest gun store, there was a shooting there.
Two officers were injured and the suspect is dead.
Two Georgia police officers were wounded and a man was killed during a shooting inside a suburban Atlanta retailer that calls itself the world’s largest gun store.
Smyrna Police Chief Keith Zgonc said the officers were investigating reports of gunfire and a burglary in progress around midnight when they found the suspect inside Adventure Outdoors, which has more than 18,000 guns in stock.
“When officers arrived they encountered an armed gunman that was inside the store … gunfire erupted between the gunman and officers on the scene,” wounding the two officers and killing the suspect, Zgonc said.
Police have not released the names of the deceased suspect or the officers, who Zgonc said were hospitalized and expected to survive.
Now, in fairness, there’s no reason to believe Giffords freaking out led to this incident. Nor can we really chalk this up to what many might imagine when they hear of a shooting at a gun store.
This was a burglary where the offender decided to shoot it out with police instead of just taking his chances in court.
But then again, Giffords tried to make a big thing about a watch party at a gun store an hour away from where a shooting had happened.
Yet let’s also look at what happened absent any anti-gun group calling attention to the store. I’m sure locals know it’s there and how large it is, after all, so it’s not shocking that someone would look at the store and think it’s a great target for stealing guns.
Which, coincidentally, is how most guns end up in the hands of criminals. They steal them, and all too often, they break into gun stores to steal them. You’re not going to stop them with more laws because burglary and theft are already illegal. You can’t make them extra-illegal or anything.
And when you’ve got someone who is willing to kill in order to get guns–and if he’s shooting at police, you have to assume he was trying to kill them–what are you really going to do to deter them from trying to steal guns?
Luckily, this one has a relatively happy ending. I’m sure not everyone is thrilled with the outcome, but this is definitely a case of FAFO and he most definitely found out. That’s not on anyone except the dead dirtbag in the morgue.
But we also need to remember that so long as guns exist, criminals will get guns regardless of whatever laws you care to put in place. Breaking laws is kind of in the criminal job description. You can’t prohibit them with laws.
If so, there wouldn’t have been a shootout at a gun store over the weekend.
