Armed Citizen In Las Vegas Stops Driver’s Homicidal Rampage

By Tom Knighton Bearing Arms

When we talk about defensive gun uses, many people think of using a gun against someone else with a gun, or maybe a knife.

The truth is that a firearm is vital for defending ourselves and others from any deadly attack. What's more, a lot of people don't think of a lot of other things as deadly weapons. So when they hear a case stripped of context, sometimes they don't understand what's happening.

For example, when the police shoot a supposedly unarmed driver, a lot of people forget that a car is a potential weapon.

For an armed citizen in Las Vegas, though, he had to use his weapon when someone decided to illustrate just how much of a weapon a vehicle could be.

A man who shot and killed the driver of an SUV who was trying to run people over is in police custody and is cooperating, according to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.

Police say around 6:30 p.m. Thursday, a man showed up at a home remodel near Cory Pl. and Dover Pl. to do his job.

However, police say he was in no condition to work and the man was fired.

An “altercation” ensued and the fired man got into a dark SUV and tried to run over his former boss, who was eventually hit.

Witnesses then came out of their own homes, including the armed citizen who had a shotgun. The driver then attempted to run over them, which prompted the shots. The attacked was found dead when officers arrived on the scene.

Las Vegas police officers took the shooter into custody where he's been reported as cooperative.

Frankly, I don't think he should have been taken into custody at all. This is someone who had already killed one person with his car. He tried to kill others and was shot in what sure looks like an act of self-defense to me.

Granted, I'm not a defensive gun use expert or anything, so there may be some circumstances that I'm missing here, but overall, I'm confident enough that this is a defensive gun use to say so.

And it's a reminder that cars are potential weapons. They kill tens of thousands of people every year by accident or negligence alone. Guns don't. People respect guns and so those unintentional deaths are fairly rare, all things considered. Cars are different and they kill a lot more people.

Couple that capability with intentionality–someone actually wanting to use it as a weapon–and you've got a very dangerous combination.

Clearly what's needed after this is vehicle control. People need to undergo a background check prior to buying a car. We need all cars to be sold through licensed dealerships. And who needs a high-capacity fuel tank, anyway?

In all seriousness, what happened here is a tragedy. A person was killed because he made the kind of decision most of us would likely have made when his employee showed up to work in no condition to do so. That employee turned violent and used the weapons at his disposal.

A gun wasn't needed. All that was needed was a homicidal intention, which was clearly there.

And a good guy with a gun ended the threat.

Find the original article in its entirety on Bearing Arms.

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