Following the passage of national reciprocity for concealed carry, Gabby Giffords released a statement citing the October 1 Las Vegas shooting as a reason to oppose concealed carry.
In the statement obtained by Breitbart News, Giffords said, “With Las Vegas and Sutherland Springs still in shock over their communities’ losses, Congress is actually moving to weaken our public safety. It’s an extraordinary violation of the public’s trust. Elections have consequences. We will be watching—and acting.”
It is ironic that she included the church attack at Sutherland Springs, where a congregation of unarmed people were shot by a criminal who preyed upon them. After the attack Mike Jordan, father of an eyewitness to the attack, talked of the benefit that could have resulted from armed congregants returning fire. He said:
A small town like this, you know, people show up to church, they disarm, leave their guns in the car, because you don’t expect something like this to happen. …[But] if you have one person on the inside that is armed to return fire, it may not have stopped people from dying, but it would have … been a distraction, it would have got that guy’s attention.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton shared similar sentiment, responding to the attack on unarmed congregants by stressing how important it was that Stephen Willeford had a gun with which to run toward the church and shoot the attacker. Paxton made clear that more armed law-abiding citizens are the solution for preventing future attacks.
Breitbart News quoted Paxton saying, “What ultimately may have saved some lives is … people that were outside the church that actually had guns that may have slowed this guy down and actually pursued him. So I would rather arm law-abiding citizens and make sure that they can prevent this from happening as opposed to trying to pass laws that would prevent law-abiding citizens from having guns.”
By arguing against concealed carry, Giffords is arguing for more gun-free situations, which will only provide criminals and terrorists with more easy targets to strike.
AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
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