A man opened fire on a congressional baseball practice event Wednesday morning, and Rep. Mike Bishop (R-MI-8) said the only thing that saved people was that someone in his group was armed and returned fire.
WWJ News Radio reports that five people were injured in the attack.
Rep. Bishop said:
As we were standing here this morning, a gunman walked up to the fence line and just began to shoot. I was standing at home plate and he was in the third base line. He had a rifle that was clearly meant for the job of taking people out, multiple casualties, and he had several rounds and magazines that he kept unloading and reloading.
The man reportedly continued shooting for a number of minutes. Bishop said their lives were saved because someone in his group had a gun and fired back.
Bishop said:
The only reason why any of us walked out of this thing, by the grace of God, one of the folks here had a weapon to fire back and give us a moment to find cover. We were inside the backstop, and if we didn’t have that cover by a brave person who stood up and took a shot themselves, we would not have gotten out of there, and every one of us would have been hit — every single one of us.
Fox News quotes Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) echoing Bishop’s sentiment, saying, “We were sitting ducks.”
Officials said, “The gunman was shot by Capitol Police and Alexandria Police, apprehended, and taken to the hospital.”
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.