Typical Man With Firearm

Everyone heard, repeatedly and legitimately, about this murderous weekend incident outside of Indianapolis. CBS News has reported

Police on Monday provided more details about the shooting at a mall in Indiana on Sunday that left three victims dead — including the name of the "Good Samaritan" who is believed to have killed the shooter and stopped the attack. Officials called the actions of the armed civilian "nothing short of heroic," noting that the gunman likely would have killed many more people had he not intervened....

In a press conference Monday, Mayor Mark M. Meyers called Dicken a "Greenwood Good Samaritan" and thanked him for his quick actions in stopping the shooter. Greenwood Police Chief James Ison said that "Many more people would have died last night if not for a responsible armed citizen who took action within the first two minutes of this shooting."

A Good Samaritan and hero, Elisjsha Dicken deserves the wide acclaim he has gotten. But too often the "good guy with a gun" narrative goes awry- and gets less attention.  So many fewer people heard 

A distraught mother slammed a Texas grand jury for refusing to indict the man who shot and killed her young daughter while chasing down a man who'd just robbed him in February. 

On February 14, Arlene Alvarez was sitting in her family's car listening to music through headphones when she was shot in the head by Tony Earls, a 41-year-old who was on the street chasing down a man who had just robbed him at an ATM. 

Earls thought the robber had hopped into a vehicle and he mistook the Alvarez family car for one his assailant may have been traveling in. 

Gwen, the girl's mother, says he fired a total of nine shots at them, knowing he was going to kill someone or at the very least hoping he would. 

Earls was later charged with aggravated assault but a Grand Jury on Tuesday declined to indict him, accepting  his claim that he was acting in self-defense. 

"Self-defense" does a lot of work there.  Tony Earls is a good guy or, like most of us, a generally law-abiding one, who was angry because he had been robbed.  The grand jury found him to be an innocent man who had made a huge and horrible mistake. He, and especially his victim, are now a big part of what firearms and those who wield them recklessly have done to our country.

 

 

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