Joseph Wilcox, armed citizen who died attempting to stop a mass shooting

Mass shooting situations trigger a tsunami of public emotion, so there are enormous incentives for politically correct reporters to “interpret” them in certain ways for political purposes. But they are often complex events that take time and careful investigation to unravel. In the recent shooting in Las Vegas, two police officers and a concealed carry permit holder were killed by the two attackers, who also died. The last death occurred in a Wal-Mart, which, I am told, has some of the most complete surveillance camera systems of all U.S. retail establishments . . .

Initial stories did not include mention of the fact that the victim killed in the Wal-Mart was a legally armed citizen. Subsequent stories disclosed that he was attempting to stop the attackers when he was killed; it was implied that his action was futile. Initial police reports claimed that the attackers had committed suicide.

From CNN:

Authorities had earlier said the woman shot and killed her husband before taking her own life. But Assistant Sheriff Kevin McMahill told reporters Wednesday that a review of forensic evidence at the scene and autopsy results showed that police fatally wounded the gunman.

“We made a determination that she did not shoot him. He did suffer a gunshot wound, and we believe the entrance wound was here,” McMahill said, pointing to his own collarbone.

Note that CNN makes no mention of the armed citizen, Joseph Wilcox, being armed, or of his attempt to stop the attackers, until the end of the story:

After gunning down the officers, Jerad and Amanda Miller ran to a nearby Walmart, police said, where they killed a bystander before barricading themselves inside the store during a firefight with responding officers.

At the end of the article the writer includes this statement from the police spokesperson, Assistant Chief McMahill:

“He was carrying a concealed weapon, and he immediately and heroically moved toward the position of Jerad Miller. Upon completing that action, he did not realize that Amanda Miller was with Jerad Miller,” McMahill said.

The change in the story from the male attacker being shot by his wife, and then committing suicide, to him being fatally shot by police, has prompted at least one observer to wonder if Joseph Wilcox might have wounded the male attacker. From sfgate.com, commenter porkupine writes:

First they said the wife shot the husband at walmart. Now they are saying cops shot him and the wife shot her self, and only now are they saying a concealed permit carrier “confronted them”. You know what I think? I think that the concealed permit citizen shot the husband, then the wife shot the concealed carrier. The concealed guy stopped a potentially huge shooting spree but the anti gun mainstream media doesn’t people to know that

One of the early reports from the Las Vegas Review Journal stated:

One unconfirmed report is that the two exchanged gunfire with a citizen who was carrying a concealed weapon, and that one of the shooters was injured.

There is a clear bias in the old media to downplay successful citizen defensive uses of guns. John Lott wrote an entire book about it, so it’s easy to understand the skepticism embodied in porukpine’s comment. The Las Vegas police have also earned considerable skepticism about their ability to investigate shootings, especially after all the Costco footage of the shooting of another concealed carry permit holder, Eric Scott, was never recovered. In fact, the Las Vegas Review-Journal wrote an entire book devoted to criticism of Las Vegas police shooting investigations.

The police acknowledge that they have voluminous videotape of the incident from store cameras.

McMahill said investigators were reviewing a “tremendous” amount of graphic video of the suspects during the rampage.

“The video shows you exactly how vicious and coldblooded these murderers were,” he said.

In the interest of transparency and to nip any questions about a “coverup”, the police should release all of the video to the public.   We have often seen how, when only select snippets of video are released, as in the Rodney King affair, those snippets can be completely misleading.

In these days of online video, there is no reason not to release the entire footage.

©2014 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.
Gun Watch

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94 COMMENTS

  1. I wish they’d all agree on just one narrative to shove down our throats.

    I believe the CCW holder shot the husband then got shot by the wife. It makes sense why else (if mass casualties were your goal) would you barricade yourself in the back of the store other than your “team” had sustained a casualty?

      • No doubt that could have been a component. If he was bleeding out and neither wanted to go to prison, it could have been a “mercy killing” on her part to shoot him before she turned it on herself. It will interesting to find more info.

    • Jay,

      They are still working on getting the Kennedy assassination story straight. Either one of them. Just quote Hillary “What difference does it really make?”

  2. Wouldn’t be surprised to hear “due to technical problems it was impossible to recover all the video “… you know how those pesky problems always seem to crop up. Like those Lois Lerner emails that were lost today.

  3. Whether he shot or not he displayed tremendous bravery for confronting them. He just may have prevented dozens of deaths. I really hope he gets the credit he deserves for his actions

    • Here in Nevada he’s getting his due. There’s been billboards, people on local forums have all proclaimed his bravery and there’s been a bunch of funds set up for his family.

      • That’s why I poo-poo conspiracy talk. Most cops on the street would be happy if there were more gentlemen like Mr. Wilcox out there; they’re no going to try and minimize his act. The media, sure, but they’ve got a narrative to sell.

        • Most cops, yes. But maybe not their bosses, who are as mired in politics as any politician.

      • Yep. Even police leadership, which probably hates citizen carry to the limit, is not going to criticize any guy who took on “cop killers”.

  4. Wouldn’t be surprised to find out the young man killed in Walmart played a greater role in stopping the crime spree than the lame stream media is willing to acknowledge.

  6. Try to watch your flank when you draw down, hope for the best toward him and his family.

  8. How could the police have shot him? No stories indicate the presence of police at the Walmart at the time of the gunfire exchange between Wilcox and the Millers. Are they trying to claim that one of the cops they shot in the pizzeria shot Miller?

    • There are plenty of accounts saying that after she killed Wilcox the police entered and exchanged gunfire with the two before she finished herself off.

  9. Eric was a classmate at the academy and well respected by his peers.

    About all you can expect of the LVPD is a cover up.

  10. Do any of my brothers and sisters in Las Vegas have a read on Doug Gillespie? I spend a lot of time in Las Vegas, but my only contact with Metro was when I got my Nevada Concealed Firearms Permit. Will Gillespie give Joe Wilcox his druthers or not? Will he tell us the truth?

    • Gillespie called Wilcox a hero a few days ago in one of his press conferences where they gave more info. He mentioned that Mr. Wilcox gave his life trying to protect people when he engaged two cop-killers. Gillespie has made some gaffes during his tenure, but he’s been very fair and forthcoming during this recent tragedy.

    • NRA pony coin? Just FOIA the LEO reports yourself. Don’t expect someone else to do what you should be doing. The last FOIA I filed was free, and it cost a couple of bucks just in postage to respond.

      • Though, if someone with more clout like the NRA requests it, I think they’re less likely to “accidentally” forget to release information, and any discoveries in what’s shared is more likely to propagate to the public faster, etc.

  12. Shot in the collarbone, to my CSI addled mind, implies a direct confrontation and exchange of gunfire. If it was Joe, he had even bigger balls than we thought.

  13. If the CCW holder did or did not shot the guy doesn’t matter. What the whole shooting should focus on is that there are good citizens willing to put there lives on the line for complete strangers. The CCW holder is a hero and that’s what should be on the news.

    • It doesn’t matter if he did, he at least tried to do something. That’s more than most people.

      • Then why is the fact that he was even a firearms carrier germane? And if in fact he was a carrier, why didn’t he have it out when confronting a real threat with his gun drawn?

        Lots of unanswered questions in this case.

          • I’m not, I’m just trying to find out exactly what happened. OTOH, others here seem to be following the typical CBS/NBC/ABC/PBS/CNN/MSNBC mindset of saying whatever they want without regard to the truth. I suppose it is all in whose ox is getting gored, and the truth be damned.

            The minute we abandon truth we fall prey to the anti-2A crowd. If we misrepresent this, even a little, it can and probably will be used against us. Don’t see how? Just watch.

    • I’d say the fact that they allowed others to leave the store unharmed but shot Mr. Wilcox is evidence that he did something to present himself as a threat to those two. They made absolutely no known moves to harm any other civilian during the entire attack at either location and there has already been video released of the couple’s last moments where the male expires on the floor. The wife clearly does not shoot him as was first reported and the current timeline has him dying before police got close to them.

      If the cops had shot him, they’d be bragging about killing him in the news right now. If the wife had shot him, it would have been clearly visible in the video. Mr. Wilcox is the only person known to have been armed, alive, and able to have fired the shot that ultimately killed the male attacker.

      Logically, we can assume that he fired the shot based on those facts. They allowed every other civilian to live, he was the only armed person that we know of inside the walmart with the attackers when the male died, and that the police have stated that neither officers or the wife shot the husband.

      • Where are you getting this? The two prevailing stories are that a) his wife shot him, or b) the police shot him with 5.56. How anyone could confuse the two, I don’t know. But in any event, no story shows this CCer shooting him.

        • Stories? Just media fables that you’re buying wholesale.

          What was the timeline? When seconds count the police are minutes away. Likely would have swarned the lunch stand not Walmart.

    • Is there not? Do you think the police would be talking about him in that way if they did not have evidence that he had pulled his gun? Do you think it’s a coincidence that the only people shot that day were police officers and one guy who happened to have a gun?

  15. Our society could use a whole lot more heroes like Mr. Wilcox. Sometimes doing the right thing is the last thing you’ll ever do.

    • That’s called “self-sacrifice.” It’s lost on most people any more, I’m afraid.

  16. All that’s changed is that the guy was apparently shot by police and not his wife. The video is apparently grainy and she apparently reaches over to him around the time he was shot. I’m not sure why that should arouse skepticism. You can generally trust the media to breathlessly report whatever they can in instances like this with zero regard or patience for the truth, and to add a political spin to anything that will fire their readers up. That’s not a cover-up, that’s a bunch of leeches doing what leeches do.

    It also doesn’t change the unbelievable bravery of Joseph Wilcox and the selfless actions he took.

  18. How can we say that Wilcox “may have” prevented dozens of deaths when the killers were reported to have shouted for everybody to leave the store? These people had an issue with the government and with the police, but not with regular people, or they would have shot everyone in CiCi’s too.

    • Yep. I was posting along the same lines right after the incident. They only targeted officers in the restaurant. They yelled for everyone to get out of Walmart. It doesn’t appear that they were targeting anything but agents of government. In my opinion, Wilcox was very courageous and acted heroically. I’m not convinced that he cut the incident short though. Wilcox couldn’t have known it at the time but there is a possibility he wouldn’t have been shot by the pair if he was exiting the store. In one of my other posts there is a quote by one of the employees from the back of the store. The gunman had told him not to run. The gunman then continued to walk towards the back of the store while the employee continued on out of the front.

    • I wouldn’t go so far as to say that he prevented dozens of deaths, but it would be fairly logical to assume that if he did fire a shot that disabled and ultimately killed the husband, that he probably saved some of the responding officers lives. These people were well armed (enough that they had to use a shopping cart to haul their guns and ammunition along.) and had already murdered two officers. Had they been able to get out their rifles, it would have been fairly easy for them to hurt more officers as they came in.

      Again, I wouldn’t go so far as to say dozens. Las Vegas SWAT showed up pretty quickly and from everything I’ve ever heard about them, they’d have gotten the job done.

    • It may be a stretch to say he saved x number of lives. I think it can be said that, regardless of his motivation, he stood up and took what he thought was the appropriate course of action given the imperfect information he had to work with in that compressed timeline for action.

      Conventional wisdom of the past has been turned on end. Prior to 9/11, there was no incentive for passengers on a hijacked airliner to resist. Now there is no incentive not to. With the spate of wackos into 15 minutes of fame, a very quick decision has to made of flight or fight…on a battlefield not of your choosing, where you have imperfect intel, and are most likely at a tactical disadvantage. What would you do? They say you don’t rise to the occasion, you fall back on your training, I’ll tell ya…I’ve had a fair amount of firearms training, and a fair amount of training for what to do deep in indian country, but I haven’t had much to prepare me for the Wallyworld Kobiashi Maru scenario. It’s a tough call to make that decision on the fly given all the factors working against you to be the good guy with the gun that may be the difference in a shooting and a mass shooting.

      I give the man his props for steppin up to the plate.

    • Yes, I’ve noticed that for some reason the Millers are generally being described as “mass shooters” and “spree killers” when everything that we’ve been told says that they were actually incredibly incompetent guerillas.

  19. The sfgate article has a quote from TTAG’s very own Nick Leghorn…

    “It is tragic that Wilcox had to give his life to stop these two murderers, but there’s no doubt that his actions saved countless lives,” wrote Nick Leghorn, a self-described San Antonio “gun nerd” who writes for the pro-gun blog thetruthaboutguns.com.

  20. There was a story out a couple of days ago that the husband was killed with a 223 caliber round and may have also been shot by his wife, this story changes every other day.

  21. Joseph Wilcox; Citizen, American, human being, living and dying for what is the best in all of us.

    “Greater love has no one than this; than to lay down one’s life for his friends”. John 15:13

  22. The more I hear about this, the more convinced I become that Wilcox did more good than the Obama administration and their propaganda machine disguised as news would like to admit.

  23. An account has been set up at Wells Fargo bank for those wishing to donate money to Joseph Wilcox’s family. It is:

    Joseph R. Wilcox Memorial Fund
    Account number: 8485852688

  24. TAG is one of the reasons why we learn “the truth” and the hope is that the information learned here will be consumed by the Antis…

  25. This is the second story in a couple of weeks, the other being the Seattle Pacific University shooting, where individuals ignored the typical “shelter in place” or “duty to retreat” suggestions that are always put across by authorities and “experts”, and instead directly confronted and attacked the criminals.

    Why anyone would recommend another course of action is beyond me. The outcome is obviously positive, though it’s unfortunate that the man in one of these two incidents died as a result, but the number of lives saved may be tremendously higher than one.

  26. Is it possible that when the husband was confronted by Mr. Wilcox he was in position to draw or had his weapon out at low ready, when the wife shoots him from behind AND that bullets path included her husband? Either way does not diminish what Mr. Wilcox did.

  27. I’m sure the police now have the possession of the surveillance footage from Walmart. Can we use the Freedom of Information Act to request the footage?

  28. The fact that the film was grainy is a cover up. Those cameras are very clear. Then Obama’s BS. It’s the sign of the times. What happened to all the protesters in NY 1%. You hear about then gone.Why aren’t college kids protesting anymore? Is the Gov.stopping it? That was like a right of passage for kids now it’s kill everyone. Is that the new change?

  29. The Rashomon Effect runs rampant in a case like this, where only disconnected snippets of evidence are available for our review. I’m clear that Wilcox was the good guy and attempted to do what he thought was necessary and right, despite the obvious danger.

    Beyond that, I need to hear more witness statements and definitely need to see the videos before I can even know what actually happened, let alone extrapolate from that what impact anyone’s individual actions may have had on subsequent events.

  30. This post is just TTAG making up a narrative it likes without anything supporting it other than conjecture. It’s the same tactics we criticize antis for. Do better.

    • I agree.

      Technically the TTAG post was constructed very carefully to essentially say that the video should be released to prevent people like porkupine getting suspicious of conspiracies…

      but something about the tone of the article sounded off, making it look like TTAG was already convinced that the CCer shot the perp and just wanted the video to prove what it already knew.

  31. Every time a shooting happens the media screw it up beyond recognition and then tries to avoid correcting themselves. Most people still believe the Colorado Theater shooting was done by either an AR or AK (he used a shotgun) and that the Connecticut shooting was don with a Bushmaster (he used a pistol and the media still believes bushmaster is a gun and not a Brand name)

    • He did not use a pistol on anyone other than himself. All casualties save himself were with the 5.56 rifle.

    • The Colorado theater shooting included us of an S&W AR-15, a Remington 870 shotgun, and a Glock .40 caliber pistol. A second .40 caliber pistol was found at the scene, but not used in the attack. The actual shooting did use all three types of firearms. A total of sixty-six spent rifle rounds, six spent shotgun shells and four spent handgun rounds were found in the theater. Holmes started wity the AR, but its hundred round magazine jammed, so he switched to the shotgun.

      • Sorry but you have your facts wrong. The AR was found outside of the theater. The dumbass tried to use a 100 rd mag. They tend to jam a lot if not properly maintained and cleaned. He tried to rack a round into the chamber and it jammed so he dropped it outside the emergency exit door he used.

      • Sorry, but they aren’t “my” facts. I don’t want to get into a whole philosophical, existential debate here, but suffice it to say that there is only one reality in existence and it is comprised one set of facts. Those facts exist for all. I don’t own them, or not own them, any more than you do or do not. So there.

        I think what you meant to say is that I am just wrong. Well, you’re wrong. For starters, I just said his damn AR jammed, which you then agreed with. So what exactly am I wrong about there? Hmm? Second, just because his AR was found outside, does not mean it was never inside nor ever used inside. By your logic, because Holmes himself was found outside, that must prove that he had never been inside. He’s innocent! Sheesh. But hey, don’t take my word for it. Let’s go to the court testimony of the lead detective on the case, shall we? After this post, it’s all between you and the police detectives and the prosecutors. You can argue with them and call them uninformed about their own investigation and leave me out of it. Fair enough?

        “Video from the theater shows a man they say is Holmes — wearing dark pants, a light-colored shirt and a dark stocking cap covering his orange hair — entering the multiplex before the movie begins. The recordings show him going into Theater No. 9, a different theater from the one listed on his ticket.

        […] once inside the theater…..he propped open the theater’s back door and went to his car to put on body armor and arm himself. Authorities believe Holmes then re-entered the theater, tossing gas canisters before opening fire about 18 minutes into the movie, according to sources.

        Among the 41 calls to 911, one stands out. In the 27-second call, the sounds of at least 30 shots ring out amid the chaos. At some point, according to [Prosecutor Karen] Pearson, one of Holmes’ weapons jammed. ‘Had the AR-15 not jammed, he would have killed more people,’ she said.

        {TAKE NOTE OF THAT: HE’S INSIDE THE THEATER SHOOTING WITH THE AR, THEN IT JAMS.}

        Investigators found 76 shell casings in the auditorium. Most of the spent rounds — 65 — were .223 caliber rifle rounds, six were shotgun shells and five were .40 caliber rounds from the Glocks, Appel said. Police also found one of the tear-gas canisters inside the theater, Appel said.

        {TAKE NOTE OF THAT: Detective Craig Appel, the LEAD investigator in the case, testified that the vast majority of the shells and casings found INSIDE THE THEATER, 65 out of the 76, were .223 caliber rifle rounds}

        Soooo…………..how did (65) .223 shell casings get INSIDE the theater, if no AR was ever fired inside the theater? Hmm? Mind you, this isn’t speculation or same-day rushed media accounts. These are court records by the prosecution and investigators six months after the event.

        This, coupled with your Sandy Hook comment about no AR being used, says you’re just buying into conspiracy theories about people whom you fear are out to smear AR’s. Geez, man, all this took was about three seconds of googling to find the details. Yet, you’d rather spend all day calling me mistaken, meanwhile perpetuating inaccuracies of your own? Good freakin’ grief!

        http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/09/justice/colorado-theater-shooting/

  32. Given the accusations the NVPD engages in cover=ups and is incompetent in its investigations, wouldn’t it still be the case forensic investigation would have to determine if Wilcox fired his gun and autopsies of the shooters and Wilcox settle the question of who shot who?
    Of course if the forensic evidence is tampered with in the Official NVPD report, we might never know the true results, but I’m waiting to see before making a judgement about Wicox’s effect on the outcome of the incident.

    • Witness state the couple entered the wal-mart fired a shot into the air and told everybody to leave the store or be shot. If the cc’er had left the store with everybody else he would more than likely be alive.

      • Well at the time of the incident, that’s just an assumption. I doubt the people in the Walmart knew about the killing of the cops, nor did they understand the couples (sick) intent. All they probable heard was a shot in the air and yelling. And just because a criminal asks for compliance, doesn’t mean they won’t follow through with the threat.

  34. This event reminds me of good people who have intervened at bank robberies. Intervening when you have no idea if the violent criminal in front of you has accomplices behind you is sketchy at best.

    If you feel compelled to act for some reason, do your best to put cover and concealment to your sides — which includes your backside. Remember, a firearm is not a magic talisman and you cannot respond (in any manner) to attacks that you cannot see.

  36. The verifiable objective fact pattern so far strongly supports the hypothesis that Mr Wilson, a legal CCW holder, shot one of the Las Vegas Shooters, and was shot by the other. I’ll wait for the rest of the video to be released, as it ought to tell the full story. I’m not interested in the media story, as we know from long experience its going to be incomplete at best, and biased at worst, until those facts come out.

    Here is the bottom line- a good guy with a gun stopped two bad guys with guns.
    When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.

    • And with respect to the many street cops in the LVPD who put their lives on the line, I am not interested in what LVPD management/PR has to say, either.

      We know from the local paper’s investigation into the LVPD management of the Eric Scott tragedy, that it would be only prudent to wait until all the facts come out.

    • PS: even if Mr Wilcox DIDNT get a shot off, just the fact that he distracted these two nuts, at the same time that cops were arriving, undoubtely threw the nutjogs off their plan, whatever it was inside Walmart, with all the extra guns and ammo they’d collected- it surely wasnt to go shopping….

      and by doing so, its very fair to consider just how many other innocent lives might have been saved, or responding cops who might have been shot, by the nutjobs, when they were forced early into their end-game – pre-planned suicide by cop/self.

      Just like the many many examples of school yard massacres- or mall shootings- committed by narcissistic sociopaths gone off the deep end- they are there to kill innocents and/or take hostages, to make their “final statement” and as soon as some armed resistance appears, the nuts give up and/or kill themselves- Rodgers, Lanza, Holmes, Columbine, VA Tech…the list is long and the conclusion obvious:

      When seconds count, police are only minutes away.
      A good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with a gun. Again.

  37. I think this incident shows why a full suzed handgun is the way to go. I don’t know what Joseph Wilcox was carrying but if he was carrying something with a 4″ barrel or linger he could have accurately targeted the shooters at ranges up to 25 yards or more. Longer ranges allow you to have better situational awarenesd which makes it less likely that you will be surprised by a second shootet. Pocket pistols and snubbies are for close in defense and while most DGUs are at short range why would you give up the advantages of better ballistics and accuracy?

    • A longer barrel can give a good pistol shot a longer sight radius to work with, but it’s been found to not make much difference outside of Bullseye competition.

      Never underestimate the accuracy potential of smaller handguns.

      Ballistics? A bit, but the difference in FP energy delivered isn’t the problem. Placement is.

      I’ve seen some good first shot hits at 50 – 75 yard range by people you wouldn’t expect it from. A decent trigger pull and attention to sight alignment is what’s important.

      and last:

      “…why would you give up the advantages of better ballistics….?”
      Concealability, sir.

  38. PS: Welcome SFgate viewers. At least Mr Hearns got Nick’s name right.
    One thing I’ve learned to do is read between the lines to understand where the writers in the mainstream media (to be polite) like SFgate are coming from, and here is a good tip I heard from a therapist one time. Listen for the “but” for the words that come after that are what matter, (“behold the underlying truth”) despite the careful disclaimers in front of them.

    Here is Mr Hearns/SFgates underlying truth:
    “But others in law enforcement and gun-control advocacy say the deadly confrontation illustrates the ultimate fallacy of the concealed-carry mantra that “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun”….

    And he cites the President of a Schools Resources Officer national association. Keep in mind the SRO is a security guard at a school, with less training that regular LEOs. And if they are working for the school district, or the police department, naturally, they are going to be biased against “the untrained citizen with a gun” vs “the trained LEO” etc, after all- they are hoping to keep their union job and get more training, maybe even become a “real” cop someday.

    And Walmart is not a school ground. So I would only say to Mr Hearns, and SFgate writers- please, don’t further besmirch your SFgate’s reputation and your own with such obviously biased reporting, no matter how cleverly set up, with reasonable points of view from “both sides”. Well, other than passive-aggressively discounting Nick as a gun nerd from the pro-gun site TTAG. I think you forgot “right wing nut job” there on paper, but we all heard it.

    Oh, one more thing. Whats up with Uncle Leland. Mighty quiet out there….SFgate was on it at first, and then, suddenly your key writers were off reporting on community organizing events at duck ponds, or some such. Did you all get the word from on high? Hmmmm. I bet there is a story there somewhere…

  39. Welcome SFGate viewers. Again- Dean Weingarten’s point in this excellent article, is that there is an obvious bias in the “mainstream” media, against guns in general, and citizen rights to self-defense, including the obvious proofs in many many self defense situationss, that “a good guy with a gun stopped a bad guy with a gun”.
    After all, it was Bloombergs own paid PR hack, Shannon Watts, the national spinner at Everytown, formerly PR at MDA, formerly PR at Monsanto for GMO foods, the national “expert” who was uncritically platformed by CNN just a week ago, to assert a shamelessly outrageous lie about no proof that a Defensive Gun Use (DGU) saved lives.

    http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2014/06/robert-farago/quote-day-shannon-watts-good-guys-guns-stopping-bad-guys/

    So lets just compare and contrast on this latest DGU, by Mr Wilcox, the quiet responsible gun owner and CCW permit holder, who perhaps saved lives in his heroic effort to stop the Las Vegas Shooters. Lets just call him for sake of simplicity- Wilcox- the hero of Walmart.
    And compare how the local media portrays his involvement, with eyewitness testimony, vs the national media:

    Local- Mr Wilcox, civilian CCW permit holder, called a hero, and honored with deceased officers, by local cops.
    http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/06/09/Police-Armed-Civilian-Who-Confronted-Las-Vegas-Attackers-Is-A-Hero

    National: Mr Wilcox is completely forgotten, un-named by ABC News, in their detailed storyline of how it happened in Walmart:

    http://abcnews.go.com/US/chilling-video-shows-las-vegas-rampage-suspects-final/story?id=24101904
    also covered here on TTAG.

  42. CNN did go to a lot of trouble to NOT mention that the bystander who tried to stop them was an armed citizen.

  43. So a guy saves the lives of countless others and to protect the message they media wants, they’ll completely cover up his sacrifice…that’s disgusting.

    The problem we have is the media controls perception and perception is reality…even if it’s a lie…

    • “The problem we have is the media controls perception and perception is reality…even if it’s a lie…”

      BINGO! Give this Man a cee-gar! Take notice! THIS is what we fight every hour of every day over the right to keep and bear Arms. Not just from the media, but from Politician’s, gun control advocates and their supporters…and worse yet from a large segment of the Public who believe the lies the aforementioned tell consistently. This is why we have, as RF observed, “a Marketing Problem”.

  45. FOIA the coroners report on the perps and ballistics on any and all bullets found in the bodies of the same. Seriously doubt the armed hero was carrying same sidearm and/or round as the perps or LVPD.

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