PA Bill Number: HB2663
Title: Providing for older adults protective services; and making a repeal.
Description: Providing for older adults protective services; and making a repeal. ...
Last Action: Referred to AGING AND OLDER ADULT SERVICES
Last Action Date: Nov 19, 2024
Illinois Self-Defense: It Should Have Been a Defensive Gun Use: Army Vet Gets Cut Saving 16 Children Edition :: 10/17/2015
“James Vernon was teaching a chess class with 16 children at Morton Public Library when 19-year-old Dustin Brown entered the room with two knives,” Illinois’ startribune.com reports.
“‘I tried to talk to him. I tried to settle him down,’ he said. ‘I didn’t, but I did deflect his attention’ from the children ‘and calmed him a bit. I asked him if he was from Morton, did he go to high school. I asked what his problem was. He said his life sucks.’ Vernon said the man backed away as he got closer to him, but he was able to put himself between Brown and the room’s door, with the children hiding under the tables behind him.” And then . . .
Vernon said Brown responded by slashing him with a knife . . .
Vernon, a retired Caterpillar Inc. employee, told the newspaper he remembered the knife-fight training the Army had given him. Despite his cuts, Vernon contended he won his “90 seconds of combat” with Brown, “but I felt like I lost the war.” He suffered two cut arteries and a tendon in his left hand as he blocked Brown’s knife swipe.
Vernon, saying he was “bleeding pretty good” at the time, held the suspect until a library employee arrived to remove the knives, and kept the man pinned until police officers and paramedics arrived.
In another report, the septuagenarian hero echoed the sentiment soon to be expressed by the anti-gun crowd (if they could be bothered to comment on a story bereft of “gun violence”): “Had he brought a firearm instead, ‘It would’ve been a different story.'” Oh sure, now they’ll comment . . .
On the flip side, if Vernon had been carrying a defensive firearm, he could have shot the young man who was bummed that “I failed my mission to kill everyone.” A ballistic solution would have saved taxpayers considerable cash, removed a threat to innocent life (hopefully forever), limited Vernon’s medical bills, served as a warning to other mass killers and kept ServPro at bay.
To which the antis would reply: an aarmed Vernon might have shot a child! Which would be way more like and worse than 16 kids getting butchered by a knife-wielding maniac. Obviously. [h/t BH]
