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One of the key talking points that the National Rifle Association and other opponents of gun reform trot out regularly is “the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”
Well, no one told James Shaw Jr. this. The 29-year-old Tennessee State alum bravely disarmed and subdued Travis Reinking after he used an AR-15 to murder four people at the Nashville restaurant early on Sunday morning.
Shaw, who was grazed by a bullet from the gun, managed to tackle Reinking as he was reloading and tossed the rifle over the counter. Reinking escaped naked from the restaurant and was eventually caught late on Monday following a more than 36-hour manhunt.
READ MORE: Waffle House shooter reportedly refusing to talk, bond set at $2 million
Shaw’s act of heroism likely saved countless more lives. According to the NRA, however, Shaw could’ve saved everyone if he just had a gun.
Yes. They actually said this.
“I will say without a shadow of a doubt, that man saved countless lives,” Grant Stinchfield, host for the organization’s NRATV, said. “There would have been many people dead inside that Waffle House if it wasn’t for James Shaw.”
Backhanded Compliments
Stinchfield accused “the left” of “politicizing” the shooting – of note, there has yet to be any statement of condolence from the White House following the shooting — and added that it’s “amazing” that people would use the act of a man disarming a gunman without a weapon as proof of why people can disarm a gunman without a weapon.
READ MORE: Hate crime? Meet the Waffle House shooting victims
“He stopped a crime, yes, he saved lives, yes,” Stinchfield said prior to Reinking being captured. “But to me, the story still proves that if anyone had a gun there, include James Shaw, the attack would be over, there would be no manhunt going on right now. But a big thanks to James Shaw.”
Contrary to what the NRA insists, a 2014 FBI study found, not surprisingly, that adding a second gun to a situation such as Sunday’s often makes a bad situation worse.
Shaw, meanwhile, has raised more than $100,000 for the families of the four shooting victims: Joe Perez, Ebony DeGraves, Taurean Sanderlin, and Akilah Dasilva. There is currently no known motive for the shooting and Reinking is in custody in Nashville.
READ MORE: Meet hero who disarmed Waffle House shooter: “I could have never seen my daughter again.”