It was that close: Hero was almost a heel for shooting the wrong man

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You aren’t going to stop crazies like Loughner from killing soneone by carrying a gun.

As the dust settles on the shooting rampage in Tucson one thing is becoming clear; someone else was nearly killed by someone packing a gun while coming to the aide of the fallen Congresswoman.

Joe Zamudio’s actions have spurred some to look at Arizona’s liberal gun laws (you don’t need a permit to carry a concealed weapon) and to see if they need tightened. Others, to my amazement, are looking at ways to expand gun accessibility in the state. 

 Armed Giffords hero nearly shot wrong man

Joe Zamudio rushed to the scene and saw a man with a gun — but he wasn't the shooter

“Now comes the tragedy in Tucson. And what do gun advocates propose? More guns. Arizona already lets people carry concealed weapons without requiring permits. The legislature is considering two bills to expand this right, and as Slate's David Weigel reports, the Arizona Citizens Defense League is preparing legislation that would require the state to offer firearms training to politicians and their staff. The bill is tentatively titled the Giffords-Zimmerman Act in honor of the wounded congresswoman and her slain aide. "When everyone is carrying a firearm, nobody is going to be a victim," argues the state's top pro-gun legislator. Beyond Arizona, at least two members of Congress say they'll brings guns while traveling their districts.”

You can arm every man and women in Arizona and it’s not going to stop a determined shooter from walking up and blasting away. Unless the targeted person has their weapon out and are ready to shoot it instantly, it doesn’t do them any good according to law enforcement and government authorities. When your talking about a true “headcase” they aren’t going to care if everyone else is carrying a gun. Most of the time they expect to die, or even kill themselves after inflicting their damage.

“The new poster boy for this agenda is Joe Zamudio, a hero in the Tucson incident. Zamudio was in a nearby drug store when the shooting began, and he was armed. He ran to the scene and helped subdue the killer. Television interviewers are celebrating his courage, and pro-gun blogs are touting his equipment. "Bystander Says Carrying Gun Prompted Him to Help," says the headline in the Wall Street Journal.”

But before we embrace Zamudio's brave intervention as proof of the value of being armed, let's hear the whole story. "I came out of that store, I clicked the safety off, and I was ready," he explained on Fox and Friends. "I had my hand on my gun. I had it in my jacket pocket here. And I came around the corner like this." Zamudio demonstrated how his shooting hand was wrapped around the weapon, poised to draw and fire. As he rounded the corner, he saw a man holding a gun. "And that's who I at first thought was the shooter," Zamudio recalled. "I told him to 'Drop it, drop it!'"

But the man with the gun wasn't the shooter. He had wrested the gun away from the shooter. "Had you shot that guy, it would have been a big, fat mess," the interviewer pointed out.

Tactically speaking, if the Congresswoman and her aides, were all carrying weapons, they would still be at a hopeless disadvantage with respect to a sudden gun-reveal and attack by a determined or crazed assailant in a crowd...unless they have those weapons at the ready, and their primary function is armed security, and there is a physical separation between the assailant and the protectee, and the protectee has cover available.

"I was very lucky. Honestly, it was a matter of seconds. Two, maybe three seconds between when I came through the doorway and when I was laying on top of [the real shooter], holding him down. So, I mean, in that short amount of time I made a lot of really big decisions really fast. … I was really lucky."

Zamudio knows he was lucky. He’s never had any formal firearm training, but told reporters he grew up with guns. That’s great, but it doesn’t mean he knows what to do in a shoot-out with civilians everywhere. Right now the NRA and gun proponents are tooting his horn because he had a gun – despite the fact he didn’t use it and almost shot the wrong person – when he (and another man) subdued the shooter who had run out of ammunition for his semi-auto Glock.

One last thing: the shooter bought his ammo at a Wal-Mart hours before the killings. He went to one and they (for reasons still unknown) wouldn’t sell him any. So he went to another Wal Mart nearby, and bought 200 rounds there with no problem. That tells me that if there was a safeguard (showing ID - like we have to do in California as of this year) it worked in one place and not another. So what does that tell you about the effectiveness of that supposed safeguard?