A South Carolina state representative, who has come out against removing the Confederate flag from the state capitol grounds, suggested on Tuesday that the nine people shot in Charleston could have tried to do more to defend themselves.
“We’re focusing on the wrong thing here,” State Rep. William Chumley told CNN after explaining that his constituents have told him that the flag should not come down.
“We need to be focusing on the nine families that are left and see that this doesn’t happen again,” Chumley continued. “These people sat in there, and waited their turn to be shot. That’s sad. But somebody in there with the means of self defense could have stopped this. And we’d have had less funerals than we’re having.”
“You’re turning this into a gun debate?” CNN reporter Drew Griffin asked Chumley. “If those nine families asked you to take down that flag, would you do it?”
“You said ‘guns.’ Why didn’t somebody, why didn’t somebody just do something?” Chumley asked in response. “I mean, you’ve got one skinny person shooting a gun, you know I mean, we need to take, and do what we can.”
Griffin then asked Chumley if he meant that one of the victims should have “tackled” or “fought” the suspect.
“I don’t know what the answer was,” Chumley said.
“But I know it’s really, really horrible for nine people to be shot and I understand that he reloaded his gun during the process,” he continued, referring to the suspect in the shooting. “That’s upsetting, very upsetting.”
Watch the interview via CNN:
I don’t know…maybe because, unlike an action movie, people opening fire on a crowd does not usually result in a firefight in which the shooter ends up riddled with bullets. This isn’t the Expendables. The hero/good guy doesn’t end up miraculously surviving despite being shot at by 100,000 bullets.
Yah, I do wonder why… How many bibles does it take to stop a bullet anyway, where’s the GOTP research on that?
And I don’t think that sprinkling him with holy water woulda helped any.
Now if that one skinny kid had tried this in a Shaolin temple…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlWCEOMxxFwKarma ought to dictate that Chumley here find himself in a similar situation, so he can show us what he’s made of. Chances are that much of it would end up in his underwear.
I’ll be honest and admit that I have wondered the same thing. Some of the victims were elderly, but a few were young. Unarmed people have wrestled guns away from armed people (I believe that was what stopped the Tucson shooter and that has happened in school shootings as well). But someone who acts with planning and intent has a huge advantage over those who are taken by surprise, whether they are armed or unarmed. Which is where Wayne Lapierre is talking out his ass.
None of that means the Confederate flag is anything other than an odious symbol.
Guys like this are absolutely repulsive. He was not there and yet he speculates that the victims could have done something to prevent “the skinny kid” from shooting them.
Additionally, how did we allow the flag of a treasonous rebellion to become the symbol of the weak minded of today?