Rebel of the Week: Armed Texas Citizen Stops Shooting Spree and Saves Policeman’s Life with Some VERY Sharp Shooting

Guns save lives. Period. It happens all the time. They take lives too, but you’d think a fair and honest media would give both kinds of instances of gun news a proportionate level of attention. Of course we all know the media doesn’t. When a deranged murderer uses guns to kill someone, it becomes wall to wall coverage of every excruciating detail about the shooting, the victims, the murderer, the murderer’s personal life and history, the gun the murderer used. The media plays these images over and over until people are sick and horrified. This distorts our view of reality, because guns also save lives all the time, and when they do, the story doesn’t get anything like the kind of attention the shooting spree gets…

Take this armed and vigilant Texas citizen for example. Vic Stacy was watching television in his mobile home when he saw a gun fight breaking out between a deranged murderer on a shooting spree and a police officer that arrived on the scene. The murderer had already shot and killed a neighbor, and when the neighbor’s roommate ran from their trailer screaming after hearing the shots, he chased her down and fired two bullets into her, killing her execution style. Then he shot their two dogs, which had prompted the original confrontation leading to the attack. When a police officer arrived, the man opened fire, and the officer returned fire in kind. They quickly reached a standoff with the officer behind his patrol vehicle and the rampager behind a tree. Eyewitnesses say the criminal had the upper hand in terms of positioning.

That’s when hero and rebel, Vic Stacy, decided to get involved. In recounting the event, Stacy said the most badass-sounding thing ever: he said as the firefight unfolded before his eyes, he thought to himself, “I’m going to see what’s going to happen here and if I need to I’ll, you know, get in on it.” Priceless. If I need to, I’ll, you know, get in on it. Total nonchalance about involving himself in a gunfight with a deranged murderer on a killing spree. I’ll, you know, get in on it… like he’s talking about a poker night later that week with his friends. Sometimes I like Texas and sometimes I hate it (like when it forces parents to inject their grade school daughters with a new and controversial vaccine). Reading this story today was one of those times that I love it.

Now at this point, only a few moments had passed. After observing the firefight for a few seconds, Stacy concluded, “I think [the murderer] is gonna take [the officer] out if I don’t help him out.” While the rampager had a tree blocking him from the officer’s gunfire, Stacy was viewing the firefight from the side and had a perfect angle to flank the attacker and shoot him. This is where it gets crazy. He says he used a pistol to pull off an impossible shot at over 150 yards, hitting his target not once, but five times. After his first shot, the murderer returned fire with his AR-15, luckily missing. Stacy would hit him four more times after the return fire, and the incapacitated killer would then take two bullets from the police officer’s AR-15, dying on the scene.

For those of you unfamiliar with shooting handguns, if Stacy’s description is accurate, he is definitely a shooting expert. Even at a very close range, and even with lots of training, most bullets from handguns do not hit their targets. The adrenaline and confusion of a real firefight makes it very hard to hit a target with a pistol. That’s why if you analyze any famous firefights, you’ll be amazed at the number of rounds that end up being fired and how few of them hit their marks. It’s just a reality of firefights, not divine intervention (language warning):

If Vic Stacy really is a deadeye gunslinger, and maybe his distance from the fight helped him to remain very calm and take very careful shots, the amazing firearms feat could perhaps be explained in part by his ammunition. Stacy says he thought, “I hope this magnum bullet’ll hold up, you know, this distance. And sure enough it did and I hit him in the thigh.” Now a magnum cartridge (there’s technically no such thing as a magnum bullet), is slightly longer than its little brothers of the same caliber so it can pack more gunpowder, giving the bullet more velocity and energy. For a dramatic visualization, watch this (language warning):

Yeah.

Even with a bullet that goes further and hits harder, when it comes to shooting guns, Vic Stacy must be what Samuel L. Jackson’s character in Pulp Fiction has stitched onto his wallet (language warning). He would have had to take into account the parabolic trajectory of the bullet in freefall over such a long distance and compensated by aiming slightly above his intended target. That’s probably why his first shot hit the thigh as well. Didn’t compensate enough while aiming for a bigger, more vital target like the chest. Still. Wow.

Reviewing this story, I can’t help but feel more and more radical about government and politics. The police officer didn’t save anyone’s lives, certainly not the victims that didn’t have time to dial 9-11 while getting shot. And it turns out, a normal, everyday citizen who’s vigilant and responsible enough to own a firearm and know how to use it ended up saving the police officer‘s life. Aren’t they here to do that for us? Someone tell me what’s even the point in having police if the Second Amendment and a little bit of vigilance can do a better job and without wasting taxpayer money? And once you start thinking that way, you’re flirting with some pretty radical political ideas. Which is scary, but I’m getting surprisingly comfortable with it.

When I wrote earlier that the media goes into a frenzy covering shootings of innocent people, but never self-defense shootings of violent criminals, I should have made one qualification: the media goes into a frenzy covering shootings of innocent people, unless the shooter(s) happened to be police. That happens too, but nary a word do we hear on Fox News. For real coverage, you’ve got to read independent blogs and websites like The Silver Underground. So let me ask you this, and please answer and discuss, because I’m struggling with this and would love to pick your brains:

When a gun in the hand is better than the police on the phone; when in this case, a gun in the hand was even better than a policeman on the scene with a bigger gun; when you’re probably more likely to get shot by a police officer in the United States than killed in an Islamic terrorist attack; when over the last 100 years of world history you were more likely to be killed by armed agents of your own government than by violent criminals or foreign governments (oh yeah, do the math– if you disagree with me, I’d be glad to fight it out in the comment thread)… when all these things are true… what’s the point in even having police? And if the government can’t even justify its policing activities on a simple cost-benefit basis, then what’s the point in even having government? Would we really be unsafe without it, or would our neighbors like Vic Stacy look out for us while we look out for them?

Bringing it back to the star of this article, Vic Stacy is a very deserving recipient of this week’s Rebel of  the Week award. He remained calm, wasn’t trigger happy, quickly assessed the situation, and took some amazing shots to incapacitate a dangerous killer on a spree. In America today, the simple act of owning a handgun and knowing how to use it well is an act of rebellion against those forces that oppose your rights. Gun control advocates want to regulate the kinds of firearms and ammo people like Stacy have. If it were me in Stacy’s shoes, I’d have needed to also be packing the kind of heat that the criminal was to hit him at that distance. I’d need a powerful rifle with a scope, probably the kind that well-meaning (or maybe not) people are calling to ban again in the aftermath of the Aurora shooting.

And now, your moment of Zen:
(Me shooting an AK-47 while wearing a Silver
Circle End the Fed shirt earlier this year)

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