The armed parishioner who saved lives when he shot and killed an active shooter at a church in rural Texas last month warned against gun policy proposed by surging 2020 Democratic candidate Mike Bloomberg.
Jack Wilson, 71, was attending mass on Dec. 29 at the West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, Texas, when a masked man entered the church, pulled a gun out, and began firing on congregants. A local firearms instructor, Wilson fired a single shot from his handgun that killed the man as parishioners screamed and ran away in horror.
“I don’t see myself as a hero,” he said of his decision to act that day. “I see myself as doing what needed to be done to take out the evil threat. That’s the way I approach. Like I said earlier, that’s how I am processing this whole event.”
For his takedown of the active shooter, Wilson was awarded the Texas Governor’s Medal of Courage by Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican and staunch defender of gun rights.
“Yes, it may be true — I wasn’t there. I don’t know the facts — that somebody in the congregation had their own gun and killed the person who murdered two other people,” Bloomberg said of Wilson after the incident. “But it’s the job of law enforcement to have guns and to decide when to shoot. You just do not want the average citizen carrying a gun in a crowded place.”
The former mayor of New York City, who recently cracked 10% in the polls among other Democratic primary candidates for president, has proposed some of the stricter gun control measures among the candidates in the field in an effort to keep weapons out of the hands of dangerous criminals.
During a blitz of television advertising, Bloomberg, an original underwriter of the Everytown for Gun Safety movement against school shootings, promised voters that he will stand up to the National Rifle Association and the national gun lobby.
“Mr. Bloomberg, had we operated by his standards or his wishes, the carnage would have been significantly greater because the individual still, after the shooting, still had seven live rounds in his gun and three more in his pocket,” Wilson said, however, during a Wednesday appearance on Fox News.
Kevin Sheekey, Bloomberg’s 2020 campaign manager, shot back during a Thursday appearance on the network.
“Mr. Bloomberg supports his right to carry a gun,” Sheekey said. “We salute him. But the question is, should anyone who is criminally insane be able to get a gun? I would say no.”
A total of 36,000 Americans are killed by gun violence each year, an average of more than 100 per day. More than 400 mass shootings took place in America in 2019, a new record. Most leading Democrats for president have acknowledged this trend and cited it as a growing epidemic.
