Another Mass Shooting Stopped at Last Minute…By Good Guy With Gun

An armed man on a rampage was stopped in Rockledge, Florida last Friday by two men with concealed carry permits.

When Stephen Willeford engaged the Southerland Springs shooter with his own AR-15, leftists were quick to claim that armed citizens can’t stop mass shootings.

As Bearing Arms points out:

They use some pretty clever tricks to “prove” that point, too. One of their favorites is to pretend like the potential mass shootings that are stopped don’t really count because the body count is so low. Then they pretend that a case like Sutherland Springs proves the good guy with a gun won’t react fast enough or something.

One of the more obvious advantages of gun ownership for law-abiding citizens is that the bad guys with guns know that not everyone is completely defenseless. Good guys with guns don’t just stop crimes, they deter them.

In the case of the Black Friday shooting in Florida that left one dead and one paralyzed, two good guys with guns stopped the shooter before he hurt others.

Florida Today reports:

A man armed with a .45-caliber handgun and a lot of ammunition wandered onto an auto repair shop property and began firing in the parking lot Friday afternoon, police said.

The gunman killed one employee and paralyzed a second. That’s when the employees at Schlenker Automotive fought back with equal force, Rockledge police chief Joseph La Sata said.

“The manager, who was a concealed weapons permit holder, came out and engaged in gunfire in the parking lot,” La Sata said. “The manager fled back inside the building, being chased by the gunman. Another Schlenker employee, who also had concealed weapons permit, engaged in gunfire with the suspect.”

Police said the suspect in the homicide is Robert Lorenzo Bailey Jr., 28, of Cocoa. He was shot twice and was in critical condition at Health First’s Holmes Regional Medical Center in Melbourne. Officers are keeping him under watch.

Bailey had multiple magazines “on his person,” but the heroes at Schlenker took action before he could use them.

According to the Rockledge police chief, Bailey’s clear intent was to do even more harm. As tragic as the employee’s death is, the shooting in Rockledge could have been a lot worse if someone hadn’t done something about it.

Florida Today continues:

“If not for the brave, quick thinking of the employees at Schlenker, this could have been a lot worse,” La Sata said. “Mr. Bailey had multiple magazines on his person. He was intent on doing harm. The employees stepped up.”

In the parking lot, longtime Schlenker employee Roger Lee Smith, 50, had been shot and killed by the suspect, police said. Smith had stepped out into the parking lot after he heard the shot that paralyzed his 25-year-old co-worker, La Sata said.

According to Florida Today, Bailey had no connection with Shlenker Automotive when he started firing on workers.

The property owner released a statement to Florida Today on Sunday evening, in response to the shooting:

“In this difficult time of mourning the loss of Roger and the severe injuries that (our other employee) has sustained, we would like to thank all of the community for the overwhelming support and prayers we have received. We know there will be a long healing process ahead of us but we want to reassure everyone that this is an organization full of dedicated, courageous, and heroic individuals serving this community,” the statement read.

Bearing Arms reports that the heroes at Shlenker Automotive are just one example of the breakdown in leftist arguments that armed citizens can’t prevent mass shootings.

From Bearing Arms:

However, it does appear that Bailey had no ties to the garage. That indicates this was some kind of premeditated rampage that was stopped short because of armed individuals.

Is it a shame that innocent people were killed first? Absolutely.

However, it’s also important to remember that the good guys play by rules the bad guys ignore. We are required by both the law and morality to make sure our lives are threatened before engaging someone with our weapons. That means the bad guys get to pick the time and place of the attack. They have the initiative, and that means sometimes they’ll hurt innocent people before they can be stopped.

But in this case, there were two armed individuals with the tools and the mindset to stop the attack, and that meant the loss of life could be kept minimal. It’s a shame anyone was killed, but it could have been so much worse.

Will leftist media try to spin this story for their own agenda or simply ignore it?

Let us know what you think, and sound off in the comments below.

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