Remembering "the Sandy Hook that never was' because of a concealed carrier

Six years ago today, 24-year-old Matthew J. Murray opened fire at the Youth With A Mission training center in Arvada, Colorado with a pistol. He killing two and wounding two others before escaping. That afternoon, Murray attacked New Life Church in Colorado Springs, armed with a Bushmaster XM15 carbine and two pistols (a .40 Beretta and a 9mm Springfield Armory XD). He was carrying over 1,000 rounds of ammunition for these firearms in the tactical vest he was wearing.

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Murray gunned down four people in the New Life Church parking lot, before he entered the building. Curiously, he was armed almost identically to the way Adam Lanza was when Lanza shot his way through Sandy Hook Elementary, except that Murray was carrying roughly 3 times as much ammunition. Murray had a second rifle, an AKM, in his vehicle, with another 1,000 rounds of ammunition.

Murray entered the building and shot Larry Bourbonnais in the forearm before he ran into the only female volunteer on the church’s security team, a call center employee at the church named Jeanne Assam:

Larry Bourbonnais, a combat-tested Vietnam veteran, said the shooting of a gunman at a Colorado Springs church was the bravest thing he had ever seen.

Mr Bourbonnais, who was among those shot by a gunman at New Life Church on Sunday, watched as a security guard, a woman later identified as Jeanne Assam, calmly returned fire and killed the shooter.

“She just started walking toward the gunman firing the whole way,” said Mr Bourbonnais, who was shot in the arm. “She was just yelling, ‘Surrender’, walking and shooting the whole time.”

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Assam was a former police officer and concealed carry permit holder with a Beretta 9mm. She shot Murray multiple times, forcing him to drop his rifle. Moment later, Murray was dead, his apparent dream of slaughtering dozens cut short by a woman who claims she was protected by God during the ordeal.

As citizen control fanatics practice their alligator tears and plot to exploit the deaths of 20 students and six teachers at Sandy Hook, it would behoove us all to remember the mass shootings (New Life, Clackamas Town Center Mall, Pearl River High School, etc) that were cut short because of citizens that carry weapons, including one that happened six years ago today.

 

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