What We Know About Middleton, WI Shooting Yesterday

In what even I have to agree feels like an all too common occurrence, yesterday’s news was marred by yet another mass shooting. This time, Middleton, Wisconsin was the site.

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There, four people were injured, one critically, when a gunman opened fire at the offices of WTS Paradigm, a business software company.

Middleton Police Chief Charles Foulke said police received calls of a shooting at 10:25 a.m. (11:25 a.m. ET) at a complex housing several businesses. The shooting occurred in the offices of WTS Paradigm, a business products software company, where “officers engaged the suspect, and he was shot by officers,” Foulke said.

University of Wisconsin Medical Center in Madison said that one patient was critically wounded and that two others were in serious condition. A fourth person was grazed by a bullet and suffered minor injuries, police said.

The gunman was “heavily armed, with a lot of extra ammunition,” Foulke said. Two Middleton police officers and two Dane County sheriff’s deputies shot the man, who later died at a hospital, he said.

Foulke said it was clear that the officers “prevented a lot more bloodshed from happening.”

A good guy with a gun stopped the attack. Imagine that.

Of course, most anti-gunners will argue that this doesn’t count because it was police, but the pro-gun side has never claimed that armed citizens were the only means to stop these attacks. For us, “good guy with a gun” means anyone who is a good guy and has a gun. Whether they also have a badge or not is irrelevant to our point.

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I’d like to applaud the officers for acting decisively in the matter. This time, there doesn’t seem to be the Monday morning quarterbacking that tends to go on after an officer-involved shooting, probably because it’s such a clear cut case.

Police still haven’t identified the shooter, citing the requirement they notify next of kin first.

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, it seems the shooter’s choice of weapon is one that will probably infuriate anti-gunners.

Middleton Police Chief Charles Foulke said the shooter was armed with a semiautomatic handgun and extra ammunition magazines, and had two Middleton police officers and two Dane County sheriff’s deputies not stormed in to take him down, there could have been much more bloodshed.

Semiautomatic handgun. I guess that undermines the whole push for an assault weapon ban, now doesn’t it?

Chief Foulke didn’t mention just how many extra magazines the shooter had, but even if it was just a couple standard capacity magazines of around 15 rounds each, that’s 45 shots. Of course, it’s unlikely he would have shot someone with each trigger pull, but it’s fortunate that police responded quickly and put this rabid dog down.

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It is clear he could have done a whole lot more damage if given the opportunity, including actually killing someone.

This incident isn’t likely to stir up more on the gun debate, in part because anti-gunners don’t have a pile of dead bodies to turn into a soapbox. But that doesn’t change the fact that it happened and if someone with the resources doesn’t start trying to delve into the causes of this–causes that have nothing to do with firearms–this is going to keep happening.

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