Latest Ed Schultz Whopper: 'We've Never Had a Civilian Stop a Shooting'

The hits keep coming from libtalker Ed Schultz, who's kicking off the new year on a roll.

First week into 2013, Schultz insisted that Bill Clinton was never tried in the Senate after he was impeached by the House. Schultz followed with the laughable claim that gun laws in Chicago, a city with some of the nation's toughest restrictions on firearms, "don't even exist." (audio clip after page break)

Schultz is tripling down on his ignorance, making an egregiously false claim on his radio show yesterday while talking about whether schools should allow teachers to arm themselves (h/t for embedded audio clip, Brian Maloney at mrctv.org) --

Would it be a deterrent if, you know, say perpetrators know that there's guns in the schools? How do we know they wouldn't view that as a challenge? I mean, we got a goofy world out there. I'm just not convinced that packing a small firearm is the best defense or certainly not the best defense. You know, you want to make the best defense? Make the school a damn fortress. I mean, you could do that, I mean but, is that reasonable? Is that the right thing to do? Is it necessary? And so I'm just, is it nec-, haven't we had enough school shootings where this is necessary? We've never had a civilian stop a shooting.

Is it too much to expect that people who work in news will pay attention to it? (Correction: Schultz  works at MSNBC and also has his own radio show.)

The scenario Schultz claims has "never" happened occurred at least twice in the last month, the most recent of many examples that can be cited.

Back on Dec. 11, a gunman shot two people to death at a mall in Clackamas, Ore., then took his own life when he saw a 22-year-old patron with a concealed carry permit draw his weapon.

"He was working his own gun," Nick Meli told KGW Channel 8, describing how he positioned himself behind a pillar when he heard gunfire. "He kept pulling the charging handle and hitting the side."

The Channel 8 report continues --

The break in gunfire allowed Meli to pull out his own gun, but he never took his eyes off the shooter.

"As I was going down to pull, I saw someone in the back of the Charlotte move, and I knew if I fired and missed, I could hit them," he said.

Meli took cover inside a nearby store. He never pulled the trigger. He stands by that decision.

"I'm not beating myself up 'cause I didn't shoot him," said Meli. "I know after he saw me, I think the last shot he fired was the one he used on himself."

Typical of Schultz, he cited no attribution for his dubious claim but it most likely originated with a report issued by Mother Jones magazine last month after the Sandy Hook massacre. Here is the bold claim made by Mother Jones --

In the wake of the slaughters this summer at a Colorado movie theater and a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, we set out to track mass shootings in the United States over the last 30 years. We identified and analyzed 62 of them, and one striking pattern is this: In not a single case was the killing stopped by a civilian using a gun.

The assertion was quickly dismantled by Mark Hemingway at The Weekly Standard, who pointed out that "when armed civilians are present, they often stop mass shootings before they can become mass shootings." Hemingway also noted that Mother Jones' reseach was limited to incidents in which a shooter killed at least four people, a baseline which allowed the magazine to overlook numerous incidents in which armed civilians prevented shooting rampages from becoming far worse. Hemingway cited these six examples --

-- Mayan Palace Theater, San Antonio, Texas, this week (in December): Jesus Manuel Garcia shoots at a movie theater, a police car and bystanders from the nearby China Garden restaurant; as he enters the movie theater, guns blazing, an armed off-duty cop shoots Garcia four times, stopping the attack: Total dead: Zero.

-- Winnemuccas, Nev., 2008: Ernesto Villagomez opens fire in a crowded restaurant; concealed carry permit-holder shoots him dead. Total dead: Two. (I'm excluding the shooters' deaths in these examples.)

-- Appalachian School of Law, 2002: Crazed immigrant shoots the dean and a professor, then begins shooting students; as he goes for more ammunition, two armed students point their guns at him, allowing a third to tackle him. Total dead: Three.

-- Santee, Calif. 2001: Student begins shooting his classmates -- as well as the "trained campus supervisor"; an off-duty cop who happened to be bringing his daughter to school that day points his gun at the shooter, holding him until more police arrive. Total dead: Two.

-- Pearl High School, Mississippi, 1997: After shooting several people at his high school, student heads for the junior high school; assistant principal Joel Myrick retrieves a .45 pistol from his car and points it at the gunman's head, ending the murder spree. Total dead: Two.

-- Edinboro, Pa., 1998: A student shoots up a junior high school dance being held at a restaurant; restaurant owner pulls out his shotgun and stops the gunman. Total dead: One.

"These are just a few examples of mass shootings being prevented," Hemingway writes. "I'm sure there are many more that meet this criteria. But, as you can see, in every incident, the would-be shooters were stopped short of killing four people because an armed civilian -- or in some cases, an off-duty cop -- was present."

In John R. Lott Jr.'s meticulously researched "More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws," he cites an incident from 1984 described by Israeli criminologist Abraham Tennenbaum --

Three terrorists who attempted to machine-gun the throng (at a crowded venue in Jerusalem) managed to kill only one victim before being shot by handgun-carrying Israelis. Presented to the press the next day,  the surviving terrorist complained that his group had not realized that Israeli civilians were armed. The terrorists had planned to machine-gun a succession of crowd spots, thinking that they would be able to escape before the police or army could arrive to deal with them.

It would be more accurate of Schultz to say we haven't had a "civilian" stop a shooting -- in a "gun-free zone." That's because law-abiding citizens, seeing a sign outside a movie theater or shopping mall or elementary school informing them that the site is a "gun-free zone," won't enter the property if they are armed. Criminals, especially those intent on murder, do the opposite.

The result? Disarmed law-abiding citizens in an allegedly safe "gun-free zone" unable to stop a shooting and left entirely to the mercy of the most deranged among us. Here's how it works -- goo-goo liberals create "gun-free zones" in an attempt to do something, anything to protect the public, then sneer after disarmed, law-abiding citizens aren't able to defend themselves when a predator goes on a rampage.

The very term "gun-free zone," which I refuse to cite without quotation marks, is destined for eternal derision, so complete is its folly. I'm still waiting for it to appear on lawn signs -- gun-free home! -- though not holding my breath. Liberals are clueless, but usually not willing to extend invitations to those who would do them harm.