“Three people were killed in downtown Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Saturday morning before city police officers shot and killed a suspect, said the sheriff’s office of El Paso County,” cnn.com reports. Noah Harpham shot and killed a bicyclist and two women. Witnesses said the man set the second floor of a residence on fire. crooksandliars.com reports “He walked down the street with his weapons in plain view and refused to surrender them when police ordered him to, causing them to open fire and kill him, though they have not yet confirmed that their weapons actually did kill him, only that he is dead.” The anti-gun rights crowd have focused on the fact that . . .

Harpham was “open carrying” when he started his killing spree. The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, for example, held up the crime as an example of the “degenerate gun culture” and the inherent dangers of open carry.

Harpham’s blog [click here to read] rages against California mega-church Pastor Bill Wilson. Even so, it reveals a man who seems more than reasonably coherent. The Gazette reports:

In Colorado Springs, Harpham, 33, lived modestly in a series of apartments and worked in insurance.

On the online dating site eHarmony.com, Harpham described himself as a recovering alcoholic and a Christian.

The 6-foot-5 Harpham called himself “a big friendly giant.”

Harpham’s struggles with substance abuse were documented by his mother, Heather Kopp, in her book “Sober mercies: How love caught up with a Christian Drunk.”

When her son quit drinking and sought help through Alcoholics Anonymous in 2007, his mother thought “It’s quite possible there’s a miracle afoot.” . . .

Neighbors say Harpham lived quietly at 230 N. Prospect St.

A licensed insurance agent, his only recorded brush with the law was a 2003 speeding ticket in Oregon.

The lone tenant inside the Prospect Street house, he had lived there for a few months, and prior to that lived in a house across the street with his girlfriend, the owner of the property said. The landlord didn’t want his name used.

“Knock me over with a feather – that guy was just a nice guy. I liked him,” the landlord said. “I couldn’t imagine for a second that he would even have a weapon. But what do I know.”

The plain truth: Harpham was no Adam Lanza. He was quiet, law-abiding and coherent, albeit a paranoid ex-alcoholic with religious “issues.” Gun control would have done nothing to stop him. At this point, it’s hard to see what would have. Save the bullets that took him down. [h/t KL]

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34 COMMENTS

  1. Glenn Beck covered this story on the radio. He is describing it as a “news blackout.” Anybody know what rifle this creep used? If it was an “EBR” evil black “assault” rifle AR-15 I am sure we would have heard about it by know.

    • My local news (in C-Springs) claimed it was an AR. I only read in a quick headline. There hasn’t really been a huge uproar about that I’ve noticed.

  3. Seems strange, or is the media is downplaying this? I’d understand if the idea is not to give these guys the air time, in order to “de-glamorize” these kind of events, but we are talking about the media here.

    What gives?

    • I agree. That was one of those utterly absurd things that a professional shill has to say from time to time. How on earth is a psycho murderer roaming the streets an “inherent danger” of open carry?

      I could see if the article were about a negligent discharge. At least a plausible argument could be made that but for open (or even concealed) carry, a particular ND could not have happened. Not that that’s conclusive or decisive of anything, but it’s at least something rational to say.

      That flack might as well have said of the shooter “See? That’s why we can’t have nice things.” It’d be a similarly inane comment in the context of this event.

  9. If I read the story right, he was “open carrying” when the cops got there. Once they start shooting their firearm is perforce going to be “openly carried”. MDA tried the same crap with the Navy Yard shooter, it didn’t “take” then either. BTW, I also saw a CNN story about a person being shot on a university campus somewhere. Outside of pushing a national gun-control agenda currently engaged in opposing campus carry, what would make the shooting of one non-celebrity/political figure qualify as “national news”? As for crooksandliars.com, just how much credibility does someone have who says “he was definitely paranoid, but not mentally ill” ?

  10. Interestingly where he lived and where he died open carry was illegal do to the 1000 foot from school federal law.

      • I would like to see some kind of resource that backs this up. From what I have been able to read about the law open carry is still prohibited in the 1000 feet as a CCW only permits concealed carry of a pistol.

        • What a permit allows or doesn’t allow is a matter of state law. I have multiple permits in multiple states. There’s no general “rule” that they all prohibit or allow the open carrying of a rifle or anything else.

          As to the GFSZA, it provides that “it shall be unlawful for any individual knowingly to possess a firearm that has moved in or that otherwise affects interstate or foreign commerce at a place that the individual knows, or has reasonable cause to believe, is a school zone.”

          There’s an exception “if the individual possessing the firearm is licensed to do so by the State in which the school zone is located or a political subdivision of the State, and the law of the State or political subdivision requires that, before an individual obtains such a license, the law enforcement authorities of the State or political subdivision verify that the individual is qualified under law to receive the license.”

          So both the federal crime and the license exception refer to the possession of the firearm, not the method of carry.

          However, even if the GFSZA isn’t applicable, state laws remain applicable. So when a person with a license enters a school zone, he hasn’t violated the Federal law, but he certainly may be in violation of state law.

  12. So CSGV, in their usual failure of logic, is claiming that if open carry were illegal, this would not have happened?

  13. So if his only brush with the law was a speeding ticket, I’m guessing he passed his 4473 without issue.
    If universal background checks aren’t going to work, I have an idea: Universal foreground checks! All we need are some fortune tellers and crystal balls.

  14. He was open carrying at the time so… What now? You say that if he wasn’t open carrying then nothing bad would have happend? The stupid… It hurts.

  15. This is news to me. Perhaps the drug abuse is not what ex drug users in the press want to highlight. Anyone carrying an unholstered gun is an automatic threat when walking down a peaceful street. Free speech open carry is great. Only pull out your weapon when you have to stop a threat.

  16. He was ‘open carrying’ for all of 5 seconds. Reportedly a neighbor saw him “open carry” the rifle from his car into his house, along with two gas canisters, and then he “open carried” his rifle and pistol out his front door and shot the first person he saw (a guy on a bike). Since that neighbor called the police when he was carrying the rille and the gas into his house, my bet is the rifle was not slung at that time either.

  17. My best guess: the media is blacking out this event because they cannot win. Either this story highlights (again) the fact that universal background checks are worthless. Or, this story highlights the fact that it is good to be armed in case you have to deal with a spree killer. I suppose the media could also try to argue for confiscation of all guns since this event shows how the Almighty government cannot possibly prevent spree killers from acting out (next best thing is to disarm them) … and the media knows that they cannot get away with that, either.

    As John Adams said, “Facts are stubborn things.” I believe the facts are becoming inescapable. If the media cannot push this story in a way that furthers their civilian disarmament agenda, then they won’t talk about it all.

  18. “Knock me over with a feather – that guy was just a nice guy. I liked him,” the landlord said. “I couldn’t imagine for a second that he would even have a weapon. But what do I know.”

    So nice people never own firearms? If you’re a good person you don’t own weapons? What is this crap?

  19. The snooze media is oddly silent on this-barely a whimper from the usual suspects. Really ODD…

  20. The fact that the police and the sheriff’s departments are just a stone’s throw away from where this happened really highlights the fact that when you need someone to put down a shooter, you need it done right now. The best way to do that is to always have the means to stop a threat with you, but hey preaching to the choir here.

    Apparently one of the individuals who called the cops followed the shooter for “half a mile” on foot. While that’s admirable, it’s also ample time to end or stall a rampage if he had a firearm on him.

    • That was barely 3 miles from my house. Got me wondering about the legalities of someone on that street leaning out of their window with a rifle and taking him down.

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