“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]