A Conyers, Georgia open carrier returned fire at a man who had already killed two people. The attack appears to be a planned mass shooting. The attacker was armed with a semiautomatic pistol, which he is seen firing in the video above. When the open carrier, Todd Scott, returned fire, the active shooter stopped the attack, and fled the store . . .
As wsmv.com reports:
A customer of a Rockdale County liquor store said he opened fire on a gunman who shot and killed a store owner and another customer. …
Police said Pitts left the liquor store, but later returned and opened fire on the owner and customers.
“I assume that this man was not going to stop, so I came up,” said Scott.
Scott was carrying a weapon and fired a shot at Pitts. He said he is not sure whether Pitts was struck.
Scott appears to be carrying a Smith & Wesson 4013TSW, in a Serpa retention holster. The pistol is clearly marked .40 S&W.
Scott wasn’t sure if he hit the shooter, because when he returned fire, the attack stopped and the attacker fled the store.
The attacker traveled a little over four miles back to his parents house, where he shot and wounded both of them. It has been reported that the shooter pointed the rifle, below, at the police officers who responded. They then shot and killed him.
Many Internet commandos, arguing against open carry, have indicated that a determined attacker would always shoot the open carrier first. It didn’t happen in this case. The people in the store are fortunate that Todd Scott was on the scene and was able to stop the attack before more people were killed.
©2015 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.
Gun Watch
Update: Rockdale County Sheriff Eric Levett said at a press conference Monday that Todd C. Scott, 44, a resident of Covington, very likely prevented other customers in the store from losing their lives.
The video doesn’t make sense to me. Are there two incidents? Where is the good guy shooting back? I hate these videos that don’t show enough info. Enquiring minds want to know!!
Yes, there were two incidents. First, the attacker charged into the store shooting as you can see in the video. Tragically, he shot (fatally) the store owner and apparently the customer who was close to the door holding a large box. An armed customer took cover and the video did not show him returning fire. After the attacker left the store (the video), he went to his or his parents home and shot his parents (not on video).
I was confused at first, too. I’m clear on the post-store shooting action, but I don’t get the customer returning fire part. Why does the video mysteriously cut off before we see that?
I’m not saying it didn’t happen that way, just that it seems extremely odd we don’t have the entire footage. Then the OCer kind of hedges his bet in the media interview, saying he returned fire, but isn’t sure whether he hit him. I can’t think of a single good reason why they wouldn’t release the entire video.
When proof actually exists and is readily available, I demand to see it, or else I’m not convinced that what they’re just describing is true.
We do not know who edited the video, or who has possession of it, or who released it, or who put it on YouTube.
There are numerous reasons that I can think of why someone would cut out parts of the video, from liability to squeamishness to poltitical correctness to withholding evidence, to time.
We simply do not know why the video was cut off where it was.
Jonathan,
I believe the armed customer who returned fire was out of the field of view of the camera. If that is the case, he could have returned fire and we would not be able to see it. It corresponds to the armed customer saying that the attacker promptly left after the armed customer fired … because the armed customer was definitely out of the field of view when the attacker headed for the door.
Furthermore, I doubt that the armed customer is making this up: he would have to know what parts of the store were out of the security camera’s field of view in order to “hide” and claim that he shot if he did not actually shoot. While possible, it seems quite unlikely since the armed customer should have no way of knowing where security camera blind spots are in the store.
I saw it
I stayed in Conyers the last time I was in Georgia. people have guns there. Lots of guns.
Yes we do.
Yup. A few here and there.
Is that a BetaMag or a new Magpul drum mag? Just wondering…
Looks like my beta mags by the metal band center underside.
That’s a 30 round a second clipazine with the assualt thingy that goes up.
Demanding moms will cream panties over this one. An assualt weapon made that poor boy into a murderer and a victim.
Where’s Yee, good riddence, chris mallory etc. to post snark about those murderous cops gunning that poor citizen down?
“Demanding moms will cream panties over this one. An assualt weapon made that poor boy into a murderer and a victim.’
I’m looking forward to seeing how they spin this one into “no good guy armed citizen ever stops a violent criminal and protects innocent lives.”
They are entertaining in their own way…
Why would they spin it when they can just pretend that it never happened? Except for the part where they count the two times murderer as a victim of gun violence of course
Fox News and NY Daily both omit the part about the armed citizen returning fire. MDA will do the same and reference those stories.
Charles
How old was the perp? They may claim he was a “child” .
The Demanding Moms will actively ignore this, like plugging their ears and making noises so they don’t hear anything.
The new Magpul drum isnt a double drum like a beta, its just the single feeding drum directly below the magwell.
Yep, you’re right! I recall that now…
That’s one of the black, evil unlimited military style assault bullet holders. They must be banned…… for the children.
No need, once it’s been used up, that’s it. It can’t be reloaded…
I’m more interested in figuring out what the optic is.
Good for Todd Scott!
And when the coroner gets around to digging the bullets out of the dead perp’s body, I hope they find a .40 cal. in there somewhere.
I guess the store owner and customer should have been wearing orange.
Good one – but stone cold.
“Many Internet commandos, arguing against open carry, have indicated that a determined attacker would always shoot the open carrier first. It didn’t happen in this case. “
Dean, you are prophetic, because as I read the story, that was my thought as well.
Armed citizen (regardless of carry mode), for the win in stopping the threat to innocents as quickly as possible.
Thank you.
Ugh, just seeing the Beta mag made me cringe about the menopausal harpies pissing themselves over an “assault weapon”.
With high capacity clips! Or Magazines. Or brochures… whatever they are we gotta get a law as soon as we can! For the kids!
To POD….be careful about the stupid name-calling. This “menopausal harpie” thinks that is kinda cool. Grow up. 😉
I work down the street from where this happened in conyers and my one co-workers is good friends with todd. He told me the day this happened that todd had shot at the attacker but i didn’t see any coverage of that from local or state news sources. The only thing mentioned was that the police were the only ones who intervened to stop the attack.. kind of sad that our local stations will completely disregard clear facts in a story like this.
Unfortunate, yes – but perhaps a blessing in disguise. For every citizen who would shake Mr. Scott’s hand and offer to buy him a beer, there are probably 10 sniveling anti-gunners who would make every effort to making his life miserable. There’s some merit to the idea of remaining somewhat invisible, as evidenced by the continuing Zimmerman drama.
They are two different scenarios entirely and i think anti-gunners would have a very difficult time trying to put any blame on todd for deterring further bloodshed from a crazy person who was already in the process of killing people. not to say they wouldn’t try.. but It’s also pretty commonly accepted here in the Greater Atlanta area that many people are carrying guns legally and there is a lot of support for 2A rights. I think in fact it is more damaging to the firearms movement that incidents like this are constantly swept under the rug as far as media coverage goes. In this way I’m willing to bet all the attention will be focused on how this unstable guy got weapons and what unconstitutional measures they are wanting to take to stop more of these “ever increasing threats”.
Yeah! The MSM didn’t say anything about the armed citizen thwarting the mass shooting. I first heard about it on Facebook.
Legally armed individual stops killer……….pfffffft……yeah right…….in what universe? You NRA loving freaks gotta stop drinking the kool-aid. Every gun hating mom across the country knows that story is full of s#!+. Shannon told us so……..ain’t that right Dirk?
I don’t see anyone with a gun shooting back. When does that happen?
Almost certainly, off screen and after the video clip that was released stops.
I think you meant video “magazine”.
The saying is video clip.
When editing physical movie film razor blades or scissors are used to cut the film.
Also used when movie houses ‘stitch’ together multiple reels of film into one movie, usually on a large horizontal ‘platter’..
Me thinks you missed the humor, Geoff.
It also didn’t deter the attacker, as many OC internet commandos also argue.
But, as always, rule number 1 of a gunfight…
http://www.examiner.com/article/open-carry-deters-armed-robbery-kennesaw
From the robbers’ own admission, the OC deterred them.
Didn’t realize a Kennesaw Waffle House was the same as a Conyers liquor store.
Don’t strain your back, those goalposts are heavy!
Grind, it sure looks like you are being purposefully obtuse and pretending you did not know that that was merely an example of a known case where OC deterred a violent crime.
Since it actually has happened, it stands as a good counter example to the fallacious claim that OC is prima facie tactically inferior. In other words, this is an actual data point from the real world,
That alone makes the Kennesaw story worthy of mention. Rather than being tacticool fantasy…it’s real data. Now we have the Conyers story, too, so go figure.
Cognitive dissonance for the anti-OC crowd is going to be mighty painful, I predict.
It’s almost as if, like in most cases, the person OCing wasn’t even noticed.
He didn’t see the open carrier. He had a beef with the owner so that was all he had on his mind.
People don’t notice handguns on hips. We were in Kroger the other day and my wife bumped into a guy carrying a Glock 22. I asked her “Did you see that?” She said “What?”. I said the guy open carrying. She said no. I said ” You touched hid gun”.
Take an open carry walk down a street in NYC or San Fransisco and see what happens…
It would only attract the attention of the Gestapo.
Always win?
or,
Always cheat?
or maybe,
Always bring a gun?
Fake story, OCers will get shot first lol.
I opened carried today in hopes of seeing an orange shirt twat. Nobody noticed nothing. My Corn Flakes done got pissed in. People are so clueless.
I have open carried in Virginia for years. I now have my CWP but really don’t have an opinion one way or the other about how I carry. This is a complete non issue here. The most frequent question comes from checkout folks. “Are you a cop?” I reply no, and then the following conversation involves educating them about our state laws. NEVER in over 5 years has anyone ever had a negative reaction. However, I know how important situational awareness is and I always guard my strong side and scan my environment. SIPDE
Guys, is this the first time an OCer has been involved in something like this?
Wow.
“This video is no longer available.”
“Many Internet commandos, arguing against open carry, have indicated that a determined attacker would always shoot the open carrier first. It didn’t happen in this case.”
It didn’t happen in this case because the guy came in the door and went straight to blasting away.
Personally my reservations concerning open carry do not apply in this kind of scenario, but rather to when the bad guy comes in normally and “cases” the place before opening hostilities.
“Personally my reservations concerning open carry do not apply in this kind of scenario, but rather to when the bad guy comes in normally and “cases” the place before opening hostilities.”
So, like the Kennesaw Waffle House story where the scout left because he saw two OC-ers…and the potential robbers later told the cops they purposefully avoided robbing that place because of the OC-ing patrons inside?
yup, video has been taken down…
Go to concealed nation
Alcorn, Twatts and Laddie Boy Everette will still say this is an anecdotal aberration and blow it off.
Ray
Sorry, that’s un-possible.
Must be a misprint, or something.
Personally, I avoid OCing not because an attacker might shoot me first. I avoid OCing because of the unhinged, psychopathic fascists who might attack me in their blind rage at seeing a free citizen who hasn’t shackled himself to state control.
Criminals do what they do because they need money or drugs or get an adrenaline high, whatever. There’s at least some sort of understandable reason for it, however unacceptable it is. But the MDA crowd…they’re genuinely insane and unstable. They’re fanatics, religiously devoted to a lie.
Concealed carry is okay, but it is an invitation to bad guys who don’t see an armed person to do something bad right then. This leaves the concealed carry person at an immediate disadvantage. Where’s the piece being carried? Will it snag? Will the movement attract the bad guys attention? Will the snap hang-up?
Open carry lets the bad guys know there is an armed person who can shot back. These guys aren’t stupid enough to try to shoot an armed person. They’re know that if they miss or only wound their target they’ll put themselves into a world of hurt for being wrong. For all they know their intended victim could be a shooting instructor for the local police department or an off duty policeman. If they see an armed person they won’t bother with taking a chance and will leave unnoticed.
If they don’t notice the open carry piece, and begin something, the open carrier has the advantage of not having to reach under a shirt or pull a jacket back to telegraph he’s getting into the play. An open carry piece is in the play that much sooner and that much sooner can be life or death.
Concealed carry results are after the crime begins. Open carry stops the crime from ever occurring.
The people who notice I’m carrying may be curious and ask questions but after I satisfy their curiosity they appreciate that I’m willing to open carry, or remain indifferent and go about their business. Open carry isn’t for a timid person.