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“A licensed gun holder and gun enthusiast, Mr Haji was introduced to guns by his father, the Garissa senator who is also a former defence minister and long-serving provincial administrator,” nation.co.ke reports, which provides a written blow-by-blow account of his bravery at Kenya’s Westgate Mall. “He grew up shooting at the Athi River range and describes himself as ‘very good with pistols’. He had packed an SSK heavy blaster pistol with 14 rounds of ammunition. When he arrived at Westgate, sounds of gunfire and screams could be heard. He teamed up with a vigilante group of about 10 people from Parklands neighbourhood who had pistols, two-way radios and bulletproof vests.” Haji rescued dozens of people trapped in the mall. Because he could.

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55 COMMENTS

  1. Personally, I think BlasTech makes the better heavy blaster, but the SoroSuub SSK-7 isn’t a bad choice.

    Edit: A T-6 Thunderer would be my blaster of choice in this situation, by the way.

  3. This is a prime reason to carry at schools and college campuses. But the libs keep thinking it will lead to a punk 18 year old shooting a prof for a bad grade. Really?

    • Well it might or might not. But I can tell you this – nothing is stopping an 18 yr old from bringing a gun to school to shoot a teacher now. The only thing being stopped is the teacher from bringing a gun to school to defend himself if and when that does happen. Sad, really.

      • That’s my point. Bad things can happen in places we wish they couldn’t. For me, it’s after I served my country, now at a college to continue my education. In my normal day, it disarms me completely. If shit hits the fan that bad, I’m disarmed because profs think they will get shot over a bad grade.

    • In my homeland many people – especially teachers – CC in the big cities even though it is illegal. My friend told me how a student threatened a teacher with a knife ( because of grades) only for the teacher to open his coat and make the pistol visible. Needless to say the student did shut up.

  4. “He teamed up with a vigilante group of about 10 people from Parklands neighbourhood who had pistols, two-way radios and bulletproof vests.”

    Thanks Media! That doesn’t sound like a vigilante group, that there is a MILITIA!!!!! Now you can recognize it in the future (asshats!)

    • Actually, vigilante is likely the appropriate term. Militia is the term for people who are trained like soldiers, but are not part of the active military. Vigilante is defined as “a member of a self-appointed group of citizens who undertake law enforcement in their community without legal authority, typically because the legal agencies are thought to be inadequate” or alternately, “a person who is not a police officer but who tries to catch and punish criminals.” If they were simply people from the surrounding neighborhood, vigilante is appropriate.

      • Philosiraptor moment: how would you define “trained like a military”? Is it a certain amount of range time? Is it some kind of qualification course?

        I’m sure there are plenty of shooters around here who could pass a lot of the military tests.

        Legally, we also have two definitions of militia…the organized militia, which are trained and kept in a state of readiness, sort of like the IDF or Swiss forces. Then we have the unorganized militia, which are basically the levied troops, persons like you and I who would be given a basic weapon (assuming it came from an armory, rather than our own personal stocks), a swift kick in the ass, and a finger pointing in the direction of the enemy.

        • Militias answer to and come under the control of a higher authority than themselves. A chain of command. A vigilante group has no such oversight.

        • jwm’s point about chain of command is well taken, but to answer your specific question of how I would define “trained like soldiers/military” is if they had trained together, i.e. drilled as a unit to act as a unit. Although you’re right about disorganized militia being handed a rifle and “pointed at the enemy,” historically that usually happens more towards the end of a given conflict. In the beginning of most conflicts, the leadership of the military gives at least some attention to drilling the raw recruits in proper formations and tactics.

          The militia is the guys who form up and subject themselves to a higher authority, and go where they’re told. A vigilante group is the guys who self-organize and police where they want to, which is usually the area immediately surrounding their homes and families.

          As an example, if something major happened tomorrow, like a natural disaster (I’m thinking more Hurricane Andrew, but Katrina would serve as well) where you and a bunch of the guys in your neighborhood banded together to watch out for looters and keep the womenfolk safe, you are acting as a vigilante group, not a militia.

          Vigilante has a negative connotation to many people, because it’s often associated with lynch mobs and the like, but in its strictest definition, it is not a negative thing. It’s simply people doing what needs to be done because the organized law enforcement can’t or won’t.

        • JWM, and Matt,
          When militia is called up (subjected to chain of command and authority) they are in many definitions, no longer militias.

          In American history a militia has at least two commonly used and excepted definition and one is citizenry without any training except with their own weapon, and under NO authority, and part of a pool that can be called up when needed. It is why they need privately owned regular arms, and not scythes and pitchforks (ie not well regulated arms of irregulars).

          Militia is a general population with potential. Vigilante is a more active term derived form a very specific set of actions.

  8. I’m not taking away from this man’s courage, he’s certainly earned a pat on the back, but maybe the reason he had the hardware and right to carry it in Kenya is because he was so well politically connected.

  9. Wait, now I am confused. Everyone tells me that people who have guns are bad guys and only use them to harm other people. But this man did not harm other people. Is this a new kind of bad guy … much more conniving and dangerous than all the previous type of bad guys? Is he biding his time waiting for the right moment to harm someone with his gun?
    /end_sarcasm

      • Ing, its true. I let a gun out of the safe once, and he ran around shooting “BANG” at anybody who would listen to him.

        Later he got drunk and droned on and on about how much he hates steel case ammo.

  10. More importantly, this story must be fiction. The man was carrying a gun so there is no way that he could have survived. Either the police would have immediately shot him because they saw his gun and assumed he was a bad guy, or other armed citizens would have shot him because they saw his gun and assumed he was a bad guy, or the bad guys would have wrestled his gun away and used it to shoot him.
    /end_sarcasm (again)

  11. Another reason we know that this story is fake:
    There would be no rescued hostages because all those untrained, Rambo wannabe citizens with guns would have shot and killed all of the very hostages that they were trying to rescue while engaging the bad guys.

    Remember, handguns are “death rays”. Any shot from a handgun striking a person anywhere (even grazing wounds to extremities) causes instant death.

    /end_sarcasm

    Let’s see. Did I miss any other bogus gun grabber talking points?

    • You missed the following “progressive” memes: “more people would have died if there were armed citizens there”, “the cops wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between an armed citizen and a terrorist” and “armed citizens would have just ended up shooting each other”.

      • Actually NYC2AZ, I did cover all of those … I guess that means I covered them all!

        “more people would have died if there were armed citizens there” — I covered that one in this discussion thread.

        “the cops wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between an armed citizen and a terrorist” — I covered that one in my previous comment at 18:43 hours.

        “armed citizens would have just ended up shooting each other” — also covered in my previous post at 18:43 hours.

        • You guys *really* fudged up here – you missed the following:

          -Grandma’s pie would be ruined, RUINED.
          -Children would look at said firearm and burst into flames.
          -Bullets are racist.
          -He pulled out his gun and turned into a NAZI.
          -He pulled out his gun and turned into Adolf Hitler.
          -He pulled out his gun, shot a bad guy, and the bullet traveled through the bad guy, through 10 walls, into a car, through a tank, and then hit a child’s ice cream cone. In Italy.
          -The unregistered firearm went on to commit bank fraud.
          -The armed citizen couldn’t tell the difference between a man with an AK and a child, and shot all the children.
          -He put down the gun for a second, and it got up and went on a killing spree.

          There we go, that oughta’ cover it.

    • Heh. In the US the following would have been the outcome:

      • The group would have been shot by the police
      • The group would have been sued by the survivors for being reckless and untrained and causing mental anguish and for just, you know, having GUNS
      • The group would be charged under some law for their actions (didn’t say justifiably…but when has that mattered to a DA?), after the president got on TV and ‘shamed’ them for endangering those good citizens cowering under the food court benches (I mean we can’t have people thinking that they can actually stand for themselves and not have to depend on the Po-Lice to take a report in the aftermath, can we?)
      • 685 News outlets would claim an AR15 was used (there were guns, right, so they must be AR15s, right?)
      • Lord forfend that one of the vigilantes actually used an AR15 as he would then have to be completely and utterly destroyed in both his personal and professional life by ‘those in power’. After all, we can’t have a good guy with an evil black rifle saving innocents, can we? Nope, it would be discovered that he: (1) drown kittens in a bag as a toddler, (2) cheated on his taxes, (3) ran a red light (with malice of forethought), (4) beat his spouse (even if he didn’t have one), (5) been under psychiatric care (doesn’t matter what for, its a buzz term), (6) was a member of some militia (insert cropped photo here), (7) like to buy and consume extra large beverages, (8) like to eat Foie gras, (9) drove a large truck with utter disdain for the future of the planet, (10) was personal friends with George Zimmerman, (11) once sent a letter to Rand Paul (12), and, last but not least, (13) eats babies. Yep. Found ’em in his fridge.

      /Puts hat on firmly over tin-foil cap 😀

  12. I have never heard such ignorant ramblings from ttag readers in my life. It seems a black sheepdog is only worthy of snide comments, seems from the pictures he saved more people no matter their color than any of you couch potatoes will ever do in your lives. morons

    • You realize basically every snide comment seen here is said sarcastically, right? No, of course you don’t, because if you had you wouldn’t have subjected us to your ignorant ramblings (your words, not mine). Go back and look at all of them through the lens of “If I was a member of the Civilian Disarmament Movement…” and it will all become clear. Or it should.

    • bubba their just not in a “GOOD JOB MAN!!!” mood right now, I dont thing they ever will be its just not those four guys personality.

    • Carl,

      Nothing could be further from the truth. I am thrilled that Mr. Haji was armed and helped save lives. I don’t care whether he was black, white, purple, polka dotted, or plaid.

      Mr. Haji’s actions and the results directly contradict all of the hysterical claims of civilian disarmament proponents — the hysterical people who claim that armed citizens could never make any situation better and would in fact make every situation worse.

      Thanks to Mr. Haji, we can now point to a real world example to discount the gun-grabbers’ hysteria.

  15. And what if I am not a licensed gun holder and have an illegally obtained firearm without the appropriate permit to carry concealed? If I went in, ‘neutralized’ all the terrorists and rescued a gazillion “innocents”, will they haul me off to jail?

    • Why yes they would because you, being armed without their permission, makes you a terrorist. Rather than giving you credit for stopping the attack, they would claim that you were one of them and infighting disrupted their plans.

    • Yes, in many places in America they’d haul you to jail. But I seriously doubt there’s a grand jury anywhere(given all the facts) who would indict you, or a petit (trial ) jury that would convict you!
      Can’t speak for Ralph, but I’m pretty sue he, I, and 10,000 other pro-2A lawyers would be lining up with Massad Ayoob as expert witness to defend you pro bono.

      • He’s still be arrested and tried, particularly in places like NY and CA. I mean, really, examples have to be set after all, don’t they? We can’t have ‘common folks’ thinking they can defend themselves, can we? They might start to get ideas… Thinking is a dangerous activity that all politicians really would rather their constituents avoid.

        Here’s the quote: “The law is the law. Mr. Smith should have laid down and died rather than defend himself, and others. It is better that they all should have died than a dangerous assault weapon been used. Children could have been injured or killed as a result of his actions. Assault weapons have been banned in New York, and no one needs to sell or have them.”

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