By Mike Morrison
Thursday the Washington Post sent the above message out on their Facebook Page. Awful right? Yet another tragic case of gun violence running rampant, right? Nope. But don’t let me tell you that, let’s go to the text of the article . . .
Eighteen-year-old Malachi Heisler didn’t recognize the man when he pulled the trigger. Heisler only knew that the armed intruder dressed in black tactical gear — including a ski mask and thigh holsters — was aiming a gun at his mother.
It’s one thing for the media to misconstrue the words of Second Amendment advocates, but it’s another level entirely when they lie about their own article. Let’s continue reading:
About midnight Tuesday, deputies said, John Heisler crept onto the property and tried to break in through a front window. Andrews and her boyfriend, 47-year-old Alton Pyles, heard a “loud crash” and ran outside. They found a man clad in black, armed with two BB guns.
Andrews and Pyles ran back inside and tried to slam the door, deputies said, but John Heisler pushed past them. He then grabbed Andrews and tried to take her to the ground, deputies said.
Pyles called out for help.
“I heard the words ‘Malachi’ and ‘help,’” Malachi Heisler told WFLA.
“Just by the sound of the person’s voice, it was distress,” he told the Tampa Bay Times. “And I knew it wasn’t a joke.”
Malachi Heisler swung open his bedroom door and came face to face with the intruder.
The teen grabbed a rifle.
Deputies said John Heisler had a gun on Andrews and then turned to the teen.
Malachi Heisler pulled the trigger, hitting his father in the upper body, deputies said.
John Heisler was pronounced dead at the scene. No one else was injured.
“At first it felt like I made the wrong decision. That’s how they made me feel,” Malachi Heisler told WFLA about the investigation. “At first it felt like I made the complete wrong decision, everybody was raised voices, K9 units, guns pointed at me.”
That’s right. The violent estranged father broke into the house and the son saved his mother and himself with a firearm. But WaPo has to follow the narrative, making it out like the kid made some horrible mistake and oh-my-God-GUNS when in reality this is a textbook example of why the right to keep and bear arms is enshrined in our Constitution.
Shame on WaPo’s social media team for misrepresenting the truth so blatantly. And I wish the best to Malachi Heisler, who after saving his mother’s life said:
“If I didn’t,” he told the newspaper, “people would be dead, and more than one.”
This article originally appeared at medium.com and is reprinted here with the author’s permission.