“According to the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office (Florida), a group of church members was [sic] shooting skeet with shotguns at the church, located at 22575 NW 94th Avenue,” alachuacountytoday.com reports. I know what you’re thinking: huh? Shooting skeet at church? God did not approve. Well, Patrick A. McCall [above] wasn’t down with it. Mr. McCall walked out of his house and “randomly fired a handgun in the direction of the church.” Scary factoid number one: as far as we know, there wasn’t any alcohol involved. OK, so, it gets worse . . .
McCall said he was inside his house when he heard gun shots coming from the direction of the church. He retrieved his 9 mm Sig handgun that had a loaded magazine and grabbed another magazine that was loaded.
I don’t suppose there’s much in point grabbing an empty magazine. Although, in this case, that would have been a good thing, not a bad thing.
Standing four feet behind his house, he fired quick, successive shots until the magazine was empty. He reloaded and fired again, but could not remember if he emptied the magazine.
I’m thinking yes.
He said he was pointing the gun in the air in the direction of a pecan tree that is in front of his house. McCall said he fired rounds because he heard other people firing rounds. It is something he has done in the past.
So that’s OK then? Maybe if you’re a member of the police department, where sympathetic firing is considered muy simpatico. And how does the reporter know that McCall’s done this in the past? Did McCall say so? Or was there a previous run-in with Johnny Law? Hmmm.
Meanwhile, what did that pecan tree ever do to Mr. McCall? Nothing as compared to what Mr. McCall did to one of the skeet shooting congregationalists. Rewind and start from the onset of Mr. McCall’s fusillade.
As they reloaded their shotguns, there was a lull in the shooting. They heard a succession of shots and saw Judah go down, saying he had been shot.
Jackson did not see the suspect. He took his two sons inside for cover. His vehicle was hit by gunfire, shattering the back windshield . . .
Jayde Roof went over to help Judah, seeing that he had a hole on one side of his stomach and a graze on the other side. He applied pressure to [Robert Matthew “Matt” ] Judah’s wounds while telling the others they should shoot the suspect if he approached . . . The victim was air lifted to Shands Hospital with life-threatening injuries.
Judah lived to tell the tale. A SWAT team needed just three hours to get Mr. McCall into custody, where he remains.
It’s tempting to wag TTAG’s metaphorical finger at the church, contemplating the wisdom of holding a shotgun social near a man with a history of indiscriminate gunfire. I also suspect that the local constabulary bears some responsibility for failing to disarm Mr. McCall on a previous occasion. But the IGOTD nod must go to Mr. McCall.
Patrick A. McCall is a poster child for gun grabbers. Which sucks. But all responsible gun owners know that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arm is an individual right, with individual responsibilities. Pretending that we all live up to those responsibilities is as wrong as pretending that none of us can.