So the Welfare Bombers slipped into the crowd at and near the finish line of the Boston Marathon and left their deadly packages. If there’d been more armed civilians in the crowd maybe an LTC holder would have spotted the Tsarnaevs and prevented them from completing their murderous mission; what with armed citizens being more situationally aware than unarmed “condition white” civilians. Maybe not. Be that as it may, there was one man who could have used a gun to spoil the Tsarnaev’s plans before they had a shootout with Watertown cops, where 15 people were injured (most likely by police crossfire). That man’s name is “Danny” . . .
The 26-year-old Chinese entrepreneur had just pulled his new Mercedes to the curb on Brighton Avenue to answer a text when an old sedan swerved behind him, slamming on the brakes. A man in dark clothes got out and approached the passenger window. It was nearly 11 p.m. last Thursday.
The man rapped on the glass, speaking quickly. Danny, unable to hear him, lowered the window — and the man reached an arm through, unlocked the door, and climbed in, brandishing a silver handgun.
“Don’t be stupid,” he told Danny. He asked if he had followed the news about Monday’s Boston Marathon bombings. Danny had, down to the release of the grainy suspect photos less than six hours earlier.
“I did that,” said the man, who would later be identified as Tamerlan Tsarnaev. “And I just killed a policeman in Cambridge.”
Again, firearm-inspired situational awareness. Who amongst TTAG’s Armed Intelligentsia would have lowered the window to speak with anyone rapping on their glass—especially given the day’s events?
The Boston Globe has a lengthy account of what happened next:
Danny described 90 harrowing minutes, first with the younger brother following in a second car, then with both brothers in the Mercedes, where they openly discussed driving to New York, though Danny could not make out if they were planning another attack. Throughout the ordeal, he did as they asked while silently analyzing every threatened command, every overheard snatch of dialogue for clues about where and when they might kill him.
“Death is so close to me,” Danny recalled thinking. His life had until that moment seemed ascendant, from a province in central China to graduate school at Northeastern University to a Kendall Square start-up.
“I don’t want to die,” he thought. “I have a lot of dreams that haven’t come true yet.”
“Danny” had 90 minutes to shoot his kidnappers. You know, if he’d had a gun. It seems that the idea that their victim might be armed never occurred to the brothers Tsarnaev. There’s no indication that they frisked “Danny” at any point during his ordeal.
When the younger brother, Dzhokhar, was forced to go inside the Shell Food Mart to pay, older brother Tamerlan put his gun in the door pocket to fiddle with a navigation device — letting his guard down briefly after a night on the run. Danny then did what he had been rehearsing in his head. In a flash, he unbuckled his seat belt, opened the door, stepped through, slammed it behind, and sprinted off at an angle that would be a hard shot for any marksman.
I’m not sure which I would have done: unbuckled, opened the door and run or unbuckled my belt, drawn my carry gun and double tapped Tamerlan. Both would have required some forethought and physical coordination under extreme stress.
I’d probably have gone for the gun. Who wants to depend on a terrorist’s lack of marksmanship for his or her survival? Equally, who wouldn’t want to have a gun in a situation like that?
In reporting the carjacking, the media was clearly shocked that “Danny” survived his encounter with the terrorist duo. Roger that. He was lucky. More than that, it should have been a defensive gun use.
The guy was a class act. ‘Nuff said.
when he went Jordan half the weapons he sent are probably are going to used to kill our solders what a profit traitor I hope you can live with your money.
Wish this guy could get some
MSM air time.
Many years ago, I was talking with a friend who was testifying in a murder trial. He had been contacted by the murderer to help do it. He went to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation and was used as an informant. At one point, the murderer asked my friend to meet with him. The KBI told him to be sure to meet in the murderers car, since people don’t like to kill someone in their own car. So maybe Danny wouldn’t have wanted to get blood in his own car.
Side note, my friend was late to the meeting, he told me. He had gone to get his own gun, just in case. The funny part, he never told the KBI why he was late. Later, they made a movie out of this and had him arrive late, but with no explanation.
Holy frick. Mr. Knapp was THE reason I first started shooting. Damn it.
Rest in Peace
Gun buybacks bug the crap out of me, and it was especially galling when my city held one recently. Sure, a private donor funded the buyback (idiot) but the city totally footed the bill for staffing the event. Unknown whether the donor covered the cost of destruction, but it doesn’t seem likely.
I hope that gun “buybacks” continue until every city that does them goes broke buying broke-ass guns. How great would that be!
I talked to an Ohio state trooper at the gas station not long ago. He said the new cars are better on gas when idling because they selectively shut off cylinders. Not all the cars were being replaced at once. Just As they were coming of age.
I think they should have just cut a small hole in the roof of the cruisers and added an old soup can to the roof.
I sold my nano and bought the Kahr CM9 haven’t been happier. The triggers are about the same, reliability the kahr is 100% – nano is a disaster! First endless problems with extraction, stovepipes. Not to mention you cannot extract the cartridge because the slide rail won’t lock back. Then the trigger finally would not work anymore. Sold the nano and bought a Kahr. No problems, period!
Even tiny women in India prove Joe Biden wrong about females and semi-auto rifles…..
Zip is correct, Stoner did design a piston rifle and the government opted for the cheaper version. I have a 716 and a new 516 gen 2. So far both are outstanding. I will agree with others on the DI rifles, it works great. The only problem I ever had was rings wearing out on the bolt turning my rifle into a single shot. Probably my fault for not lubricating properly.
Well to many who know nothing firearms the show is intriguing. With them there is no fault. To the rest well I can’t figure it out. I watched a few episodes at the beginning because being a former Marine and at one time a firearms dealer I was hoping it would good educational program. Wrong. Firearm safety was not followed nor safety in the work place. Many of their ideas were not new to me. Back in 1970s -1980s there were many firearm ideas found in gun magazines, Shotgun News and at gunshows. Being that Will Hayden USMC is a few years young than myself also encountered those ideas. An example is the alligator pen gun that is an exact copy of the flare pen/gun carried by Marine Corps pilots in their survival kit. Another example is the multi-barrel gatlin gun using barreled saiga 12 gauge actions. That same set up could be found back in the 1980s in Shotgun News and gunshows. You could order the kit for the Ruger Mini 14, M1 Carbine, Ruger 10-22 and AK47. The kit came with a hand crank to keep it legal. Adding an electric motor is not a big deal like Will Hayden-USMC and company did. Also that epidode about the nuclear plant gun buy in the desert was totally fabricated. I work there.
If I would have trademarked “For the children” back in Jan. I would be rich by now.
You haven’t heard of the Johanessburg Shotgun. You attach a length of pipe to the end of an air rifle that you unscrew to insert a 12-gauge shotgun cartridge. You put a pellet in the air gun and fire it. The pellet strikes the shotgun cartridge’s primer to fire the shot shell. I’ll let someone else try it first!
BTW, Robocop is O.K; human at the core, y’know.