Tuesday, July 18, 2023

The San Ysidro McDonald's Massacre on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: On this day in 1984, a 41 year-old man walked into a McDonald's restaurant in the San Ysidro neighborhood of San Diego, and using three guns (a shotgun and two 9mm semi-automatics) and opened fire, killing 21 people and wounding 19 others before being killed by a police sniper approximately 77 minutes after he had first opened fire.

Referring to the July 1984 massacre at the McDonald’s restaurant, Israeli criminologist Abraham Tennenbaum wrote that: "what occurred at a [crowded venue in] Jerusalem some weeks before the California McDonald's massacre: three terrorists who attempted to machine-gun the throng managed to kill only one victim before being shot down by handgun carrying Israelis. Presented to the press the next day, the surviving terrorist complained that his group had not realized that Israeli civilians were armed. The terrorists had planned to machine-gun a succession of crowd spots, thinking that they would be able to escape before the police or army could arrive to deal with them."

"The presence of concealed handguns should reduce both the number of public shootings and the amount of harm caused by any one event. Consider the following examples. During a recent shooting spree at a public school in Pearl, Mississippi, an assistant principal retrieved his gun and physically immobilized the shooter before he caused additional harm. And in the public school related shooting in Edinboro, Pennsylvania, which left one teacher dead, a shot gun pointed at offender while he was reloading his gun prevented additional harm. The police did not arrive for another ten minutes." Source

The best antidote to guns in the wrong hands is guns in the right hands.


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