I don’t know if you’ve seen the story of Joe Zamudio, a version of which ran in Sunday’s Post. He was a hero in the Tucson shootings, but his story doesn’t end there.
Actually his story reads like something out of a movie, and maybe it was.
On the day of the shootings, he’s buying cigarettes at a Walgreens. Outside the store, he hears shots. He thinks at first it might be fireworks, but he knows what gunshots sound like. He has had a gun since he was 8 or 9.
And so he reaches into his coat pocket for his gun. Yes, his gun. And heads toward the sound of the shooting.
This is the story of guns, as gun- rights advocates like to see it told. The killer with the gun is challenged by a gun-toting Good Samaritan who saves the day. In this case, though, Zamudio was too late to stop the killer, who already had fired off 30 rounds, with 21 of them hitting people. He was reloading when he was tackled and subdued.
Zamudio was ready to play the part. He carries a 9mm handgun. In Arizona, you don’t need a license to carry a concealed weapon. Zamudio is 24 and works at his mother’s art gallery. He has carried a gun, he says, since he was 19. Zamudio doesn’t look like a guy you’d expect to carry a gun, but maybe that’s just me. You don’t really know who has a concealed weapon — which is, I guess, the point. A newly elected state representative in Arizona told reporters how she had a .38 special in her purse on her first day on the job.
Anyway, when Zamudio leaves the Walgreens, he walks into the midst of chaos. And what he sees is this:
One man is on the ground. Another man, an older man, is holding a gun, waving it and, according to Zamudio, shouting, “I’ll kill you.”
Zamudio didn’t shoot. He took his finger off the trigger and tried to wrest the gun from the man, who was, of course, not the actual shooter. When bystanders yelled that he had the wrong guy, Zamudio jumped on the killer, helping to subdue him.
What might have Zamudio done?
He might well have shot the wrong person.
You can watch him explain his actions on “Fox & Friends,” where he says how close he came to disaster.
“I was very lucky,” he said. “Honestly, it was a matter of seconds. Two, maybe three seconds between when I came through the doorway and when I was laying on top of [Jared Loughner], holding him down. So, I mean, in that short amount of time I made a lot of really big decisions really fast . . . I was really lucky.”
In another interview, he said he was prepared to shoot. “I was ready to end his life. I had my hand on the butt of my gun. If they hadn’t grabbed him and he was still moving, I would have shot him.”
Without hesitation, he’s asked.
“Damn right,” said Zamudio. “This is my country, this is my town.”
In a few days, he was telling another interviewer, “I could have easily done the wrong thing and hurt a lot of people.”
Imagine if he had shot the wrong guy, a hero shooting a hero. The story goes to the heart of the gun-rights debate, whether more guns make us more or less safe. Of course, we’re not actually having this debate.
There’s some talk about trying to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally unbalanced, but you try figuring out how to write an effective law. The real talk, in Arizona anyway, is to change the law there so that professors can bring concealed guns on campus. It’s an argument we’ve already had here in Colorado.
A CNN poll released Monday shows a slight majority of Americans blame lax gun laws for the Tucson tragedy. At the same time, the FBI reports that gun sales have spiked after the shootings and especially in Arizona and especially in Glock sales.
Many assumed that Zamudio was well-trained in the ways of guns and emergencies, but he had no training other than target practice. He said having a gun helped him rush the shooter. But others, who weren’t armed, did the same thing.
Zamudio has said he would continue to carry a gun and said his one regret was that he didn’t get to the scene in time to stop Loughner.
But he also noted he thought about pulling his gun when he had Loughner pinned on the ground — but didn’t. He worried that he might create even “more hysteria” and was worried that in the chaos he might be mistaken for a second gunman.
And someone might have shot him — a hero shooting a hero shooting a hero . . . .
E-mail Mike Littwin at mlittwin@denverpost.com.
