A tale of two Waffle Houses

On April 22, the nation watched as yet another mass shooting unfolded.

At 3:25 a.m., a man, naked from the waist down, fatally shot two people outside an Antioch, TN Waffle House, then walked inside and continued to fire, killing a third person and fatally injuring a fourth person. Four others were also treated for injuries. The national media rightfully praised the actions of an unarmed man in the restaurant, who rushed and disarmed the killer, who was apprehended after a 34-hour manhunt.

Like many before, it was soon discovered that the act was committed by a mentally-deranged person who was prohibited by various gun control laws from owning or possessing a firearm.

Like many before, it was also revealed that our law-enforcement and justice system, which had previous dealings with the killer, had failed in its duty to protect our society from such a person.

What has received far less attention was another crime committed with a firearm in another Waffle House in another southern city just two days before the Tennessee killing.

From the New Orleans Times-Picayune:

Around 10:19 p.m. Thursday, Thomas and another man with semiautomatic handguns entered the Waffle House in the 2900 block of Elysian Fields Avenue, police said. The other man jumped the counter and demanded money from the cashier, while also taking $8 from a costumer, according to an NOPD release Friday afternoon.

Thomas stood on the side by the counter and served as lookout for the other man. A customer armed with his personal firearm drew his weapon as the other robber approached him, causing the robber to flee. Thomas then pointed his own weapon at the armed customer, the police release said.

The customer fired several shots at Thomas, who then ran out of the Waffle House and fled in a white Chrysler with the other robber. The customer later told police that he believed he had struck Thomas.

Later in the night, a white Chrysler pulled up at a local emergency room and dropped off a man with several gunshot wounds to the back, hip and arm. The man matched witness descriptions of the injured robber, according to the release.

The reason this crime did not receive national attention was of course, that there was no body count. Having no victims is exactly the outcome everyone desires, of course, and when measures taken to prevent crime actually work, this should be newsworthy. But the old adage "if it bleeds, it leads" is true, and the resulting lack of coverage on incidents like these by the national media allow for some to believe that these types of defensive encounters never happen.

Indeed, on June 7, 2014, Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, went on CNN's "New Day Saturday" to discuss persons exercising their right to open carry in Texas. Show host Victor Blackwell asked "Where [has] a bad guy with a gun ... been stopped in any other way or by a person other than a law enforcement officer with a gun or by killing himself?”

“This has never happened,” replied Watts.

The fact is, this does happen. It happens quite frequently. In fact, as was recently discovered, in the 1990's the federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC) had evidence that 2.46 million U.S. adults per year used a gun for self-defense but never reported it.

If the news media really wanted to help bring about positive, productive changes to the problem of violent crime in our society, they would report each and every instance of defensive gun use and note the fact that lives were saved.

If the news media really wanted to help bring about positive, productive changes to the problem of violent crime in our society, they would also report each and every time a violent crime happened in a so-called 'gun free' zone.

But the truth is, what many in the news media actually want to bring about is the abolition of the Second Amendment, and violent crime is a tool they use to further their agenda. As such, don't expect to be hearing about stories like these in the national media any time soon.

Chad D. Baus is the Buckeye Firearms Association Secretary and an NRA-certified firearms instructor. He is co-founder of BFA-PAC, and served as its Vice Chairman for 15 years. He is the editor of BuckeyeFirearms.org, which received the Outdoor Writers of Ohio 2013 Supporting Member Award for Best Website.