Man who wrestled gun from Waffle House shooter
April 27, 2018
“After being praised as a hero by the mayor of Nashville, James Shaw Jr. said he was just trying to save his own life when he wrestled an assault rifle from a gunman who fatally shot four people at a Waffle House in Tennessee.” James Shaw Jr. doesn’t want to be seen as a hero. He believes that, what he did was selfish because, him wrestling the shooter was selfish.
“I was completely doing it just to save myself. Me doing that … I did save other people, but I don’t want people to think that I was the Terminator or Superman or anybody like that. I figured if I was going to die, he was gonna have to work for it.” Shaw, the father of a 4-year-old, and a friend went to the waffle house early Sunday morning after going to a nearby club.
He was also burned in his right hand after, grabbing the blistering hot barrel of the assault rifle. The gunman took the lives of four people, including a chef who had gone out for a cigarette break.
“I saw the Waffle House employees scatter. And then I looked back and I saw a person lying on the ground right at the entrance of the door,” Shaw said.He said he went to an area near the restroom and hid behind a swivel door that had no lock.He said a shot came through the door and grazed his elbow.
“It was at that time I kind of made up my mind … that if it was gonna come down to it, he was going to have to work to kill me,” Shaw said.”So at the time that he was either reloading, or the gun jammed or whatever happened, is when I ran through the swivel door,” he said. “I hit him with the swivel door and then the gun was kind of jammed up and it was pushed down. So we were scuffling and I managed to get one hand on the gun and then I grabbed it from him and I threw it over the countertop.”
John Jiler • Dec 12, 2018 at 3:36 pm
THE NOTORIOUS NINETEEN
Dear Editor;
Autumn is deepening, and seniors are thinking harder and harder about their next step. For many of us, your generation is the hope of the future. The Parkland high school shootings galvanized young people across the nation to passionately advocate for common sense gun laws. Now, as your attention turns to college, we want to turn our admiration into action.
With the help of the Brady Center, the new Gabby Giffords consortium, Everytown for Gun Safety and the Columbia Scholastic Press Association, we’ve reached out to high school journalists across the country with our list of the NOTORIOUS NINETEEN—the states with dangerous, inadequate gun laws. Many of them condone the open carry of weapons on college campuses; others simply turn a blind eye to the potential for gun violence in their state. Our mission has been to make these places known to high school seniors. We’re encouraging them NOT to apply to college in…
ALABAMA, ALASKA, ARIZONA, ARKANSAS, FLORIDA, GEORGIA, IDAHO, KANSAS, KENTUCKY, MISSISSIPPI, MISSOURI, MONTANA, NEW HAMPSHIRE, NORTH DAKOTA, OKLAHOMA, TEXAS, UTAH, WEST VIRGINIA, or WYOMING.
Sadly, your state is on this list. You’re no doubt very proud of the place you live, and you should be. But the gun violence epidemic in this country has taken too many lives, and things must change. You can be part of that change, by encouraging your elected officials and your families and your friends to think about some serious questions. Should teenagers be able to order AR-15s through the mail? Should people with a history of mental illness be allowed easy access to guns? If you feel the answer to these questions is “no,” we all have a lot of work to do!
Thank you for considering the publication of this letter in your newspaper. Good luck with your own decision about college, and have a safe and prosperous senior year!
Best,
John Jiler,
Coordinator,
Committee for Scholastic Action On Guns