10 Aug 12

Church shootings? Nothing new:

On Sunday, 30 June 1985, a deadly shooting rampage took place at the First Chinese Baptist Church, located in the Chinatown District of Los Angeles, CA.

A disgruntled, former member of the church, armed with a handgun (1911) and several spare magazines, showed up just minutes before the morning worship service was about to begin. He walked up the aisle and immediately murdered the church’s senior deacon, an assistant pastor, and one parishioner. Two victims were dead at the scene. The third died that evening at a nearby hospital. All shots were to the head at contact distance or nearly so.

There were 350 other worshipers seated in the sanctuary that Sunday morning, among whom was an off-duty Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy, Donald Leverence, who was attending with several friends.

The perpetrator, Dang Bong Jow, described by church officials who knew him personally as ‘emotionally disturbed,’ was then shot and killed by the heroic deputy, who, using his service pistol, stood up in his pew and fatally wounded Jow.

Jow was DRT. Leverence was unhurt.

Jow had abruptly left the Church several years before, after being divorced. His estranged wife and their children continued to attend. There was some speculation that Jow was looking for her that morning, but she was not in the sanctuary at the time.

There was also speculation that Jow would have continued firing at worshipers until he ran out of ammunition, had not our dauntless deputy gunned him down. Or, Jow may have planned on committing suicide in front of the congregation. Of course, we’ll never know. In any event, the Deputy cut short his rampage!

As is the case with more recent violent incidents in churches, the only thing that stops rampaging murderers, now called “active-shooters” (when using guns, not sure what they’re called when using knives, bludgeons, machetes, et al), is good men and women, who carry guns on a regular basis, who happen to be there, and who are willing and prepared to defend the innocent.

Nothing else- not all the conspicuously-placed signs, interminable ordinances, endless CCTV cameras (connected to monitors that no one watches), and maudlin speeches by mayors and assorted other politicians we can muster, seems to deter active murderers in the slightest.

Imagine that!

“Our most persistent delusion is that evil is curable through legislation”

TB Reed

/John