Firsthand account of the Von Maur shooting
Joe Merchant - an anonymous account written by a witness of the Westroads Mall shooting in Omaha, Nebraska. One man who will never again go out unarmed. He escaped, by running away, but he knows that he could have stopped the shooter, and that would have made it unnecessary to rely on luck for his survival, as he was forced to because he was unarmed, and because the mall forces anyone who obeys the letter of the "law" to be unarmed. [kimdutoit]
I do not have a Concealed Handgun Permit. I have completed the training class, but I keep putting off applying for the permit because I think it is useless. In the places I would need a gun most, I am not allowed to have it. I will not be a person living in fear and not go to Van Maur because they don't allow guns.
My point that Open Carry needs to be easier in Omaha, and places like Westroads need to take down their "no guns" signs.
If I had my gun deeply concealed, I wouldn't have been able to draw it very fast. However, If I had open carried, I could of drawn instantly.
Either way though, I could have drawn and taken a clean shot. However, in both cases, regardless of the laws, I am not allowed to carry a gun at all in Westroads Mall. If the laws did not oppress my rights, I would carry a gun most places (except work). I would certainly have had it in the mall as mall shootings have been on my mind since the incident at a mall involving a shotgun back in February.