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Opinion
Nov. 15, 2009
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

VIN SUPRYNOWICZ: What stops mass murderers? A gun

VIN SUPRYNOWICZ
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Early in the morning of Dec. 5, 1999, off-duty Las Vegas police officer Dennis Devitte was one of the customers at Mr. D's Sportsbar & Grill, at Rainbow and Oakey boulevards, where he and some pals had gone to hear the band Pigs in a Blanket.

A little after 1 a.m., three armed robbers charged through the back door with guns drawn and their faces covered with T-shirts or bandanas. "I'd only been in the bar a short time and was talking to friends," Mr. Devitte later told an interviewer for the International Association of Chiefs of Police. "I saw a ruckus at the end of the bar. ...

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    • "One of the gunmen went right by me and shot a man in a wheelchair, hitting him in the shoulder," Mr. Devitte recalled. "I only had my small .25-caliber off-duty gun, which isn't very accurate, so I knew I had to get really close before I could start shooting. Otherwise I might hit someone else."

    The robbers might have taken a moment to consider the name of the band, which featured three off-duty officers. Mr. D's was often referred to as a "cop bar," though the IACP determined Mr. Devitte was, curiously enough, the only patron armed at the time.

    Mr. Devitte dug the handgun out of his pocket and approached 19-year-old Emilio Rodriguez, who was firing into the crowd with a .40 caliber pistol. "I went straight at him as he turned and started firing at me," Mr. Devitte said. "He kept firing and hitting me, but I held my fire until I got to less than 18 inches from him."

    The incident took 20 seconds and was recorded on the bar's surveillance tape. Mr. Devitte shot Rodriguez eight times -- twice through the heart -- before the officer finally fell, the robber's last round having blown out his knee.

    Rodriguez stumbled out the front door and died. The other two robbers fled.

    "Dennis was bleeding from everywhere," recalled Mike Richards, a fellow officer who was playing in the band. "I yelled for towels. Then I tried to get Dennis' gun from him. Even though one bullet had blown his right hand apart and another had hit his right thumb, he wouldn't give it up. He told me there were still two more bad guys."

    "Please tell my wife I love her," Mr. Devitte told officer Curtis Wills, as he lay bleeding from his wounds. "I did the best I could. I hope I didn't hit anybody else."

    The following year, Dennis Devitte -- who recovered and returned to duty -- received the highest honor in law enforcement, as the IACP named him America's Police Officer of the Year.

    There are two reasons no innocent parties died at Mr. D's that night. One, beyond any question, was the selfless courage of Dennis Devitte.

    The second reason? One of Emilio Rodriguez's intended victims had a gun.

    On Nov. 6, America found reason to honor another brave civilian police officer, as Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a U.S. army psychiatrist about to be deployed to Afghanistan, reportedly shouted "Allahu Akbar!" and opened fire at a soldier readiness facility in Fort Hood, Texas, killing 13 people and wounding 28.

    Police Sgt. Kimberly Munley and Sgt. Mark Todd responded separately within three minutes of the report of gunfire. Sgt. Munley was hit by the mass murderer's rounds in her wrist and both thighs while returning fire, standing her ground. Sgt. Todd then delivered the rounds that ended Hasan's brief career as a jihadist -- providing the current White House doesn't intervene to commute his pending court-martial sentence to singing three rousing choruses of "Kumbaya."

    Hasan reportedly had fired more than 100 rounds, requiring him to change handgun magazines several times -- Sgt. Todd said Hasan was reloading again when he shot the suspect. Why didn't any of the hundreds of Army personnel in the room shoot back, ending his killing spree far sooner?

    Because they couldn't.

    Among President Bill Clinton's first acts upon taking office in 1993 "was to disarm U.S. soldiers on military bases," the Washington Times points out.

    But mass murderers do generally have a harder time of it in Texas, nowadays, thanks to the legislative response to the second deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, which also occurred in Killeen, Texas -- home to Fort Hood.

    In 1991, George Hennard drove his pickup through the window of a Luby's cafeteria in Killeen, jumped out and began firing two pistols at the defenseless customers and employees inside, killing 23.

    As Jacob Sullum pointed out in his syndicated column in last week's Review-Journal, one customer, Suzanna Hupp, saw Hennard gun down her parents. Mrs. Hupp later testified that she had brought a handgun with her that day but, to her bitter regret, left it in her car, as required by state law.

    Hupp ran for and was elected to the Texas Legislature, where she was able to win passage of a "shall issue" law that requires authorities to issue a concealed carry permit to any resident who meets certain objective criteria.

    Unless they join the Army.

    Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Review-Journal, and author of "The Ballad of Carl Drega" and the novel "The Black Arrow." See www.vinsuprynowicz.com/ and www.lvrj.com/blogs/vin/.

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    saddened wrote on November 20, 2009 10:16 AM: Officer Devitte is a hero, Officer Munley is a hero, and Officer Nettleton (rip) was a hero. God bless them and all of our hardworking, selfless law enforcement officers who risk their lives every day to keep us safe.

    I know Dennis very well and he is the bravest man I have ever met. Never one to walk away from someone in need no matter the danger to himself. During his lengthy career he saved countless lives and put hundreds of thugs behind bars. God Bless you!

    Rest in peace Trevor.


    Titus wrote on November 19, 2009 01:45 PM: Never said you had any ability to comprehend complex ideas, Patrick.

    Looking forward to yet another one of your autistic, "I can't believe Vin has a job!" posts next week. Take care.


    nikki murdock mills wrote on November 19, 2009 11:11 AM: Thank God for People For Dennis Devitte and the other from Fort Hood...it remainds us that angels still walk among us during these times..


    patrick wrote on November 17, 2009 01:36 PM: Never said a word about whether guns were good bad or indifferent, the brain surgeons out there reading this musta missed the point of what I said.

    What I said was that this guy must have something on the publisher because he spouts nonsense faster than "Bolt" runs the hundred meter dash.

    He's arguing here that guns are...what, good? And the "reason" he gives is that you need guns to fight guns; that's it!

    Now if this guy woulda written an article that said you gotta invade to stop invasions, or you gotta nuke to stop nukes, or you gotta kill to prevent killing very few (but probably still the majority who read this "writer") would find it "reasonable", but here in "Vinland" it all makes "sense".

    LOL


    DC Wright USMC Retired wrote on November 17, 2009 09:55 AM: Think and aksmith and co.: Yes, it's true that the Pubbie branch of the ruling party never seems to undo the mischief caused by the Rat branch. But after the Tea Party Movement, I think we'll start to see changes to that. Because the TPM is NOT beholden to the political parties; it is truly what politicians fear most: A genuine movement of and by We, the People. The Pubbies want to "control" it and benefit from it, but I suspect that will never happen.

    And when I first enlisted in the Marine Corps, circa 1967, we COULD keep personal weapons in our barracks, secured in our lockers. That changed when someone got stupid one night, but then they were kept in our armory, which was right there in the barracks, next to the Duty NCO's office. I was with a helicopter squadron and we kept our military weapons in the armory except when we had to clean them weekly or went to the range. The Grunts (infantry) kept their weapons in a rack in the center passage of their squadbay.

    Nowadays, the troops in combat zones, as we did in Vietnam, keep their weapons with them all the time. They are DISARMED when they return to the States, which, in my NEVER to be humble opinion, is a sad mistake, as we saw at Fort Hood. It wouldn't take much, some specific training and indoctrination for the troops, plus the cost of the weapon, to provide pistols to be maintained and carried on base and specific off-base locales. It would have saved all the trauma we just saw.

    (And for the guy who used reload time to boogey, he was a doggie, what can I say? Aboard a USMC base, Hasan would have been toast during the FIRST reload.)


    Titus wrote on November 17, 2009 07:51 AM: Larry writes, "Patrick-The difference is bag guys with guns versus good guys with guns."

    I think this is the part where the hoplophobes make a vacuous plea to abolish ALL gun ownership.


    shawn1874 wrote on November 16, 2009 10:22 AM: I wonder why the bartender didn't have a weapon. There shouldn't be any law against the bartender having a weapon under the counter for self defense. Anyway, shall-issue statutes are definitely the way to go. We really are at war for our liberty in this country. Statement like those from Patrick prove that to be the case.


    Larry wrote on November 16, 2009 08:40 AM: Patrick-The difference is bag guys with guns versus good guys with guns. Amazingly all mass shootings have occurred in "gun free zones." Seems the only ones who follow the rules are innocent victims who are not allowed to defend themselves against predators. Can you see the difference?


    patrick wrote on November 15, 2009 09:49 PM: How does this guy keep his job?

    He's GOT to have something on Sherm, the nonsense that comes outta his computer is truly without compare, even from this "newspaper".

    I mean, the guys says guns are great, all the while talking about how the people who caused the problems to begin with ALL HAD GUNS.

    Geesh!


    faraway wrote on November 15, 2009 09:19 PM: For more on what happened with Texas' "shall issue" issue, see

    http://sayingnicedoggie.blogspot.com/2009/06/even-george-w-bush-was-democrats-fault.html

    George Bush became Governor because the previous governor vetoed the "shall issue" law and voters rebelled.


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