NRATV Says Waffle House Shooting Hero Would've Done Better Job If He'd Had a Gun
A host on NRATV has claimed that a man who helped stop a gunman at a Nashville Waffle House on Sunday would have done a more successful job had he been armed with a gun. James Shaw Jr. has been hailed as a hero after police said he disarmed a man who opened fire during the late-night attack that killed four people and left two others injured.
But responding to that reaction and comments from some that the story disproves the long-maintained NRA talking point that the "only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," NRATV host Grant Stinchfield had a very different take.
"Clearly if someone was there with a gun, we wouldn't be having a manhunt right now," he said in a clip published by Media Matters for America. "It doesn't take away from the fact that a gun could have been useful in this situation."
Stinchfield continued: "Anybody, whether it was Mr. Shaw, whether it was somebody else, if they had a gun, we wouldn't be having a manhunt right now. OK? It takes a good guy with a gun to stop a bad guy with a gun. Yes, a good guy with guts stopped a bad guy with a gun momentarily, but he didn't stop him permanently. And this guy is still on the loose."
Following a manhunt, Travis Reinking, 29, was arrested and charged Monday on four counts of murder after a search in a secluded wooded area near his Nashville home. A motive has yet to be determined. Reinking allegedly fled the scene after Shaw tore an AR-15 from his hands.
Shaw, though, played down his involvement.
"I'm not a hero. I'm just a regular person," he said at a news conference Monday. "I think anybody could've did what I did if they're just pushed in that kind of cage and you have to either react or you're going to, you know, fold."
