That's why I made my point that it LOOKS like they want the public to believe that she was acting in an official capacity of some sort - NOT just an average citizen.
As far as "average" goes...
She's certainly anything but average.
I'd have done the same thing, as would have many law-abiding gun owners with CCW.
While there are many such instances of "average" citizens rising to the occasion in an emergency situation, we don't hear much about it.
The reason?
When guns are used lawfully to thwart an attack, and this is done by average CITIZENS (not police officers or military, etc.) the events are either NOT reported, UNDER reported, or twisted to meet the liberal medias anti-gun agenda.
I don't know how the "Col." got into the article. I'd rather not speculate. It definitely hits a false note, given that no other report on the incident -- and there have been many -- mentions any military or police rank. It's just plain weird.
Actually, I'll speculate just a little. The early stories quoted Larry Bourbounnais (or Boubonnais), the Vietnam vet who, unarmed, shouted insults to draw the perp's fire. I do not know, and have been unable to find online, what rank he achieved.
So my guess, emphasis on guess, is that one version of the story led with a comment from Bourbounnais, and when they edited to lead with Assam's comments, they didn't tap the backspace key enough times. Spell-check is a wonderful thing, but it has the side effect of making editors lazy. It can't catch words that are spelled correctly but don't belong where they are.
As far as "average" goes... [...] I'd have done the same thing, as would have many law-abiding gun owners with CCW.
I'm one of those law-abiding gun-owners with CCW, and I'd like to think I would have done the same thing. I've never been tested. I have stepped in and prepared to perform CPR and the Heimlich Maneuver, so I'd like to think I'd keep a cool head in a crisis, but in those cases I didn't actually have to act.
That doesn't make Assam in any sense "average." The average citizen was running away from the gunman. She (and Mr. Bourbounnais, who was pretty cool under fire and shouldn't be forgotten) was running toward. That puts her in, conservative estimate, the 90th percentile.
While there are many such instances of "average" citizens rising to the occasion in an emergency situation, we don't hear much about it.
My gripe is with the word "average." Suppose you're in a crowd -- in a bar, at a ball game, at a concert, whatever -- and some nimrod wades in throwing punches left right and center. Most folks will flee. A few will jump in and pin the punk down.
Those folks can be described as ordinary citizens, private citizens, or merely, citizens. No military or law enforcement affiliation. But they are far from average. The average folks ran away. When 99 out of 100 folks run away from danger and the remaining one runs toward it, it's one hell of a stretch to describe the one as "average."
I could go off on an expansive rant on the differences between mean, median and mode, but now is not the time and here is not the place.