Jophiel wrote:
Belkira wrote:
Is that really what "going down to pull" means? I was wondering about that.
I very much doubt it. From the quote:
Quote:
The break in gunfire allowed Meli to pull out his own gun, but he never took his eyes off the shooter.
"As I was going down to pull, I saw someone in the back of the Charlotte move, and I knew if I fired and missed, I could hit them," he said.
It reads as "As I was going down to pull [out my weapon], I saw someone..." In other words, as he was drawing his weapon, he noticed other people and decided not to try and fire.
Except that several
accounts use language like this:
Quote:
Meli earlier told a KGW reporter that he heard three gunshots, and then positioned himself behind a pillar in the mall. Meli said he saw the gunman working on his rifle, pulling a charging handle and hitting the side of the weapon.
Meli said he then pulled out his Glock 22 pistol and aimed it at the suspect. But when he saw someone move behind Roberts, Meli decided against firing, concerned he might hit an innocent person.
Meli also told KGW that Roberts appeared to spot him and that afterward, Meli heard only one more shot, and suspects it was the one Roberts used to kill himself.
The quote about "going down to pull" can mean only one thing in this context. Since he says that he decided not to do it, but we know he did pull out his weapon and point it at the shooter, he can only be referring to the decision to fire.
Jophiel wrote:
A Google search for "Go down to pull" or "Going down to pull" returns no firearms related hits except that quote over and over. Adding "Go down to pull" +trigger returns nothing relevant at all. Maybe it's a term Gbaji's long rifle friends use all the time or something. This is a guy who romanticized "Don't retreat, reload!" into pressing F5 on your keyboard because that fit his political narrative better.
You "pull" a trigger. What the hell else can he have meant?
Kastigir wrote:
Eske Esquire wrote:
Belkira wrote:
Yeah, I think gbaji is actually right on this. I think the guy did pull out his weapon, but "went down to pull" does mean that he was about to pull the trigger on the gun that he pulled.
Oh, he doesn't even deserve that one. There's no reason for the "down" modifier there except to signify "reaching down" for a gun.
Actually, if you knew anything about firearms training, you never put your finger on the trigger until you're ready to shoot. Now, me personally I would never phrase it the way he did, but not everbody speaks the same way.
Kastagir is correct. While the phrasing may be odd, it's not like you can't read several other reports on the encounter and conclude that the quote refers to his decision to fire his weapon. Nearly every single account says he pulled out his pistol and aimed it at the shooter, but choose not to fire because there were people behind the shooter and he was afraid he might hit one of them. Assuming all those accounts are incorrect because the quote can be interpreted differently seems like a bit of a stretch.
Jophiel wrote:
Kastigir wrote:
Actually, if you knew anything about firearms training, you never put your finger on the trigger until you're ready to shoot.
Sure but no one said otherwise. We just said the same thing you did...
No. You said that his statement "going down to pull" referred to whether he pulled out his weapon, not whether he put his finger on the trigger and pulled it (thus firing the weapon). You're correct that no one's arguing about standard gun use and safety. But that's also not the point of contention here. Meli clearly did point his weapon at the shooter. The shooter did see him. The shooter then decided against continuing into the store full of people he had been heading towards prior to reloading his rifle and instead went into a service hallway where he killed himself.
We can speculate that one action had nothing to do with the other, but that would be you just plain guessing.
Quote:
Saying he meant "As I was going down to pull [out my gun]" takes a lot less imagination with the English language. This is all beside the fact that we're taking a single guy's account given in a few sentences as gospel for what happened.
Sure. Except that it counters every other account of the event in question. You're correct that we
could interpret it that way, but given that the reporters who interviewed him came away with the assumption that he had already pulled out his weapon and was pointing it at the shooter when he made that decision, maybe we should defer to their interpretation rather than your own? As I said earlier, there are numerous accounts which agree that he did pull out his weapon and did point it at the shooter. Your interpretation of his words would require that all of those accounts are incorrect. So in this case, it's much more reasonable to assume that he wasn't referring to the act of pulling out his weapon, but to pulling the trigger.
Edited, Jan 29th 2013 2:58pm by gbaji