Here’s Why the Waffle House Shooting Wasn’t Worse

Metro Nashville Police Department via ZUMA

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James Shaw Jr. is the “I’m not a hero” who heroically wrestled a gunman to the ground during Sunday’s Waffle House shooting. Here’s how it happened:

During a sudden break in the firing, Mr. Shaw sprinted through the door as fast as he could, slamming into the gunman and knocking him to the ground. He grabbed the rifle and tossed it over the restaurant counter….Mr. Shaw said Sunday that he eventually learned that the pause in the gunman’s firing came when he was trying to reload the rifle. It was a brief enough break, Mr. Shaw said, for him to make a move.

If Travis Reinking had purchased a high-capacity magazine for his AR-15, more people would have died. If he’d been limited to a smaller magazine, fewer people would have died. That’s simple enough, isn’t it?

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Owned by no one—except you.

We just keep seeing it happen: Newsrooms owned by billionaires and corporations are spinning their own narratives, overwriting the truth, following only stories that keep them in the pocket of those with even more power.

Not here. We’re not owned by anyone. We’re not part of any cult that demands our allegiance to a bottom line. We’ve spoken up and spoken out while other newsrooms changed their stories—or cut them altogether—to keep the C suite happy.

Our mission is to find the truth and amplify it. That’s why we’re independent, nonprofit, and, crucially, funded by readers. The investigations on our website will always be free to read, watch, and listen to, but our newsroom is powered by readers who pitch in what they can so we can keep asking the hard questions.

Can you chip in today?

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