Young, decorated NC officer ended shooting rampage

Justin Garner was the only one on duty when the call came in that a gunman shooting up a nursing home. The clean-cut outdoorsman with a passion for hunting and fishing raced to the Pinelake Health and Rehab Center.

Armed with a .40-caliber Glock pistol, he entered the building to confront Robert Stewart, 45, in the hallway. Officer Garner fired his weapon once, hitting Stewart in the chest, even though he had already been shot three times in his foot and leg.

A day later, Garner was being praised as a hero in this small town in North Carolina's Sandhills region, about 60 miles southwest of Raleigh, for forging into the nursing home without waiting for backup to stop a man authorities say shot and killed eight people — many of them elderly and frail — inside.

Justin Garner is a hero. He stopped a killer and in the process put his life on the line. He used his training and did what he had to do. But most importantly, he was armed.

A man shooting up a nursing home, or a factory, or a college campus, or a Post Office, acts with near impunity to carry out their deeds because they know they are the only ones armed. If more of us were armed in public, less of this would happen.