Police Chief Leonard Papania
Well, yes. Gulfport, Mississippi's Police Chief Leonard Papania held a press conference yesterday. He needed to discuss a disturbing situation that happened at the Walmart super center in Gulfport off of US 49. Two men walked into Walmart—which also houses a Winn Dixie and Krispy Kreme—armed with a shotgun and sparked a series of 911 calls to the
police department.
According to authorities, the two men walked into the Walmart on Highway 49 around 8 p.m. Witnesses said the man holding the shotgun was actively loading and racking the firearm. Walmart does not have a policy about guns inside its stores.
“If I were in a situation where I'm in the store shopping with my family and I see an individual loading a 12 gauge, and racking it, I'm not coming to the conclusion this is good,” said Papania. "While the actions of these two men are sanctioned by state laws, what they did negatively impacted our community."
Negatively schmegatively, wah wah, freedom! But don't worry guys, everything is all white here, and no one got hurt.
I'm making the educated guess of...white. The SWAT was deployed but the men were long gone. Using store cameras the police were able to track down the men and concluded that
they had broken no laws.
"If there was something I could have arrested these people for, I would," said Papania.
[...]
“Gun laws should be such that it provides us security. As we look at this fact pattern, do you feel safer?”
Safer schmafer! The defense rests!
When you consider that only a few years ago Mississippi was crowned second place in United States gun deaths, it can come as no surprise that law enforcement in the fun-to-spell state must really find it hard to pretend they feel that the Constitution's Second Amendment should work this way. Good on Chief Papania for at the very least, mentioning the fact that these open carry laws are dangerous.
Oh yeah, this isn't the first time this has happened at this Walmart, in this town, this year.