Our title story is that of Cody Denault,

the “good guy” who brought his gun with him into the posted gun-free zone of the Starplex Cinema at the Central Mall in Salina, Kansas, because reasons. Cody is ex-military, you see, so he’s trained, and you can trust him … to make his own tourniquet. At least he was prepared with a sturdy belt, which is amazing in hindsight, given that he didn’t bother preparing so much when it came to buying a holster for his pocketed Smith & Wesson M&P Shield 9mm:

(The same gun Veronica Rutledge was carrying in her purse when her 2-year-old found it there and killed her with it in a Hayden, Idaho Walmart last December, by the way.)

Anyway, it was a foolish mistake, but Cody wants you to know that it’s not an indicator of his skill with guns. He’s totally awesome normally. So awesome, in fact, that he felt safe in ignoring the private property owner’s posted firearms restrictions, not bothering with a holster, keeping a round chambered, and blindly fidgeting with his gun in his pocket.

It’s just one of those unavoidable accidents that in so doing he accidentally both disengaged the safety and somehow activated the trigger.

There was no real way—other than obeying the law with respect to the weapons prohibition, buying a holster that would have shielded the trigger, or just resisting the urge to finger his weapon in the theater—to have prevented this. But at least he lived the dream and proved the theory: a good guy with a gun finally took out a theater shooter.

(via David Waldman/Daily Kos)