Potential Mass Shooting in Georgia Stopped by Armed Citizens

A Georgia man is behind bars and facing charges of aggravated assault after allegedly opening fire on a family gathering last weekend. 

According to authorities in Lee County, deputies responded to reports of a shooting around 9:00 p.m. on Sunday, June 7th. When deputies arrived at the scene, they found a “large gathering” as well as one individual suffering from a gunshot wound who was transported to a local hospital. 

From the Lee County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page: 

During the investigation, deputies interviewed multiple witnesses, reviewed security camera footage, and gathered physical evidence from the scene. Witnesses reported that Jeffrey Tyler Kinzer had been involved in a verbal confrontation with individuals attending a large gathering in the area. Witnesses further reported that Kinzer later returned on foot carrying an AR-style rifle and wearing body armor. Witnesses stated that Kinzer fired toward the gathering, and multiple individuals returned fire toward his location.

The “large gathering” was a family reunion, and one of the family members says the “verbal confrontation” was Kinzer shouting racial slurs out the window of a vehicle as he drove by the group. 

“He’s talking junk. He started yelling the ‘N-word,’” Ramell Green, a witness, said. “He kept going, so we let him go. We just discussed what had happened after.” 

The person who lives at the home also said that she called the Lee County Sheriff’s Office after Kinzer left. But about five minutes later, Kinzer and the driver returned.

This time, Kinzer was reportedly wearing body armor and carrying an AR-15-style rifle.

Those outside spotted the suspect with the gun from a distance and began running, Green said. Then Kinzer opened fire, and Green said a bullet flew past him.

“…People started taking positions because they saw he had a gun. And I was in the middle of the street,” Green said. “And I grabbed my gun and started returning fire and moving with him.”

Green says there were about 20 relatives outside the home at the time, and he wanted to protect his family members from harm. 

It’s not clear where Kinzer was shot, but he wasn’t wounded too seriously given that he was treated and released from the hospital before being taken to the Lee County Jail. 

The last update from the sheriff came on June 8, and though there’s been some media coverage since then there are still some basic details of the incident that have yet to be reported, including whether or not Kinzer was able to bond out. 

According to the initial release from the Lee County Sheriff’s Office, Kinzer “acknowledged to deputies that he had been involved in the shooting.” That same release said that Kinzer wasn’t alone when he returned to the area and began shooting at the family reunion, but it appears that Kinzer was the only one to be arrested. 

We don’t know what motivated Kinzer to allegedly open fire on the gathering, but hopefully we’ll learn more information in the days ahead. Based on the initial report from the sheriff’s office, though, it certainly appears that Green and other family members who returned fire were instrumental in stopping what could have easily turned into a mass shooting. 

Maybe that explains why this story has received no real media attention beyond the local television stations in the area. If multiple people had been killed in what could be described as a racially-motivated attack, I’m pretty sure it would have been front page news nationally and we would have had extensive coverage from broadcast and cable news networks. The fact that armed citizens were able to stop this attack before anybody but the shooter was injured or killed doesn’t make this any less compelling of a story as far as I’m concerned, but the anti-gun media seems to go out of its way to avoid any mention of defensive gun uses if it can get away with it. 

Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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