THOUSAND OAKS, California – Alex Chatoff and Alyssa Shandra, local students at California Lutheran got to Borderline Bar & Grill at 9 p.m. – their usual date time.
At 11:20 p.m. they heard loud noises that sounded like table being pushed over – not to worry, it gets loud in country bars with 2,500-square-foot dance floors.
But, wait, no … that sound is different. And then the screams came – and the panic. Those gunshots were coming from the direction of the front door eliminating one major escape path.
Alex and Alyssa were among the luckier ones – not among the dozen killed and 15 injured, though Alex suffered some minor cuts in their harrowing escape out a window shattered by a fire extinguisher.
It was America’s latest mass-murder tragedy and, like others before it, there were plenty of media efforts to politicize the horror.
But Alex and Alyssa reached out to WND Sunday because they felt compelled a message they didn’t hear anywhere else – not at Pittsburgh, not at Las Vegas, not at Sutherland Springs, Texas, nor at any of the other slaughters and massacres.
“I just have to believe that with probably 150 people in that bar, if that place had not been a gun-free zone, far fewer people who have killed and injured,” said Alex.
Alyssa agreed.
“If this is not designated as a gun-free zone,” she says, “there’s no questions lives are saved and maybe a tragedy is averted.”
But the worst of it is, says Alex, that we’re losing the ability to even participate in the debate on this “because the left has taken total control of the media. You can’t even tell another part of the story.”
Ian David Long, a former machine-gunner with the U.S. Marine Corps posted on social media during the shooting spree that he was doing it because “life was boring.”
One post uploaded at 11:24 p.m. read: “It’s too bad I won’t get to see all the logical and pathetic reasons people will put in my mouth as to why I did it.”
After Long had posted online about his mental-health state, he aimed his Glock 21 .45-caliber handgun at the dance floor which was packed with students enjoying a night of line dancing.
He fired approximately 30 rounds and threw smoke bombs during the shooting spree. He was later found dead at the scene.
