A Life Wasted

Preparation

The store was huge. Guns were displayed and sold upstairs, which required an escalator upstairs. Their handguns were displayed in a long L-shaped display case with rifles and shotguns on racks behind the counter. They had thousands of guns. It took a few minutes to locate the Glock display. When I did I looked around for a salesman so he could take out the model I had found for sale. All I wanted to do was hold the thing and see if it fit my hand. As I looked around I realized there was only a single salesman on duty and he was a long way off on the other branch of the L-shaped display case. I hadn't planned this, but I had arrived when most of the sales staff had gone to lunch.

Not being a guy to let an opportunity go to waste, I took a good look around. There was no one there, other than the occupied salesman. Even were he to look at me all he could see is my back. I was considering whether or not the display case was locked when I noticed through the glass that the back sliding door had a two-inch gap open. One more clearing look around and I reached over the counter and slid the back of the display case open. While my hand was there I grabbed the nearest gun. It was a Glock, as were all the guns in that particular case. I stood there looking at the gun as if I were a customer considering a purchase. Had anyone said something to me I would have said I wanted to see the gun but everyone was busy and the case was open. But no one noticed what I had done.

After another "impatient customer" look for a sales person I laid the Glock on a rubber mat that sat on top of the glass, then reached in again and pulled out two more guns. These I laid on the rubber mat and again looked around. No one seemed to notice me. Figuring I had pushed this far enough I put a gun in each of my back pockets and one down my waistband. It was a long way out of that store. Every step I expected to have someone stop me, but that never happened. I made it to my stolen SUV without anyone even noticing me. I drove north to Chattanooga, Tennessee and stopped at a gun store to buy bullets. I was now locked and loaded.

Because I don't want to risk upsetting anyone who might think I was watching them during this time I am not going to give any locations related to what I am about to say. I visited so many cities that I wouldn't get it right anyway. But after I left Atlanta I started doing more surveillance of clinics. I'd like to say otherwise, but the truth is that I believed I had to physically harm those involved to stop them. By this point it became clear to me that their security had tightened considerably. I know I was recognized once by an employee. The only way this would happen was if my photo had been circulated to them, which I believed to be the case. Later I would learn that this was the case. They had been alerted as to my intentions and were on the lookout for me.

For the next few months I tried to carry out my obsession, but I could not do it. Through patience and determination, I was able to position myself so that I could carry out my threat, but in each case I wasn't able to carry it through. It made me sick. I've literally thrown up after failing to do what I believed God had ordered me to do. I called myself a coward. I screamed and cried and beat my fist into a tree, but what I couldn't do was harm anyone. It didn't matter how much my heart believed it justified I could not hurt anyone. For me, taking a life would be an impossibility.

I might be the most demonstratively, non-violent convicted terrorist ever. Eventually I had to admit this to myself. It wasn't an easy admission, but there was nothing I could do but accept the fact that I wasn't a killer. Once I accepted that I couldn't follow through on my "mission" I understood there was no longer a reason for me to keep roaming the country. At this point I did the only rational thing I could think of. I decided to go home.